TV Review
Three’s moderator ensures its Leaders Debate is less snoozeworthy than TVNZ’s.
It was TVNZ 1’s first debate of what is supposed to be the most exciting election since ages ago. It had all the drama of a two-person – three, if you count Mike Hosking – egg and spoon race: each player progressing carefully towards the finish line, trying desperately not to break anything.
No one’s pretending this time that politics is not, to some extent, a popularity contest. Even Auntie Helen knew it. “I sometimes wonder whether I’m the victim of my own success as a popular and competent prime minister,” she mused in 2003.
Jacinda Ardern went for an austere look – less DJ, more potential Prime Minister. Bill English seemed to have been instructed to flash some teeth, though the effect was not so much relentlessly positive as sardonically carnivorous.
On his radio show, Hosking had asked Ardern, “What about outfit?” She suggested he had better “What about outfit?” Bill English too. In the end, both were upstaged by Hosking’s latest fashion overthink: a tie that could double as a tablecloth at an Italian restaurant.
“There’ll be balance up the wazoo,” Hosking had promised Ardern that morning, a nod to viewers concerned that the depressing opinions and even more dispiriting jeans of Hosking-as-usual might show up when it actually mattered. His first question to English, referencing a poll showing Labour pulling ahead, went right up the wazoo: “Why are you losing?” Mike, who once proposed shutting down an entire struggling town, doesn’t like losers. “You’ve been caught with your pants down again!” Hosking informed English in a reference to dirty rivers.
The leaders managed to unleash a few zingers. “People can’t go shopping with your values,” scoffed English. “I’m not going to stand by and let children sleep in cars,” needled Ardern. But in the end, it was so bland that it drew not a peep from the unseen studio audience. There were no laughs. It was a bit of a snooze.
Inever thought I’d say it, but thank god for Paddy Gower. Three’s Leaders Debate was a lot more fun. The strange sound in the background at one point was Bill English laughing like a drain when the dangerously well-groomed Gower declared that 40g of marijuana was “about the size of a muesli bar”.
Gower was characteristically mischievous. “These two people about to take the stage tonight want power!” he raved. His first question had English trying to explain whether it was possible to do politics without lying. Ardern recklessly declared it was. Gower had her revealing how much she’s taken from the John Key playbook: she agreed she’d resign before raising the Super age. He prodded English into committing to a target to reduce child poverty by 100,000. English may have been joking when he called temporary classrooms “modern learning environments”, to which Ardern quipped, capturing the essence of political discourse, “That’s a jazzy name for a prefab.”
Even the contentious moments – there was a skirmish over Labour’s alleged budget hole – were entertaining. “To voters, this is just going to sound like two bickering politicians,” said Ardern. “No!” bickered English. His enthusiasm occasionally got the better of his mouth: “the gender grap … jap … the gender gap!”
Three’s debate, possibly benefiting from coming second, made TVNZ
1’s seem stolid; ritualised rather than real. Gower’s madcap newsboy persona can be more comedic than illuminating, but the rollicking atmosphere he created drew answers that went to what’s on offer. Asked what she had that her opponent didn’t, Ardern, all but ululating in Xena, warrior princess mode, declared, “Generational change and a vision for the future of New Zealand.” Asked how he differed from the defeated leader of 2002, English shot back a staunch, battle-hardened “I got up again”.
Pundits were divided on who won the debate, but when it came to moderating them, Gower – fast, funny and, like his guests, thoroughly enjoying the taste of power – was the winner on the night. Young Voters Debate, Duke TV, September 14, 7.30pm; Leaders Debate, TVNZ 1, September 20, 7.00pm
The strange sound in the background at one point was Bill English laughing like a drain.