 You're listening to The Crunch with Cam Slater, right here on RCR, Reality Check Radio. Morris Williamson has been on The Crunch before. He was a political tragic then, but what most people don't know about Morris is that he was a computer programmer before entering politics and as a ninja was a spreadsheet. I heard he had a polling model that was producing some interesting numbers, so I thought I'd get back to him, get him back on the show as well to do some predictions for the election. He joins me now. Welcome back to The Crunch, Morris. Thank you very much. Now many listeners don't know, but you're a bit of a ninja when it comes to spreadsheets and algorithms and stuff that's confusing. Yeah, it's one of the things that makes me a bit of a weirdo, but I did a degree in computer science and I still write code. I still write and see SHARP and I write in Python. But my mathematics background also allows me to do trend analysis and to look at graphs and see when they are declining and when they're turning around and try to fit a sort of a particular set of formulas to it. And so over the years, I've looked at elections and I've watched what happens as you get closer and closer to the date and found some quite interesting trends that occur. Now remember, none of this is exact because if a big bomb blew out tomorrow that one of the leaders of one of the parties was going to jail for some heinous crime and the party fell apart, the numbers could be completely different. But it is pretty good percentage of probabilities that it predicts what's going on, barring any sort of catastrophic change in the wind. I always remember the Christchurch meralty. Jim Mandaton was so far ahead, he literally didn't even have to put up any more signs or campaign. And then suddenly the ground all shook and by the election, Jim Mandaton got beaten because Bob Parker had the airwaves every night in his orange jacket and he got it. So that's just a bit of a disclaimer. Now, some of the history I've analysed, obviously, what happened to Labour in 1990, they went into this big Calypso-Calypso. And finally in the end, Mike Moore got bought in with only a few weeks to go to the election as the leader to try and save some of the debt chairs on the tie tap. And then similarly, we had that collapse, National had that collapse in 2002. Seriously, big collapse. And what was interesting there is a lot of those voters, everyone thought they'd gone to Labour, but Labour didn't actually pick up any new vote at all in 2002. They just stayed home, didn't they? They just stayed home. But what happened is, about three other parties, one was called United Future. In fact, they got so many votes, they ended up with a Kelly-Charle, I think her name was, who got to be an MP and she wasn't even eligible because she wasn't a citizen. So they ended up with having to drop one and so on. Winston did incredibly well and ACT, I think, got, you know, seven or eight percent or whatever. That was just because of seabirds out at sea in the wildstorm. We're looking for an outcrop to land on. National had vacated the playing field and was literally out. So now they have to find another configuration. And my graphs fit very comfortably to that move away in that particular time. It was the third parties where in 2020, that fourth, that four hundred and twenty thousand national vote moved to Labour because the only configuration that most quality thinking people could see is you're going to get a Labour Greens government. We'd be a lot better off having just a Labour government. I mean, I know how badly I know how badly that sounds now. It's embarrassing to even say it. But a lot of people thought that a moderate, sensible Labour by itself, not to make trade off to the lunatic extreme end of the political world. And so four hundred and twenty thousand people that had voted National in 17 jumped the line. But it's Winston's fault, isn't it? No, it's not. That's what people say, right? After 2020, everyone blames Winston. Yeah, and I think Winston has a particularly good argument. He's given a choice of two. He goes into his first meeting with one side and he's told, I'm not sure this is going to be that stable. The spill could be on and, as you know, National has spilt quite a few leaders subsequently to that. And he goes, oh, well, not sure I want to get involved in something that that's unstable. Yeah, it happened to him in 1999, didn't it? Yeah, yeah, but it did, it did. And he had to I mean, he had to walk away on a point of principle over the Wellington airport. Yes, I was in the cabinet room at the time. I didn't agree with him. I didn't see anything wrong with selling airport shares, but he stood by his principles and he walked from the government. And so he literally, I think, is right in saying there weren't nine games in town. There weren't even five. There were only two games in town and one had basically said. Well, no, we want to play, but it's so unstable, it might not stay afloat for even time to get through to the swearing in. And so he took what I think is pretty much the only choice he had. He had to go with the other team. Now, I think he needs a hell of a lot of credit. I really do think he needs a lot of credit for having been a sea anchor for