The Mike Hosking Breakfast

President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden went on the offense, with each campaigning in states they are trying to flip during the Nov. 3 election that is just over two weeks away.
Trump began his day in Nevada, making a rare visit to church before a fundraiser and an evening rally in Carson City. Once considered a battleground, Nevada has not swung for a Republican presidential contender since 2004.
The rally drew thousands of supporters who sat elbow to elbow, cheering Trump and booing Biden and the press. The vast majority wore no masks to guard against the coronavirus. The president, as he often does, warned that a Biden election would lead to further lockdowns and at one point appeared to mock Biden for saying he would listen to scientists.
“If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression,” Trump said.
Biden, a practicing Catholic, attended Mass in Delaware before campaigning in North Carolina, where a Democrat has not won in a presidential race since Barack Obama in 2008.
Both candidates are trying to make inroads in states that could help secure a path to victory, but the dynamics of the race are remarkably stable. Biden enjoys a significant advantage in national polls, while carrying a smaller edge in battleground surveys.
With Trump seated in the front row at the nondenominational International Church of Las Vegas, the senior associate pastor, Denise Goulet, said God told her the president is the apple of his eye and would secure a second term.
“At 4:30, the Lord said to me, ‘I am going to give your president a second win,’” she said, telling Trump, “you will be the president again.”
Trump offered brief remarks, saying “I love going to churches” and that it was “a great honor” to attend the service. The president also said that “we have a group on the other side that doesn’t agree with us,” and he urged people to “get out there on Nov. 3 or sooner” to vote. He dropped a wad of $20 bills in the collection plate before leaving.
Trump also attended a fundraiser at the Newport Beach home of top GOP donor and tech mogul Palmer Luckey, which raised $12 million for his election. The Beach Boys performed.
The message was far different later in the day, when Biden attended a virtual discussion with African American faith leaders from around the country.
Biden held up a rosary, which he said he carries in his pocket every day, and described it as “what the Irish call a prisoner’s rosary” since it was small enough to be smuggled into prisons.
“I happen to be a Roman Catholic,” Biden said. “I don’t pray for God to protect me. I pray to God to give me strength to see what other people are dealing with.”
Earlier, at a drive-in rally in Durham, North Carolina, Biden focused heavily on promoting criminal justice changes to combat institutional racism and promised to help build wealth in the Black community.
He noted that Trump had said at one of his rallies that the country had turned the corner on the pandemic.
“As my grandfather would say, this guy’s gone around the bend if he thinks we’ve turned the corner. Turning the corner? Things are getting worse,” Biden said.
In addition to public polling that indicates Biden has an edge, the former vice president enjoys another considerable advantage over Trump: money. Over the past four months, his campaign has raised over $1 billion, and that has enabled him to eclipse Trump's once-massive cash advantage.
That's become apparent in advertising, where Biden and his Democratic allies are on pace to spend twice as much as Trump and the Republicans in the closing days of the race, according to data from the ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.
Though Trump has pulled back from advertising in Midwestern states that secured his 2016 win, he's invested heavily elsewhere, including North Carolina, where he is on pace to slightly outspend...

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has outlined her immediate priorities after sweeping to power for her second term.
Ardern wants more support for small business loans and $300 million in cash incentives to hire the unemployed in place by the end of the year.
She said first out of the blocks will be the flexi-wage scheme and changes to the small business cashflow loan scheme.
There's also pressure coming from the business community to get the economic recovery rolling, by easing border travel.
Business owners want a Jacinda Ardern-led Government to start making progress on some of the tourism, international student and export slow-downs from Covid 19.
Ex Business New Zealand boss Phil O'Reilly told Mike Hosking we want a safe border, but there needs to be more bravery about getting more people through.
"The election's gone so let's get the border issue moving and hopefully there will be a better relationship between business and the Government."
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The thing about a landslide is there is more than one story.
Obviously, a majority under MMP is history. And whether it's all because of the pandemic, which it is, doesn't really matter, the cards are the cards.
So, the headline goes to the size of the victory, but to ignore the other equally remarkable bits would be to do a number of people a massive disservice.
Chloe Swarbrick's win is astonishing. It's a reminder that in a seat where a popular incumbent leaves and the contest can be genuinely open, what Swarbrick did was good old-fashioned boots on the ground stuff. Hard work was rewarded. The only downside was she didn’t get to be the Greens saviour, that would have been the cream on an otherwise spectacular cake.
On a night when Labour rampaged through the countryside. It didn’t rampage through Auckland Central and the Labour candidate has got to wonder what the hell went wrong.
Similar story I suspect in Waiariki. There was no need for the Maori Party to win any seats. The Maori Party was born of anger and fury over the foreshore and seabed. There isn't a lot of anger and fury left now, hence last election they got wiped out. So why did they win? Helen White and Tamati Coffey might like to ask themselves a few hard questions.
ACT cannot be ignored.  One percent to eight percent, and one MP to 10 MPS. In terms of statistical improvement, they won the night, and in some respects, along with the greens saved MMP. It's a very First Past the Post Parliament, but if MMP is to survive it's got to have well established and well supported minor parties that don’t ebb and flow with the wind.
On the downside a landslide means carnage somewhere, and New Zealand First is finished. And whether you ever flirted with them or not, the cult of personality was never better expressed than by Winston Peters. His story isn't over yet, and sadly it's for all the wrong reasons.
The SFO case will play out, but the party itself is finished. The reality is it never had a succession plan. The last government and the PGF was supposed to sort of be it, but in reality, it was Peter's fiefdom and when he goes, so too go the fortunes of the party. That is the end of an interesting era.
I would like to think we might learn our lesson once and for all on the polls, but we won't. The polls couldn't have got the centre left-centre right gap more wrong.
But ultimately it was Labour's night and it's Labour's next three years, and whether the Greens are there or not doesn't matter.
This is a First Past the Post government. What shape they go to 2023 is entirely on them. 
The great ones walk towards that sort of pressure.

