The Front Bench - October 5th 2020

Heather du Plessis-Allan, Barry Soper, Trish Sherson and Chris Carter thrash out the big political issues in the lead up to Vote 2020. There's no holding back, no topic off limits, and no rules in this rapid-fire, highly opinionated election podcast.
National leader Judith Collins has gone to great lengths to make sure people understand she is a woman of faith. Things ramped up yesterday when Collins went to vote at a church, and was filmed and photographed kneeling down. Do you buy it? Has she made a conscious effort to advertise her Christianity, and if so why?
Did Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern politicise the Covid-19 announcement? All eyes were on the infamous 1pm press briefing again today, to see whether or not Auckland would join the rest of the country at alert level 1. Ardern is copping criticism for using the opportunity to criticise other party's border policies, as well as National's housing plan.
Let's take a break from our election here and jump across to America. President Donald Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis has completely thrown the US election up in the air. It is unclear how bad his health is right now, but he earlier described the journey as 'interesting'. How will this impact the election? And does it make him look even more careless than initially thought?

And early voting has started, and it is popular already. In the first two days of voting, 165,000 votes were cast, and early voting is expected to make up as much as 60% of the final vote. Why do you think it has become so popular?
 
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