three years. He stopped a lot of the nonsense. Now, he didn't stop at all because he didn't know about some of it. Hey, poor, poor was being done in the back room and a whole lot of others. But at least he did put the brakes on. I actually think he served a really good purpose as a handbrake to some of the more extreme measures. What happened is once 2020 came and they got the boot. Labor has a 50% margin, so it's now a government on its own right without even needing to seek another partner. And the chaos that reigns supreme from that point on. I don't think anybody gives anywhere near enough credit to exactly what happened at the beginning of this year. And remember, this is Labor's own words. Hipkins becomes the prime minister. And he says a whole lot of what we've been doing for five years is junk. And I'm going to throw it on the policy bonfire. We're going to have more than one. There'll be another policy bonfire to come and another one. And yet he'd been a senior minister in a cabinet that agreed to every one of those ghastly pieces of junk. And then suddenly he just says, all wrong with throwing it out. Garbage. There was desperation, really, wasn't it? Well, it has to be because normally a new leader would come in and stay with the general direction of travel because Jacinda doesn't make the policy. And then everyone just has to agree. She's got to get 20 votes around the cabinet. And I've been in the cabinet room many times where there weren't 20 votes for a proposal and so you don't get it. So this idea of, oh, well, she's gone. We're dropping all that. But there's there's so much more. I mean, Willie Jackson beavering away at a merger of Radio New Zealand and TV and spending millions on it. And suddenly policy bonfire gone. And then Michael Wood, Michael Wood, and that's a slightly different one. Michael Wood was allowed to avoid the policy bonfire to start with. Because he was still part of the team. And then it suddenly turned out that he was a reluctant share broker and he was not prepared to sell his shares. And even after 16 reminders. Now, when Simeon Brown made the announcement, first of all, 13 times the cabinet office had raised that that's got to be wrong. There's no way because I promise you I've been there. And we had a lady who was in charge of the catch. She was the cabinet secretary called Marie Schroff. And I know this is a bit cruel, but we used to call her Madam Lash. She was so she was so disciplinary in terms of if she picked up the phone to you and told you you failed to do something or why is that not with the office? So, you know, you bloody made sure you got it done because she would go immediately to the Prime Minister and you literally were in jeopardy of being booted. But it wasn't just it wasn't just her, though, because John Key, for example, had Wayne Eagleson and he would ring up and I'm sure you received one of those phone calls on a number of occasions. Gideon Morris, the boss is a bit disappointed. I'm sorry, you're going to have to put your head in on that. On a number of occasions. What that really is, is if you don't pull your head in, then the boss is going to stomp on your head. He's going to chop it off. And Helen Clark, Helen Clark and Heather Simpson. How does it work that a cabinet secretary has to talk to you more than once? I mean, Marie Shroff would never have come back to a second time. If you didn't declare back to her straight away, you know, she is a soldier done and then she'd say, right now, you've got to go to the register of precune interest and make sure you get it recorded and done. You would never wait for a second call. Have you done it again? But the 13 then turned out to be 16 times. Yeah. And I just literally I just I must be part of an old dinosaur brigade. I don't know how that's happened. But what happened then, when Hipkins had to finally sack him because he was left with no choice, then wood stuff all went on the bonfire as well. That was the, you know, we're getting rid of the cycle way across the white matter, and they spent millions. I think about 50 million on that. And they even hired premises down at the Viada. I don't know if it's still there, but it was there quite recently. Very new discs. Beautiful office discs, computer screens and everything and no sub lease clause. So they couldn't then say, well, we're not doing it anymore. We'll sub lease it out to anybody. So they couldn't. And yet they just scrapped it. And I remember talking to Duncan Garner when he was still doing the whatever the early morning show on TV three used to be called. And I said to him, take a bit with Michael Wood for whatever summer money you want, put them for a hundred grand, 10 grand, whatever you'll come up with, that will never happen. Because anybody who's been in the transport portfolio, actually, anybody who's got half a brain cell still functioning in the public knew you were never going to build a separate walking and cycling bridge across the wider matter harbour, right next to the existing bridge. You know, it was it was literally laughable and then to spend 50 million on it, only to know that it was going to get scrapped. I could have said you, you, you pay me 10 million rather than 50. And I'll make the announcement right away