The Trans Tasman Pol Pod episode 21

The latest Talbot Mills poll which saw National climb out of the 20s will be good news for the party, but Chris Luxon's decision to rule out Opportunity after the election may come back to bite him. Winston Peters invoked a political storm this week with his attack in Parliament on Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan telling him to "go back to your own country" during a debate. Some called it a sackable offence. National has tried to blunt some of its negatives among women by offering more paid parental leave. But not all at once – it’s not important enough for that. LGNZ President Rehette Stoltz took a positive view of a number of improvements made to the Government’s RMA Bills, reported back by the Environment Committee, but she’s not happy with all the changes. Chris Luxon appears amenable to some regulation of data centre activity in this country, but won’t countenance a moratorium on their approval for a year as proposed by the Greens. And we're joined by Dr Michael Swanson honorary research fellow at the university of Otago to talk about the rise in populism in New Zealand politics and the way political language has become more aggressive.