“The Chrises squabbled about who gets how much of the pie, without articulating a vision for growing it,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“The Chrises went back and forth over issues which are very real to hardworking New Zealanders, without spelling out what real change would look like. That is why it was a failure not to include all parties in the debate like times past.

“Unfortunately for those seeking new solutions, it wasn’t just the Chrises’ names that are the same. Neither Chris articulated any significant difference from the way things are today, or each other for that matter.

“For example, it’s true that healthcare should be based on need not race, but it is not complicated to explain how. A Chris just needed to say that there should be one funder of a service like Health or Education, who should fund providers that are effective, whether they're Māori, Pacific, or not based on ethnicity at all.

“Chris Luxon is correct that it was wrong to give Bluescope a whopping $140 billion subsidy, but only ACT is saying we need to dump the Zero Carbon Act and let industries respond to the market price of carbon under the Emissions Trading Scheme.

“Chris Hipkins is deluding New Zealanders by saying co-Governance is working together. Just last month Willie Jackson said Māori have ‘separate rights.’ Only ACT has set out in detail how we would tread a path back to democracy from co-Governance.

“The Chrises answered the quickfire questions in lockstep, there’s got to be more choice than that. Even when they both agreed with the need for a four-year term, neither party stands by this view with policies, but ACT has legislation ready to go.

“The Chrises stuck to well-worn talking points without showing clear values or principles beneath these. Only ACT builds its policy positions on a clear set of values.

“Both Chrises argued about the holes in each other’s tax policies. The truth is the government doesn’t have any money, only the money which you earn and which it taxes. If we want to be a prosperous country, we must put productivity at the centre of everything we do. Only ACT is proposing a lower, flatter tax system which would incentivise success and grow productivity.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On The Government’s Smokefree Laws Debacle

The most charitable explanation for National’s behaviour over the smokefree legislation is that they have dutifully fulfilled the wishes of the Big Tobacco lobby and then cast around – incompetently, as it turns out - for excuses that might sell this health policy U-turn to the public. The less charitable view is that the government was being deliberately misleading. Are we to think Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is a fool, or a liar? It seems rather early on in his term of office to be facing that unpleasant choice. Yet when Luxon (and senior MP Chris Bishop) tried to defend the indefensible with the same wildly inaccurate claim, there are not a lot of positive explanations left on the table.... More