because the answer is no. And so they've got serious problems that they've caused themselves. And it's not my view. I want to get it. It's a competence issue, isn't it? It's really a competence issue, a lack of competence. Any of your listeners listening now will say, Oh, of course, the National Party would say that will make sure they understand. It was Labour that said their policies were trash. It was Hipkins who said they were wrong. And it was him that said we're going to have bonfires and burn up the policy. Not me. That's what he said and they did. They got rid of the wider matter walkway bridge and they got rid of this and they got rid of that left, right and center. And yet the media don't seem to ever come back to them and say for five years under Jacinda, you were a senior minister in that cabinet, having a lot of say over policy. And somehow you emerged out of the mist as a new saviour and none of that was you those other five years. Yeah, so that leaves us with your spreadsheet now. OK, so let me give you a preface on the history and the incompetence. I want to get that in because it's that corrosive environment that leads to what I call that death spiral. What will be happening now is Labour voters, you know, some of the good old boys who go to the cosy club in Papadeau, you don't like all the woke stuff that's been done. But we're prepared to stick by them for a while. There's a bailout from them and it might be we're not going to vote. So you might see a very poor turnout from them. But you might also see them. What I think is starting to look for alternatives. Most of those guys couldn't bring themselves to vote. Well, they said wouldn't vote act. No, they might bring themselves, some of them to vote national. But a lot of them will go with Winston in my view. And that's why I've got him on that sort of elevated climb in my in my numbers while I see Labour even dropping further. I think there's a variant poll out tomorrow night on TV one. And my view is that Labour will drop even further, another percent or so. At what point do they have no list MPs and run the risk of causing an overhang? So let me give you the numbers now with that variant poll the other night. They got down as far as Mr. Speaker Adrian Ru Rafi. So that's one, two, three, four, five, six. However, only a couple of percentage points change and that drops away to only Grant Robertson and Jan Tannetti. And if they also get another couple of points go to say one percent point going to the Greens and another percent to Winston's party, then both Robertson and Tannetti die. And so you're down to only constituent MPs. I think as you get closer to the day, I'll make you a bold prediction that I can be held to. I think the two major parties are going to be scrapping over no more than 10 list seats. There's 48 list seats of which 38 are almost guaranteed to New Zealand first to act to the Greens, probably even to party. Maori picking up a couple, because I don't think they'll win anything in the constituencies other than Wairiki. We could be looking at 10 of those seats going straight to New Zealand first and maybe 12 going to the act party. Yeah, that's 22 seats right there. And another 15 or so green. Yeah. So another three. So National, I think, is only going to get the MPs it's trying to protect back. I think, you know, they're trying to keep Paul Goldsmith Nicola Willis, Melissa Lee, Jerry Brownlee. I think they're trying to keep them back. But I don't see National getting any new listies. And I don't think Labour even protecting their currently, even on the very end poll from last week, and it's going to get worse. But even on that poll, David Park has gone. Well, he's the most competent minister. He is indeed. David Park has gone. Andrew Little's gone on that one last week. That'll be no great loss. Well, for them, it will, because he's sort of central to he's central to the union support, which seems to be waning because the Labour Party doesn't seem to represent the working class anymore. No, but the others. One of the MPs that I think's got a bit of sort of substance to him, Karen McEnulty, I don't think he's going to win the wire rapper based on the polling I've seen. And if he doesn't, he's certainly not coming in from the list. Ginny Anderson certainly ain't going to win Hut South and she won't be coming in from the list. That they're going to have what we hadn't what National had in 2002, this big absolute collapse of people and a huge number of ours, mainly listies, but some constituent all in the caucus room crying and getting their silver trade because they were all going. And I don't think that. And of course, what happens is Labour MP start to realise that now. It gets way more corrosive internally. For example, what you saw with Greg, whatever his name is, in the Hario. Greg O'Connor. Yeah, trying to remember his name. He's basically going out and saying, now you better vote for me. Now, I mean, I'm guilty of that in 2002, when I didn't think that national could even get anywhere and it didn't. It got less than 21 percent. I actually had hoardings up, which said, vote Morris Williamson. Big hoardings, Morris Williamson for Pakaranga. There was no pictures of the leader. And I have to say, it was so hilarious