Here’s a calendar of key dates (mainly debates) in the coming month for anybody who wants to keep up with the election. Italicised dates are only relevant to other voters in Ilam; bolded dates are the most important dates in my view. I’ll note an outlet to access each of these but for some multiple outlets will be available, just google them. I no doubt will be missing some dates or events, especially as news comes out closer to the election, so keep your eyes peeled.
Monday 18th September: At 3:30 pm, there’s going to be a debate between the Ilam candidates at UC, 20 Kirkwood Avenue. I don’t know much about this.
Tuesday 19th: At 7 pm, the first leaders’ debate, between Chris Hipkins for Labour and Chris Luxon for National, will be hosted by 1 News. That will be essentially our first chance to see the two candidates for PM go head to head.
Thursday 21st: At 3:30 pm, there’ll be a debate at The George, though to my knowledge that’s for Christchurch Central, not Ilam. (Looking at the posh location, it also wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a ticketed event.)
Thursday 21st: At 7:30 pm, Newshub are hosting their minor parties debate, hosted by Rebecca Wright. You can watch this on TV3, and it's being streamed in a host of places - YouTube, Facebook, newshub.co.nz and ThreeNow. So far as I know the MPs in attendance will be David Seymour for ACT, Winston Peters for NZFirst, Marama Davidson for the Greens and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for the Māori Party.
Monday 25th: At 7:30 pm, a “young voters’ debate” will be held, online-only and available to be livestreamed on TVNZ+. I don’t know whether that means youth wing leaders will debate, or if parties will send young representatives from their caucus or what, but it’s about issues young voters face.
Tuesday 26th: At 7:30 pm, TVNZ+ will stream a Kaupapa Māori debate, which will presumably have Māori candidates from each party and focus on issues within Māoridom and the Māori electorates.
Wednesday 27th: Patrick Gower will host Newshub's leaders' debate. I have no further details yet.
Thursday 28th (Wednesday 27th 9pm PT): At 1:00 pm NZST, the second presidential primary debate will take place between several Republican candidates. DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Haley, Pence, Christie, Scott and Burgum have all qualified. Hutchinson is not. Trump is doing his same "I qualified but I don't wanna come so I'm gonna run a distraction" elsewhere shtick, giving a speech this time.
Monday 2nd October: Voting opens, almost two weeks before Election Day. This is critical to note: record numbers of people vote well before Election Day these days, and in order to minimise inconvenience to your life or the chance you don’t end up voting, it’s probably worth thinking about when you would like to get your vote in. That being said, there may still be more information to consider only coming out in the last two weeks of the campaign. I’ll be voting on Election Day.
Tuesday 3rd: The Press will host their leaders’ debate in Christchurch. I don’t have further details yet but this is always one to watch - in particular, from “show me the money” in 2011 to groans over resilience in 2020, the audience has shown a willingness to loudly engage with both candidates.
Thursday 5th: At 7pm, 1News will host the minor party leaders’ debate. Who makes the cut has been disputed in previous years; presumably we can expect to see David Seymour for ACT, one of Marama Davidson or James Shaw representing the Greens, and one of Debbie Ngarewa-Packer or Rawiri Waititi for the Māori Party. We’ll see whether Winston Peters for NZFirst or Raf Manji for TOP make the cut.
Monday 9th: Grant Robertson and Nicola Willis are having a major party’s finance debate, but I don’t know much about this either.
Thursday 12th: At 7pm, 1News will host the last leaders’ debate of the election.
Friday 13th: This is the last day before our strict laws around election advertising kick in. While plenty of discretion is obviously shown, you can in theory be violating the law by posting specific political appeals on Election Day, and every three years some people fall afoul of this and are ordered to take their posts down. So, if you want to make any posts saying “vote for this party” or “vote on that issue”, do them by Friday the 13th or beforehand.
Saturday 14th: Election Day. This is your last chance to vote and will be the day with the most dedicated infrastructure and support for doing so. You are welcome on Election Day to post general appeals to people to go vote and participate in democracy, just don’t let it get any more specific than that.
Sunday 15th: We will enter the post-Election Day period. Barring a razor-close result, we should know on Election Night who has won, but the coming weeks will bring two important developments. One, special votes will come in, which typically favour the left and often mean National loses an MP and the Greens gain one on the list. Two, the parties will start to negotiate what their governing coalition will look like, a process which can take a while. As an observer, you’re welcome to strap in and keep up from there. As a voter, you’re relieved from duty and can kick back and relax for the summer.
Get in touch if you have any questions, and vote.nz has plenty of simple clear explanations of what's going on! I plan to explain how MMP voting works later in the election, amongst other things.
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