Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on what Paul Henry could offer the ACT Party

ACT's newest - and best known - political prospect says the party has a perception issue he's hoping to fix. 

Former broadcaster Paul Henry's announced he's standing as a list candidate this election, and is gunning for portfolios if their campaign is successful.

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper unpacked the reactions to the announcement from both sides of the political aisle.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry Soapers with us Alo Barry, Good afternoon, Heather, Pole
of polls is out. Where we are you sitting on
the Opportunity Party? Now where am I sitting? Like? What
chances that they're in? Well, it's you know, it's right
nudging five percent. I've seen parties almost that close before
the Christian Party in twenty fourteen with Colin Craig they

(00:21):
got just over four percent on the day so and
they would have probably cracked the five percent if they
didn't have a bit of a breakdown at the end
of the campaign, which is what they did. But yeah,
look it's a bit of a media creation in a
way as well. The more we talk about it, the
more people are aware of the Opportunity Party.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
So, you know, if you look at the new model
that's come out from the Pole of Poles, and they
run all the poles through this, including the one yesterday
on are n Z, the Reid Research Pole, the model
predicts now sixty two point nine percent is the probability
that the current coalition would be returned. Now, you know

(01:05):
that's been dropping fairly consistently, so it's becoming closer. And
when you look at the Opportunity Party. If you look
at the possibility of the three coalition partners along with
the Opportunity Party, you've got an eighty eight point one
percent chance of it being returned. But then the Opportunity Party,

(01:26):
even though they've said in the past that they would
go with either party, depending on how they feel after
the public have had the essay, I would doubt very
much whether they could sell themselves, not just to the
National Party, but at the moment if you look at
their policies, they would be a hard sell all round.

(01:48):
If they're amenable for a bit of negotiation, which is
what the coalition deal is all about, then maybe there
could be a bit of I don't know, it wouldn't
get much out of the coalition, right, and they made
it clear they want to get some policy when so
I'd say's probably not gonna happen. Probably not. Ye's probably
not gonna happen, all right. Paul Henry, Oh, well, it's
been interesting he had to come up, didn't it. Well,

(02:11):
it's annoyed me because you know, it's as though it's
the politics of envy. If a person's wealthy, then they
can have no understanding, any understanding of someone that's struggling
to make ends meet, and you'll remember one of the
first questions that it always annoyed me, probably annoyed me
more for the way Chris Luxon answered it. When he

(02:34):
became Prime Minister, he was asked why he needed seven properties. Now,
the answer to that would be probably fairly obvious that
if you've been in a high paying job that he
had several million dollars a year as CEO of the
in New Zealand, if he didn't have more than one property,
you'd be asking why not. But now that Paul Henry

(02:56):
has put his hand up for act, he was quizzed
on TV three last night about how on earth could
he possibly understand traveling around on a super yacht and
as rich list a wife Diane Foreman, how could they
relate to those who were struggling to spend He was
put it to him ten bucks on petrol or food

(03:17):
put food on the tables. Answer is exactly what it
should have been.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I would like to think that what I achieved, and
you have to remember that both my wife and I
didn't start off with money, what we have achieved should
be aspirational. I want that to be much easier for
everybody to achieve. I want everyone to have the kind
of upbringing that I had because I was living in
a country that actually inspired success, not a country that

(03:45):
frowned on success.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
And that's what New Zealand tends to do. We don't
celebrate We celebrate people on the sporting field. But anybody
that gets onto the rich list list then they are
always well not always, but they're not hailed as being
doing very much for society. And yet they are the
people that actually are the part the cogs and the

(04:07):
engine room of what runs the account. Take their taxes,
but we won't do much. Well that's run all right.
What's going on with National's Marty, candidate for Tech Times. Well,
it's interesting, isn't it that she has really come up
against a bit of a difficulty being the candidate there
because she's running against DEBI no rewould pack up. But

(04:30):
she's been questioned on whether how she can live with
some of National's policies, and one of them is the
Maldi wards, and of course they voted on those last year.
She is a counselor on a Maldi Ward herself, and
next election she'll be out of a job because they
voted against her in Rungatik, which is where she's stationed.
So now she's put her hand up for politics. But

(04:53):
there are many aspects of the National policy platform that
she is finding difficult I think to reckon with if
you like, and you look at a number of them.
The referendum was one, but the move to disestablish the

(05:14):
Maldi Health Authority require that English names go before MALDI
ones for government departments as well as the Well, she's
in the right party, She's in the National Party, so
no doubt she will want to She'll have an argument,
but it does make it rather uncomfort down. Okay, Barry,

(05:36):
Thanks very much, Barry so for senior political correspondence.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
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