Mike's Minute: This campaign has been exhausting

Well we made it... we made it, didn’t we?

Are you as fatigued as I am?

I'm not sure I can put my finger on it, but this has been one of the more forgettable campaigns.

Maybe it was the fact we ultimately all know the Government will lose and another one will be elected.

No, we don’t know in what shape. But we know Labour is done and, because they are done, this campaign has just been a long drawn out goodbye with confirmation on Saturday night.

There is always finger pointing and negativity but this time seems to have been turbocharged.

There has been a lot of mis-information, the debates seem to have heralded nothing, there were no zingers, no head-turners and no revelations.

It just seems to have been a slog.

That might have something to do with the state of us as a country and, given the state of us, that's why the Government will lose.

But we entered the race rundown and punch drunk and ready for a new start.

It probably has something to do with the talent. I think there is a real story there in Hipkins and Luxon and their anaemic numbers. Neither have set the world alight, so charisma, or lack of it, played its part.

I have learned some stuff we need to urgently address about the system we operate in. The dead person revelation is an astonishing mistake and may well play an even greater part in the new Government than we ever could have imagined.

Our knowledge of MMP is something I am deeply worried about. The number of communications I have received with questions that genuinely show a minimal understanding of the system is little short of a crisis.

I have learned about the Germans way of doing it. They get the result one minute after the polls close and negotiations and discussion of coalitions on the night. There's no dumb rules around no campaigning on the day and postal votes have to be in by election day so a result comes faster.

These are easy fixes and would improve the system severalfold.

The fact Winston Peters can pop his head up after all these years, say nothing other than "hey, angry people, vote for me" says something about us.

All in all, it's been unsatisfying.

The Saturday night game of "what do you think will happen" will be a bit of fun. And if the All Blacks win on Sunday next week will feel a lot better.

But here's the campaign takeaway - it was like one of those movies where the best bits were in the promo.

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