Who won the NZ leader's debate? You know what I'm going to say.

It's been rather tough getting up to date information given I am no longer working for the Australian Associated Press and no longer have daily access to Australian and New Zealand news to the extent that I used to.  Because I'm now in Australian radio in Sydney it's much more difficult to get New Zealand election content.  I very much rely on friends and family back in New Zealand along with Stuff.co.nz and the NZ Herald.  I occasionally go to the New Zealand radio stations like Newstalk ZB and the TV3 website to get broadcast coverage.  Either way, it's slim pickings.

I discuss New Zealand politics with friends etc and while I get more than the average person overseas I'm still missing out on election information because I am overseas in Australia.  I caught about 30 seconds of the leaders debate thanks to Fairfax.co.nz.  You see, TVNZ has geoblocked ALL content and that includes political programming which is anti democratic.  You'd think they would have made exceptions given all the campaigns to get overseas based NZ citizens to vote.

Anyway, I've seen two minutes of the debate following a bunch of articles which said that David Cunliffe was the winner of the debate.  I had to stop watching the Paul Henry Show when political reporter Tova O'Brien said that David Cunliffe had won.  I'm a right wing voter so yes, my natural bias is always going to be towards National however thanks to Stuff.co.nz I was able to view a couple of minutes of a debate, and Cunliffe did not win the debate, not from what I saw anyway.

In the segment I saw Prime Minister John Key was talking about the importance of job creation, increasing wages and creating opportunities for those still in NZ (yes, there are still some people, the nation is not just full of sheep though all the people must've just about nearly left by now) and when David Cunliffe responded he basically, and this is in a nutshell, talked about stealing from the haves to give to the have nots through redistribution of wealth.  This is the typical left wing way of thinking and doesn't promote personal responsibility at all.  Cunliffe didn't offer any solutions to get the economy moving along again, or to create opportunities.  He just repeated the same left wing rhetoric about stealing from the rich and about stopping foreign investment.

It's like he doesn't understand that without foreign investment NZ will end up much like QANTAS in Australia - a losing airline struggling to stay afloat.  Without foreign investment there is no wealth and there is no market for goods and services.  Prime Minister John Key on the other hand shows a greater economic understanding and realises that you need to increase the pool of wealth to boost the economy, and the only way to do that is by opening up new markets.  Foreign markets.

Based on the short segment I saw, John Key was the clear winner.  John Key gave a clear economic understanding and really seemed to have a plan for New Zealand, unlike David Cunliffe.  I think the NZ media is favouring Cunliffe because there's been a lot of negative coverage about him lately.