00:01It's just worth dwelling on some of the differences between elections here in New Zealand and
00:06in Australia. New Zealand has pretty strict election blackout laws. Now, those laws even
00:12extend to the cross I'm doing right now with you. According to New Zealand law, I'm not
00:17really meant to report on any of the arguments made by any of the parties, say anything about
00:22really the campaign so far, or say anything about polling. In fact, anything that could
00:26possibly influence the way that people vote is basically strictly forbidden. So that's
00:32one interesting difference. The other one, you can probably see behind me, the school
00:36is not emblazoned with what you'd find in an Australian primary school during election
00:41day. There is no signage, there are no people handing out or anything like that, although
00:46there is a little sausage sizzle. And that's again because of this electoral blackout law
00:50that essentially says nothing should be done to try and pressure or influence voters on
00:55election day. The law is designed to try and preserve space and time for voters to think
01:01deeply about what they want to do. So all the signs that were around here have been taken
01:05down. There are no people canvassing, there are no people being hassled on their way to
01:09the election booth. In some ways, it's a far quieter affair than you'd have during a typical
01:15Australian election. And that extends to pretty much every facet. So in many ways, Australia
01:20and New Zealand, they're very similar democracies. But in other ways, in terms of the way we
01:25run that electoral process, they're quite strikingly different.
01:29Yeah, fascinating. We'll make sure that we stay clear of anything you're not allowed to
01:33talk about. It does certainly look different there. How long is it likely to be until we
01:37see a result in this election?
01:41Look, I think we'll start to get a pretty clear idea of the way things might be trending
01:46later tonight. We'll see the first dump of votes, if you like, at about 5.15 Australian
01:52time or 7.15 here in New Zealand. But that doesn't mean we're going to get a certain result.
01:58Again, New Zealand's system is quite different to ours. Unlike Australia, there aren't two
02:03houses of parliament. There's only one. But people have two different votes that they put
02:07when they come to a place like this primary school here in central Auckland. First, they
02:13vote for the actual individual electorate member. But then they vote for a party as well,
02:18a little bit like you do in Australia with the Senate. And then any party that gets over
02:235% wins a proportion of seats in that lower house that's commensurate with the size of their
02:30vote. So that means that minor parties always play an absolutely critical role in determining
02:36what happens in elections. It's only been one instance in the last 30 years since New Zealand
02:40embraced this system that they've actually had a party win a majority in their own right.
02:46And there's going to be a long series of negotiations after the votes come in to try and work out
02:51whether Christopher Luxon, the Prime Minister, or Chris Hipkins, the Labour leader, is the next
02:56Prime Minister. And that's going to be particularly pronounced, you'd say, this year as well,
03:01because it does seem very unlikely that any party is going to get enough support in their own right
03:06to form a government. So it could be that we're waiting a few weeks for all the results to come
03:11in before formal negotiations even start. Then you add a few weeks on top of that. We may not see
03:16a
03:16government for several weeks. But if there is a slightly more decisive result, perhaps, you know,
03:21it's clear that one of the two men are in a very strong position. And then they might kickstart
03:26formal negotiations straight away. And we may see a result within a few weeks. It's difficult to
03:31predict. But either way, we will not know for certain, I'd say tonight, who is going to be the
03:35next Prime Minister, even if we do get a pretty clear idea potentially about who might be in the box
03:41seat.
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