Election 2020: Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins – Last Day of Campaign; Ardern says he will resign if he loses

WATCH: JACINDA ARDERN JOINS FLETCH FROM ZM, VAUGHAN AND MEGAN:

LAST ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN:
• Today is the last day candidates can campaign for votes before tomorrow’s election.
• Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins squared off last night in the television leaders’ final debate on what turned out to be a moderate matter.
• The verdict: Who won the final leaders debate? Our experts say
• Last survey: Labor, National slip, Greens, NZ First up
• Matthew Hooton: Nacional set for third loss in 2023

Jacinda Ardern has confirmed that she would leave politics after losing an election, and has no ideas for a new career, as she embarks on a final day of the campaign today.

However, the Labor leader won’t need to start combing the Vacant Situations section just yet with the latest poll showing her party is a short way from ruling alone.

Ardern said last night in the latest television leaders debate that he would resign if Labor lost the election.

He confirmed it this morning, saying that he had never thought of a career after politics. But she believed that the electorate decided when a politician finished.

Meanwhile, national leader Judith Collins told TVNZ that she really wanted to sleep until tomorrow morning.

“I’m not going to set the alarm tomorrow morning,” he said.

He said there was a sense of relief after the extended period of the election campaign, along with the Covid-19 crisis.

She said she wanted to be Prime Minister because she wanted to make the most of what our country had to offer.

“We could be one of the richest small countries in the world,” he said.

“It amazes me that we don’t win more here.”

Party leaders are planning one last push today to get as many votes as possible before the polls close at 7pm tomorrow night.

Labor appears to be poised for its bulk of the vote in more than 30 years.

Whether he can govern will only depend on whether his coalition and its supporting partners New Zealand First and the Greens return to Parliament and in what number.

But Labor appears to be back in the government banks for a second term and overseeing the response to a looming economic crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, with $ 12 billion from the Covid fund unspent or unspent. to assign.

As of 2 p.m. yesterday, 46 percent of registered voters had voted early.

Ardern has been Labor’s most valuable asset and his crisis management has been the hallmark of his tenure.

He confirmed again this morning that he would leave the policy if he did not re-enter.

“If you cannot bring your party into government, you must reassess and think about who is in the best position to do so,” he told TVNZ.

She said that she had learned to expect the unexpected and always be prepared for it.

She revealed that her go-to person was her family.

“As politicians it is so important that we remind ourselves that there are other things that are happening in their lives. My family, Neve, Clarke, they punish me.”

Earlier, Ardern told MediaWorks that he expected a “strong mandate” from the electorate, but stopped short of saying he wanted Labor to rule alone.

“A strong mandate, a strong mandate,” she repeated, adding that she would be willing to form a coalition with as few parties as possible to keep things easy.

He acknowledged that he did not have a Plan B after his political career and had not given him any thoughts.

Ardern also vowed to keep Kelvin Davis as their deputy leader.

The proudest achievement in the last period was the work on child poverty. He said there was still work to be done and that he would try to eradicate it in the next six years.

Ihumātao has yet to be resolved, but he was optimistic about finding a deal, Ardern said.

“There is a solution to this problem. I think we can solve it without undermining the Treaty. There is an agreement to be made there, but we have not been able to do it yet.”

Ardern confirmed that her partner Clarke Gayford would be joining her today for just the second day of the campaign.

National leader Judith Collins told TVNZ that she was looking forward to getting to sleep tomorrow morning. “I’m not going to set the alarm tomorrow morning,” he said.

He said there was a sense of relief after the extended period of the election campaign, along with the Covid-19 crisis.

She said she wanted to be Prime Minister because she wanted to make the most of what our country had to offer.

“We could be one of the richest small countries in the world,” he said.

“It amazes me that we don’t win more here.”

When asked why she was qualified to run the country, she said she brought a world of experience with her understanding of the economy and how to get people to work.

On obesity, he said that people had to take personal responsibility for their decisions.

“Since I’ve been an adult, an entire diet industry has told them that there is an easy way to achieve results.”

She said it was not just about poverty, but about the food that was eaten.

He said fresh fruits and vegetables and seasonal foods weren’t an expensive option

Labor has been polling about 50 percent since Covid-19 was first detected in February, and similar numbers were polled last year in the wake of the mosque massacre.

Colmar Brunton’s poll last night, if translated into votes, would see Labor as by far the largest party, but needing another party, the Greens, to rule. New Zealand would be out of Parliament first.

The poll placed Labor at 46 percent (1 point down), National 31 (down 1), Greens 8 (up 2), Law 8 (no change) and New Zealand Top 3 (up 1).

The New Conservatives were at 2 (top 1), Opportunities Party 1 (bottom 1), Advance NZ 1 (unchanged) and Maori Party 1 (top 1).

The same poll showed Ardern’s popularity as prime minister last week increased by five points to 55 percent and National’s Judith Collins dropped from three to 20 percent.

The couple met last night for the last time in the TV1 debate.

The highest proportion of the party vote the Labor Party has received in any MMP election since 1996 was 41.2 percent in 2002 in his second term in government, and the closest it has come to his current poll of the 46 percent was David Lange’s second term in 1987 when he got 47.96 percent.

Ardern spent yesterday visiting the cast and crew of the Mary Poppins musical in an attempt to highlight the fact that New Zealand is among the only countries in the world with freedoms under Covid to host a show.

Broadway, the West End, and many of the world’s theater districts are subject to Covid restrictions that do not allow mass gatherings.

Much of the coverage of the final days of the campaign has television footage of Ardern being harassed in shopping malls and universities.

Today he will visit several more shopping malls in Auckland and end his campaign by thanking Labor volunteers.

Judith Collins will thank the party volunteers today and then participate in a people billboard campaign on the North Shore.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters will end his epic in-country bus campaign with a rally in Whangarei, which has been a previous stronghold for New Zealand First votes.

The 3 percent shown in last night’s 1News Colmar Brunton poll is the best his party has had since Covid and puts him a surprising distance from the 5 percent threshold.

But his match looks set to fall short and mark the end of an era.

The election campaign has at times seemed endless, mainly because it started and then stopped with the second Covid outbreak.

It was full of financial problems.

National’s fiscal plan had a $ 4 billion accounting error, the correction of which pushed out its debt-to-GDP target of 36% in one year.

And Judith Collins has campaigned relentlessly against the Green Party’s wealth tax and its warnings that Labor could be forced to accept it in coalition talks.