Labour leader FTMP was in Latimer Square in Christchurch, he spoke briefly to our reporter Hortensius I-hope-someone-appreciates-this-because-I-could-just-call-them-all-Marcus.

“The election’s rapidly approaching in a couple of days and you’ve slipped to third in the polls, are you worried about that?”
“Well, if you look at the polls, they’re quite tight, so I’m not worried about being behind. I’m confident we’ll be in a good spot on election night. And I mean, if you look at the last election, the last poll before the election had us nearly 15 points behind our opposition. On the day, we finished far more strongly and even though we were behind, it was still us who formed a government in the end.”
“You think you’ll regain the lead by election day?”
“I don’t want to be overconfident, but I think we can. In the last few days we’ve had a bit a low point, and I think you can see that in the polls, but I’m confident we’ll bounce back and see a good result on Saturday. Either way, we’re in a good spot to remain in government after the election.”
“Do you think you’ll still be Prime Minister after the election?”
“It’s a clear convention that the Prime Minister comes from the largest party in the government. If we’re the largest party after the election, then, sure. As it stands, it could go either way.”
“You refer to the Greens’ present lead, you don’t seem to bothered by it.”
“Well, for a number of years our trajectory has involved the Greens. While I’d obviously like to remain Prime Minister, I believe I can still give to this country whether I have the top job or not. In this last government, we didn’t really think of ourselves as senior and junior partners, we’re just partners together in government.”
“Let’s talk about policy, you’ve brought out a number of policies quite similar to the ones we saw last election. Can we be sure we’ll see these enacted?”
“As I’m sure you know, we never get to do everything we wanted to do. If you look instead at our coalition and confidence and supply agreement with the Greens and with ACT, this last term was highly successful, we were able to achieve the vast majority of what we planned.”
“Are you making empty promises then, by proposing policies you know you won’t be able to implement?”
“No, not at all. We’re saying to voters, ‘here’s what we’ll bring to the table’, and then it all depends on what the voters give us on election day. If you look at the last parliament, the presence of both the Greens and ACT meant we were limited in what we could achieve, although having said that, we were able to achieve a great deal. I think in this parliament, the common ground between the Greens and Labour will allow us to do a great many things on our respective lists.”
“A number of your major policies are quite ambitious, are you confident you’ll be able to pull them off?”
“I’m certain of it. We have no business being in politics if we are not ambitious. It is not the job of the government to sit on the sidelines and watch things take their course. If that were the case, we might as well have no government at all. If you look at New Zealand’s history, Labour governments have always been reforming governments, getting on with what needs to be done.”
“So we’ll see lots of action in this next term?”
“Absolutely.”
“What would you say the key message of your campaign is?”
“Well, I would say the big things are looking forward to the future, making sure that we’re keeping the future in sight whenever we make a decision; doing things for the benefit of all New Zealanders; and not shying away from big problems.”
“That seems very idealistic.”
“And should our guiding principles not be idealistic? If we set out to do only what we were certain we could do we’d do almost nothing.”
“What are your main priorities for this term?”
“I’d say those would be eliminating poverty, acting on climate change, and securing a future for our descendants. All our policies, housing, education, health, employment, the lot, they’re all focussed on achieving these aims.”
“Would you say that’s a bit narrow, then, if everything is based on those three ideas?”
“Absolutely not! They’re extraordinarily broad, but by necessity we must focus on certain things. Although we may try, we cannot possibly do everything.”
“And will you try?”
“I’ll certainly try, but I’ll take it one step at a time.”