because I went to the Rotary Club and I said to the Pakaranga Rotary Club, look, I desperately need you to give me your candidate vote. It's vital. And one of the guys down the back put his hand up and said, excuse me, isn't that the other way around to what you told us last time? Because in 99, I'd been there saying the only vote that matters is the party vote and I want your party vote. So it becomes corrosive. They all fight for their own survival. If you look across the water from where I am, Priyanka Radhakrishnan has got a real fight on her hands. I think the polling shows she's she's gone. She's gone for all money. Yeah. She's gone for all money. But what she'll be trying to do is say, well, learn to forget the party vote because I'm so far down the list, I ain't going to get enough of that. Try to, you know, at least win one vote. If you want to split your vote, give me your candidate vote and vote for whoever else. And then it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So again, my formulas track that down. I'm coming up with Labour with a 25 in front of it. And I'm coming up with Winston with a seven point something. I could even go seven point eight, seven point nine. Yeah, I'm picking up a lot of what I'd say, traditional national party voters, quite senior business people, large employers, and they're saying to me privately. No, they'll never go on record, but they're saying to me privately, just look, I really just can't vote for the national. And Winston's saying the things that I want to hear. He's anti-woke, he's anti-co-governance and he's talking like he means it. And so they're all saying quietly to me, you know, we're all going to vote New Zealand first. And so is our whole family. And I've never seen this before. You know, you and I are not tracking within the national party, right? We've got a history going back decades and I'm talking to people that normally would say, yeah, true blue two votes for for national. They're not saying that now. I'm not tracking from all of the numbers and the polling I'm looking at in the various electorates. I'm not tracking national dropping, but national growing either. Nationals should be with Labour so much in the doldrums. Nationals should be in the 40s. It should have a four in front of it. So what do you put that down to? Look, I think if you're buying a clothes washing detergent, if you don't think Rinceau is washing cleaner and whiter, you won't switch to personal unless you think it's going to wash cleaner and whiter. It's a simple marketing tool. This product's better than that one. My concern is there that the hard line national party votes baked in. But a lot of people are saying, well, I don't see enough. That's why acts doing as well as it's doing and they are doing very well. It's why Winston is starting to pick up and will pick up more because at least both of those offer some hard and fast. We believe in we are opposed to we will do the following. Nationals doing what all the big parties have always done. National and Labour have always tried to play it safe around the centre. And I think it's got to the point that the smaller parties are now big enough that you can't just play that hole from the centre on out to the right or the centre on out to the left. You've got to have something with more substance to it. So seriously, national should be way more than it is. But I don't think it's going to drop any vote. So I think it's going to be the government. But I think it's got problems in terms of how it gets enough configuration. It's looking more and more like it's going to be impossible to be with just one other party. I mean, I'm picking that national will land somewhere between thirty five and thirty seven. Yeah, my numbers are saying thirty six point eight, I think it is. Yeah, that's by the day. And I'll track that on. I've got all these sort of curve trackers, which will show. Now, if Varian comes in with a slightly different number tomorrow night, it'll put a slight dent in that number and every day it will get updated because the formulas are dynamic and keeps. But I think again, thirty six or thirty seven is where it would be. You would expect when the government is so far in the toilet as they are for votes that the leading opposition party would be in the forties. I mean, this is the worst government ever. Michael Bassett said on my show a couple of weeks ago that in his experience and all of the study he's done as a historian, this is the worst government in his memory. And when I pushed him and asked him, well, what about the whole of the history of New Zealand? Parliaments, he undernired for a little bit about 1932, 1935. And then he said, no, actually, you're right, it's the worst government ever. Now, I wouldn't argue with Michael Bassett on. I mean, here's some heroic views and some of his history. That's fine. But I wouldn't argue with him on that. I mean, no one study New Zealand politics more than he has. But take my point earlier. It's not Michael Bassett's view. It is not my view. Hipkins says all of what we've been doing is rubbish. We're throwing it on the bonfire. It was crap. He didn't say that for five years. And then one day Jacinda's got no fuel left in the tank, which I now understand she's