Midday Report

Harry Mowbray discusses his 'Split Your Vote' website; Dana Johannsen discusses collapse of proposed netball league; Talking politics with Patrick Gower

An update on the latest news and results from RNZ's sports team.

Patrick Gower and Guyon Espiner discuss the week in politics.

An update on the latest news from RNZ's rural team.

Just weeks after Anna Mowbray and Ali Williams emerged as potential saviours of New Zealand netball, their proposed private league has fallen over. The collapse leaves the future of next year's elite competition in doubt once again, with players facing renewed uncertainty over their futures. Sports editor Dana Johannsen broke the story and spoke to Guyon Espiner.

The Electoral Commission says it's looking into the 'Split Your Vote' website created by businessman Harry Mowbray. Harry Mowbray created a website, splityourvote.co.nz to encourage voters who want a centre-right government to give their party vote to ACT or New Zealand First and their electorate vote to the National candidate. That could create an overhang with extra seats in Parliament with the aim of returning the coalition government. Harry Mowbray spoke to Guyon Espiner.

Welcome to Midday Report essentials with Guyon Espiner. Labour looked beat by the gang scandal, but, the new RNZ poll gives them a path to power. We heard from Labour's campaign chair Kieran McAnulty on how he plans to push Labour over the line. Nicola Willis spoke to the mixed fortunes for National - the Reserve Bank held the Official Cash Rate yesterday, but the Finance Minister would be likely be out of Parliament on National's poll numbers. Finally, whoever wins the election could walk into a constitutional cluster of overhangs and extended coalition negotiations. Law professor Andrew Geddis told me what that could look like. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Midday Report Essentials, tune in wherever you get your podcasts - or live at Midday, every weekday on RNZ National.

An update on the latest news and results from RNZ's sports team.

The latest RNZ-Reid Research poll has National on 24.8 percent, which projects to about 30 seats in the House of Parliament. But National won 44 electorates last time, and if it holds even some of those, Parliament could end up bigger than 120 seats. To explain how it works, University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis, one of the country's leading authorities on electoral law, spoke to Guyon Espiner.

The latest news from the United States with Nine News reporter Lauren Tomasi in Washington DC.