ACT's first focus this term is going to be around the pandemic.
With the party on eight per cent, David Seymour will bring nine first-time MPs to join him in Parliament.
ACT Leader David Seymour told Mike Hosking big issues have been lost in the adrenaline of the Covid-19 crisis.
He says it's important the country gets the response right.
"It's not sustainable to lock ourselves down and keep borrowing to paper over the cracks.
"We’ve got a big job ahead, we’re going to carry on doing it, just with ten times more people."
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THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Monday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Didn't See That Coming/Now What?/Remembering Winston/Innovative Job Schemes

Labour says it's wasting no time in forming a government, after its historic victory on Saturday night.
The party has just under half the vote, with 87-percent of votes counted.
The Labour caucus will meet today and tomorrow, before leader Jacinda Ardern meets with the Green Party at some point this week.
Campaign manager Megan Woods told Mike Hosking Ardern is keen to have a government in place by the time the final election results come on November 6.
She says the PM wants to build a consensus, but doesn't want to waste any time in getting a government formed.
Woods says a government will be formed - with or without the Greens - within the next few weeks.
Other parties will hold caucus meetings tomorrow.
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Day two after the election and Judith Collins is feeling.... fine.
After a tumultuous year with three leadership changes, the National party won less than 27 per cent of the vote.
Party leader Judith Collins told Mike Hosking the National Party candidates, volunteers, and herself did everything they could.
"Sometimes you just have to roll with it, pick yourself up and keep on going."
Collins says it's important for the party to review what went right and what went wrong during the campaign.
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The Green Party's trusting Labour will want to form a coalition.
It plans on holding a caucus meeting tomorrow, but no coalition talks have been scheduled yet.
Greens co-leader James Shaw told Mike Hosking on NewstalkZB this morning not to read "too much" into the Prime Minister's words so far about a potential coalition arrangement with Labour, and they want to just "see how it goes".
He had spoken to Ardern since Saturday.





"We congratulated each other on respective wins on Saturday. It was obviously a huge night for Labour, they made history, and so did we. We said, 'Good on ya, and we'll talk in the coming days'."
They had caucus this morning, inductions for new MPs, but over the next few days they'd look to set a meeting up with Labour. There was no specific meeting set, but this was not necessary, Shaw said.
"We didn't know how the election was going to pan out, we've got to let the dust settle," Shaw said.
The Greens had previously set out six priorities.
"We will be sitting down and saying what can we do on these priorities?"
When Hosking asked what the Greens would do if Labour said they didn't want to honour them, he said: "They won't say that... it has been a good partnership... we have a constructive working relationship.
"We've spent the last three years in Government together.
"We have a lot of shared ideas and shared vision for how we want our country to go forward."
The idea all their priorities would be rejected was an "absurd statement", Shaw said.
"I think people think it is more transactional than it is. We have spent the last three years in Government together."
But the relationship this time was different to 2017, when Labour needed the Greens, as opposed to this election when Labour could govern alone.
Shaw said he still thought they could bring something to any new Government, with highly specialised and focused ministers.
Having a larger majority in the house would affect things like select committee membership, and they also needed to look ahead to 2023.
"There are a lot of good reasons to continue the partnership we have had."

Former Prime Minster Helen Clarke has described a spectacular victory for Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party in the 2020 General Election.
With a little over 90 per cent of votes counted, Labour sit on 49 per cent with National far behind on 27. As it stands Labour can govern alone, not needing the Greens to return to Parliament.
It will keep Ms Ardern around as Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Ms Clarke told Mike Hosking and Barry Soper the Covid-19 pandemic played a big part in the party's sizeable victory.
"I think it's a question of who do you think you're going to feel safest with in this very uncertain time, and I think Jacinda's been seen to put people's health and well-being right up there."

Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick is set to win the Auckland central seat in what has been a tight race with Labour's Helen White.
Swarbrick has had the edge since vote counting started for the 2020 election tonight, with White in second and National's Emma Mellow over 1,000 votes back.
Greens co-leader James Shaw told Mike Hosking and Barry Soper Swarbrick's victory is historical.
"No third party candidate has won an election seat without the endorsement of a major party leader, and it looks like Chloe has won Auckland central and that would defy history."
Mr Shaw addressed Green Party supporters, saying throughout the campaign, he’s been reminded why the party does what it does.
He says the party’s aim is to create a vision for every person in New Zealand - that they have what they need to have a meaningful life.
With a little over 80 per cent of votes counted, the Greens were sitting pretty on 7.6 per cent.