saying, oh, there was fuel in the tank. But I wasn't I wasn't using it. I needed I needed that fuel to bolt to get away. If I was arguing it on the stumpings right now and someone said to me, oh, you know, that's only your view because you're a national. I said, no, no, no, let me read from Chris Hipkins notes. He said a whole lot of our policies were wrong and they're going on the bonfire. And so it's got to be hard to stay with a team that's ditching all the other stuff. Willie Jackson, I think, has been the most divisive minister in the history of the Labour Party, because he's taken that Maori caucus to a place where they are unsalable and driven such a wedge. I think he's damaged race relations for a long time for a generation. I think he's created people who are almost racist now that never were and never thought of being. But just say, well, if you want to take it to that extreme, like the Maori Party putting on their website that Maori genes are superior to other humans. Now, if I put that out about white people, well, a bloke back in Germany in 1930s tried that about Aryan genes. And look what we think of him. It's disgusting. It's so wrong. It's not funny. And if I put that out, it's the same guy who said that was just interviewed, you know, in the last couple of days by Lloyd Burr from News Hub, and he's quoted as saying, oh, look, you know, I'm not a big fan of democracy because democracy is the tyranny of the majority. Saw that. Saw that. What he's really saying is that he'd prefer the absolute tyranny of the minority. Sure. Of course he would. Because that's the only thing that if you don't believe in democracy, then you believe in totalitarianism, because it's the only option that's left. And your uncle's in charge of the military and your grandfather runs a reserve bank. It's bizarre. And he says these things and no one challenges him. And I think I raised this on a number of interviews I've done. I thought the Marama Davidson stuff about all the violence in the world is done by white cis males. And she was never forced to retract it. So it was a stupid thing. I was wrong. But you get pilloried for complaining about posters that are pushing this racist agenda. Sure. In the council and you get pilloried by the media and everybody else. Yeah. And all I say is I'm not going to do it because I'm not brave enough. But I bet you have someone got up there and said all the violence in the world is created by brown cis males. You literally have the whole thing crash on. You'd be gone. You'd be ostracised out. I want to know why it's OK for one side to say it, but not the other. Yeah, it's an appalling division of society that has occurred under this government. And it started with the vaccine mandates and it's carried on with the overt racism as well. If you take, you know, the Maori issue of their badly represented in health statistics and their badly represented in education outcomes and their badly represented in crime statistics in prison, then a really good way to take your policy forward is to say, well, well, what does success look like and how do we change that paradigm of getting Maori kids doing better in the schools? How do we change it so that we have them less involved in the crime statistics and so on? And most people would go along with you. But what you can't do is say, well, we'll put something in place only for Maori because what Winston makes the point. Imagine if Winston went to an emergency department hospital tonight and he's sitting in there against a white, very poor lady from Clinton, who's got not enough money to even put mints and toast on the table. And the lady comes out and says, Mr. Peters, you're Maori, you're first. You just say that no one would have no one would abide by that. But what you would say is people who are in need of assistance, they should be getting it based on need. And if they change their language to we'll put our focus in our work in the education sector and in the trying to support people into work and all sorts of other things based on need, you'd carry the country. You'd carry the country because I don't think there's a political party out there that could argue, damn it, if they are down in the dumps and they're bad, who cares their fault? Yeah, we've got to try and success will be for us all to benefit from if Maori had jobs and were low participants in the crime and they were doing exceedingly well in the education sector and so on. So what Willie Jackson has done with his vicious stuff and it's just real nasty stuff. He telling David Seymour, he's not a real Maori and all that. I mean, it's not the right kind of Maori. Not the right kind of Maori. Yeah, what the kind is one that lets Willie Jackson get lots of money in his pocket. What's ironic, Morris, is that Bill English and neither you or I are big fans of Bill English, but that approach that you were talking about saying what does success look like and then building a policy framework around that to get outcomes that resemble that success is something that he actually did very, very well. I mean, he couldn't lead a party, but he's very good at doing those sorts of things on very policy centric. He not only did it very well, he's still doing it well. His whole attitude about that