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PM tours shopping malls in Auckland, while Collins takes final chance to attack Ardern’s recordPolitical leaders in New Zealand put in a frantic final day on the campaign trail before Saturday’s vote, with Jacinda Ardern, the Labour leader and prime minister, making a whistle-stop tour of shopping malls in the largest city, Auckland, where she was greeted by hundreds of fans who clamoured for...

PM’s management of pandemic and ‘politics of kindness’ place her well ahead for Saturday’s voteIt’s been called the Covid election, with stability the order of the day.But it has turned into the weirdest general election campaign New Zealanders have ever seen, with most of the country desperate for it to be over and some semblance of normality to resume in a deeply abnormal year....

Judith Collins has the look of a defeated woman as Labour heads to likely victoryLong time no see. Jacinda Ardern left it late, but turned up at last night’s fourth and final debate of the election campaign as the prime minister. Ghostly versions of herself made weird, kind of shifty appearances in the previous three debates. God she was terrible, an anxious mess, uptight,...

Leader says she will resign if not re-elected but polls show Labour 15 points aheadJacinda Ardern has dominated the final leaders’ debate before New Zealand goes to the polls on Saturday, appearing confident and prime ministerial as she took on a subdued Judith Collins.In a surprise admission, Ardern said if she was not re-elected, she would resign as Labour leader. Continue reading...

In the election Judith Collins is up against one of the most popular PMs in recent times“I’ve been having an awfully fun time, can you tell?” Judith Collins, the leader of New Zealand’s centre-right National party enthused, to a campaign trail meeting packed with her admirers outside the South Island city of Dunedin. “I can’t stop grinning.”It was true; she could not. Collins, the...

Quickfire questions led to dope-smoking and Trump-admiring revelations from Jacinda Ardern and Judith CollinsJacinda Ardern admits cannabis use in heated New Zealand debateQueen Street! The main shopping drag in New Zealand’s biggest city, a valley that rolls down towards the harbour in downtown Auckland, is hanging in there, just, even in these stay-at-home Covid days, as someplace fun and weird and chaotic – rare...