Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

With a week and a day to go voting, you would have to say the biggest disappointment of this campaign is Act.

We have got a couple of polls out today:

The Taxpayers Union Curia poll and the Talbot Mills research poll both have Act in the single digits for the first time in their polling since April.

ACT has been sliding this entire campaign and a lot of it will be because of David Seymour’s performance.

In the debate last night, and in the TV3 minor leaders debate 2 weeks ago he was not flash. 

He was like a robot.

He was too serious.  

The fighting with Winston is getting a little silly and he just over-talked.

He was like AI: you type in a question, hit enter, and it just keeps going for minutes on end 

And it’s a bummer because this is not the David Seymour that we know.

We got used to the guy with the sense of humour, who said the French the coq, who twerked on TV against all advice, who was basically the leader of the opposition for most of the last three years.

Where's that guy gone? 

I think he’s lost his confidence.

Political insiders know that he lost his star staff member, his media advisor earlier this year and I think we expected ACT to sort of stumble a bit after that but not this much. 

On the polls out today, ACT has lost as many as a third of its voters.

I can’t think of a bigger collapse in a vote during a campaign since Metiria Turei blew up the Greens with her benefit fraud admission 

But for the Greens, at least you could blame it on one single bad decision. 

For ACT, it’s baffling, and it’s more like they’ve run out of steam.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The boss of Pharmac has come under fire today for writing disparaging emails about journalist Rachel Smalley.

Sarah Fitt wrote several emails to her team about Smalley and in one of them Fitt shares one of Smalley's articles about cancer patients with the subject line "sigh".

Other emails have staff members making fun of the journalist, writing a limerick about her and celebrating when she lost her job.

Pharmac's chair Steve Maharey called the internal emails unacceptable and unprofessional, and said Fitt had apologised for the language used in the email.

The public service commissioner said the comments were completely unacceptable, and Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said she was disappointed.

Smalley spoke to Heather about what happened.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US President Joe Biden will use money left over from Donald Trump's term to extend a border wall.

A portion of border in Texas separating the US and Mexico will be expanded as the country continues to manage an influx of migrants.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson told Heather du-Plessis Allan this is a head-scratcher as Biden has been against Trump's idea of a wall for some time.

LISTEN ABOVE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two new election polls show that National Party leader Christopher Luxon will need to call Winston Peters if he wants to form a government.

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls spoke to Heather about it, and what is happening in the last few weeks of the campaign.

LISTEN ABOVE. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Black Caps despatched England in a nine wicket victory in their first Cricket World Cup pool game, where Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra both smashed unbeaten centuries and put on a record 273 for the second wicket, helping New Zealand easily overhaul England’s 282-9.

Meanwhile, the All Blacks roared into the quarter finals with a 73-0 victory over Uruguay in their last pool game. 

Weekend Sport host Jason Pine spoke with Heather about the two results and what happens next.

LISTEN ABOVE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's not uncommon for us to tell you on this show that a judge has discounted a criminal's sentence because of a cultural report.

Generally this is because the report mentions that the person has poverty, trauma, addiction or something else in their background that means they should receive a lighter sentence.

Well it turns out there is actually no legal requirement for cultural report writers to check if any of the information they're told by the accused is true.

This came to the fore in a case in Hamilton, where the judge highlighted that information in a cultural report didn't match up with a pre-sentence report written about the same person.

Lead cultural report writer Sentence Equality Lead cultural report writer Tara Oakley spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the issue.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has proposed raising the smoking age year by year, until cigarettes are eventually phased out.

Sunak says these incremental changes mean children who turn 14 this year and those younger would never be able to legally access cigarettes.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says this proposal could bring down cancer rates- but also open up a lucrative black market within a few years.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Huddle, Ali Jones from Red PR and former National staffer Ben Thomas joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day- and more! 

Sir John Key got involved in a last ditch effort to turn out voters for National, following growing fears of a three-way coalition with ACT and NZ First. Is this a sign of desperate times for National?

Grant Robertson has labelled National's tax policy a 'scam', and claimed less than one percent of all households will get the $250 relief per fortnight. Is this fair criticism? What else could National be hiding? 

Is it fair to blame the Electoral Commission for all the missing vote packs if NZ Post is so slow these days? Is this a sign that we need a better system?

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand reached its hottest September on record this year, according to new data.

NIWA’s Climate Summary for the month said the nationwide average temperature was 11.9C, 1.3C above the 1991-2020 September average.

The Country's Jamie Mackay says we're staring down the barrel of a dry El Nino summer- which has consequences for the rural sector. 

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand's official cash rate has stayed in place at 5.5 for the last four months- yet several banks have hiked their mortgage rates.

Anyone who has re-fixed a mortgage in the past few months has felt the sting of increased rates ticking upwards.

NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann says these hikes are proof New Zealand is at the mercy of international market forces, namely the US and China.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.