social investment that you put the energy and the effort where it will make the biggest change to people's lives and produce good outcomes for them. But again, I don't think Bill is ever saying we'll only put a policy in place that works based on your race. Well, I mean, that staggers me, too, that Andrew Little in the middle of a pandemic came up with an idea to separate the health system, turn it on its head, split it between races, everyone else and then Maori and then try and sell that to us that this was all going to be wonderful. And we'll have great success in the waiting list will disappear. And all of the problems that they accuse national of having for when they were in power before will disappear because this is going to be wonderful. But Winston makes a good point. That is disingenuous to Maori them. That's you can't make it on your own. You don't know how to live your own lives. Condescending. We got it's terribly condescending. Instead of saying most of social evils and ills in the country we've got occur because you're at the very bottom of the socioeconomic heap. So let's put some help to the bottom of the social. And if you happen to be Asian or you happen to be Pacific Island or Maori or white, it won't matter. You're all got the same access. But this idea of when we're having breast screening. And if you're a Maori woman, you'll get a $50 Prezi card. But if you're not, the Maori woman could easily be married to a lawyer and living in a mansion and driving a Mercedes into the car park. But she's Maori. And I want to give you one last one that I think is just so incredibly hard. What is a Maori? Because we get statistics. They come out the other day. Fifty eight percent of Maori are not passing level two, you know, NCA. What does that mean? If you've got one sixty fourth Maori blood, are you in that statistic or not? If you've got if you've got one twenty fifth, you know, you've got twenty five percent. Sorry. If you got twenty five percent Maori blood, are you in that statistic? Because I don't know what constitute a Maori for those statistics. And so how do they produce that? And you used to used to be the minister of statistics, too. I'm the longest serving minister of statistics ever in this country's history. And I can tell you, I still don't know what. Now, what I get told by people who should know is you're a Maori if you feel Maori. You're a Maori if you want to identify with a whakapapa and David Seymour identifies as being Maori and so on. But there are heaps of people out there. There are cousins in my family through the other side of it that have had one Maori person within that lineage along the way, but not really associated with anything that you would understand like a Marae or whatever, but are they eligible for the $50 Prezi card? Well, apparently they would be. But how do you know that? What happens at the car park? Do they just say, are you Maori? Well, I mean, that was my solution for all of this, is that we all just declare ourselves to be Maori. And that's the end of the of the division, where I feel like a Maori. I am a one Debbie Narewa Packer. She had a lovely piece about her family the other night. And there was a lot of European members in her ancestry. So when she goes to the doctor, is she a Maori? I have asked this question so many times, I can never get a straight answer. How do you identify who is a Maori? Well, you could ask Chris Simkins, but he can identify what a woman is. So you're probably not going to get an answer. That's the hilarious one. If you can't tell what a woman is, what about a Wahini Maori? And it's wrong. It's wrong on all counts. If we said all Asians should get special treatment or all Pacific Islanders should that's equally as wrong where there's need and there's merit for the assistance that we're going to try and help you go for it. And that's the key we know, isn't it? That's the biggest social investment. Yeah, I think English has done a fabulous piece of work with that whole social investment. And he's doing it now in the private sector and doing a really good job of it and all all power to his arm. But nobody out there believes that just because of your race, then Winston puts that better than anybody. And of course, the problem is he can. Yeah, he can. You know, I've been writing and people ask my opinion now, why should Christopher Luxon bring in Winston Peters into government? And I always say, well, because he Winston Peters can say the things that Luxon can't say. He Winston Peters can do the things that Christopher Luxon can't do because he'll be attacked for being a racist or a sexist or whatever. Winston doesn't care. He's happy to do those things because he believes that they're the right thing to do. Oh, look, and I tell you what, while I was a diplomat in MFAT and living in L.A., he is an enormous reputation as a foreign minister. He was guarded by everybody I spoke to from other embassies and other consulates and not just in America, but around them. They said, oh, you know, you've got a fabulous representative in your foreign minister. So he does that job in particularly well. He may not want it, of course. He might want something else. But I think he wants to be broadcasting minister. Yeah, I heard that. I thought he wanted to get the broadcasting for probably only for a week or so. But for a week and then hack at TVNZ and Radio New Zealand with a great big axe. Yeah, now, I mean, I don't agree with Winston on a whole. I don't agree with Winston's view on foreign investment. I don't agree with this, but that's fine. You know, if you you get more than two people in a room, you won't agree with each other on everything. And we all have to do that now because there's this approved thing that you all agree on, right? That the least that you've got to follow. Yeah, anyway, back to the polls. Yeah, what about weather? Now, there's an old saying that if it rains on election day, it's bad for labor. It's it's it's proven to be garbage. And I'll tell you why. If you go back to like when I was a little kid growing up in Auckland in the early fifties, only people that were reasonably well off had a car, people that weren't well off, didn't have a car. And so what happened is when it was raining, the people drove out of their driveways and the lovely suburbs and went off to vote and the poor people who either had to walk or catch a bike or mainly public transport, which didn't exist. So there was some merit for it. But I can tell you there is no evidence of recent polling that the weather makes any difference. And by the way, two thirds, no, I'm going to go higher than two thirds will have voted before the day anyway. Yeah, it's going to be around about 68 percent or 70 percent. I reckon it's 70. I reckon you got a 70. I mean, I voted. I voted the first day. Yeah, but what's hilarious about the rules? You're not allowed to have this on election day. Oh, no, it's ridiculous. You're not allowed to signs up on election day. They've got to be down on midnight the night before because it could influence people's vote. But we're voting now. But people are voting right now and the signs are up everywhere. So so we've got to change a whole range of of what you can. And you're not allowed to use social media to say I voted and put something up on the day. But you can do that now and so on. So look, weather is not a factor. It will be a matter of whether do I want to keep voting for this party or am I best just to stay at home? By my calculation, there's at least five more polls before election day. There's there's two more variants. Yeah, two more variants. There's likely to be a news hub. There'll be a Roy Morgan and there's a taxpayers union. So is at least five. I mean, we don't know if Harold's going to do a Digipoll. We don't know if stuff has got enough enough money to to rustle up a poll in the last week. But there's a good chance that they will. But it's at least five more polls. We're going to see that movement before the before the end of this week, though, aren't we? We're going to see. Yes, you're you'll see any labor. You'll see it and it becomes exponential decay. It gets bigger and each grip block gets bigger. And so what happens is like the tipping over a cliff. But it's just slowly, first of all, and then it goes drop. And I think you'll see Winston's do the sort of reverse of that time. And as I said, my numbers are Nats, thirty six point eight or so. Labor to be lucky to be twenty five point something. And I've got Winston getting seven point, you know, he could be six point eight or seven point something. That's a big big chunk of it depends on the surge. They could be a surge on. There could be. There could. Yeah, I think you won't get as big a turn out as you've had in some elections, because I think a lot of labor voters will just say I'm staying at home. Yeah. But I'm pretty confident that National will still score its forty five MPs, maybe forty eight, not sure, but somewhere in that high forty MPs. Acts going to give you fifteen or whatever. So you might be able to get a national act government. But you know what, John Key was even smarter enough to say when he did have the numbers, I'm still going to get the Maori party involved here because it's an insurance policy in case anything turns to cost it a lot. It was quite a different party back then to be. Oh, they didn't look anything like it. No. So so let's just talk about some minor parties to to wrap up with. Right. Yeah, I'm I've got the gut feeling and it is just a gut feeling. But you know, I've been involved in politics as long as you have. Yeah, I've got a gut feeling that the Maori Party, the turnout in the Maori electorates is going to drop well away. They're going to go, well, there's no point and they won't vote. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think why Ricky is the only seat they will win, although that Boynton, that Tony Boynton lady is a hell of a good campaigner and got a lot of respect with and married him. You know, why or area, whatever his name is, could go. And if they don't win, why Ricky, they don't win anything because they're not going to win the other seats. No. If you look at all of the other seats, Sekiroa, Rafiti and so on, Labour's got some very credible, strong and in one of the seats, they've got that whole Ratna backing for Labour. The Maori Party could be in a lot of trouble keeping in the parliament unless they can hold on to my Ricky. There wouldn't be a bad thing to just quietly. Well, I think it would be a good thing for a Maori to have a party that was sensible and ran things that were beneficial to Maori dim and so on. But they are extremist to the point that even the vast bulk of ordinary everyday garden variety Maori out there and workland getting up in the morning with a job goes, they're nuts. These guys are nuts. So they're extremists. They're the radical extremist and Winston, I think, quite rightly labels them as that. So but I think they'll be there. I think they'll win, why Ricky? And I think they'll pick up a couple of listies, but that'll be it for them. Let's have a couple of curve balls. So do you think Matt King's got a chance in Northland? Not a dog show. Right. So that's democracy. New Zealand gone, right? The polling in that electorate is he is fourth or fifth gone. Yeah. OK. What about the claims by the top leader that he's going to win Ireland and National should do a deal with with him so that they can get in there to stop? Well, first of all, it's a bit conflicting. He said, I'm going to win Ireland and now you should do a deal. So I can win it, which one was correct again? No, no, sorry. The problem with these things is in the constituency, it's a totally different ballgame to the party vote. There's only one electorate for the party vote, and that's called New Zealand. In each constituency, there are localised factors and ground games that the parties can put forward and do a big job of. I'm telling what, you've heard it right now. I've sealed envelope. No way is top going to get there. No way is Matt King's democracy. No way is Alfred Narrow's New Zealand. No way is all of the bits and pieces out there. So Liz Gunn from NZ Loyal says that there's two million voters that are hiding out there, and they're all going to they're all keeping their power to dry. They're not responding to the polls. You know, she's managed to keep them quiet with the pollsters. They're not showing up in the polls. Do you think there's going to be this vote quake that Liz Gunn is claiming that all of a sudden NZ Loyal is going to end up with, you know, 20 MPs? Well, I was travelling to the planet Zorb last night on a satellite spaceship with some aliens, and they told me how they're going to do it. And when they get back, they're going to have two million registered voters on the day and do it. And I think that's a good strategy, but my numbers are not showing it. That's the thing is, you know, I talked to David Farah. I talked to pollsters. I talked to experts and statistics like yourself. And they were all saying the same thing, not a chance to help. Yeah. And let me just say I'm going to finish now, but I'm going to finish with one last thing. The number of times I had to go campaigning during my 30 years in other electorates because mine was going to be one. So go out and help. And I've gone to seats like the West Coast of the South Island and I've gone to the new shiny face national candidate with his blue rosette and you walk around all of the towns up in the Hoka Turku. Reefton. And you get a good reception. Oh, you know, good to see you, you know, good luck for the election. And he said, see, see, look at look at the phenomenon. I said, that doesn't mean they're voting for you. People are polite. People are going to they're not going to say, oh, you lose your piece of shit. They'll be polite and say, you know, good luck. But I guarantee you that won't translate. It was hard to say because you knew they weren't going to win. And I was like, oh, I looked at the reception. I'm getting out there. I think I'm going to win by a country mile. I'm going, oh, please. Yeah, I've always said that, you know, there's some electorates you could put a donkey with a blue rosette and it'd get elected. And there's some electorates you could put a pig with a red rosette and it would get elected. Hamaki might break that. Yeah, it's it's an interesting case there. I mean, I just can't believe it's a lot closer than I can't believe the arrogance of the act party to say that they've put a candidate up because they they think that the views of the national candidate are poison to women. I mean, it's just so arrogant. You know, Simon O'Connor has been elected in there several times. Yeah, massive majorities in New Zealanders just don't vote because somebody put a tweet out supporting something in the United States that the Supreme Court had done. I mean, they just don't. Well, I'm going to tell you now, I think it's going to be so close. Harder to pick than a broken nose. Way harder to pick than a broken nose. Well, on that, OK, I think we'll leave that. Morris, thank you very much for coming on the crime. Good to talk to you, mate. OK, thank you. It's always interesting talking to Morris Williamson, and he's certainly given us some food for thought, though I'm not sure I'd bet against Morris's predictions. He does have the experience and I know how to put all this together and give us a sensible analysis. But one thing is for sure, Labour are burned. There's no coming back for them this election. It's all over. Tell me your thoughts on what Morris had to say by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057. This is The Crunch with Cam Slater. Conversations with a side of controversy right here on RCR.