{"id":623721,"date":"2026-10-07T21:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T21:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623721\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T21:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T21:50:11","slug":"election-2026-john-key-shines-in-future-of-nz-debate-but-tamatha-paul-pushes-back-on-billionaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623721\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2026: John Key shines in Future of NZ debate, but Tamatha Paul pushes back on billionaires"},"content":{"rendered":"

He made his points so calmly and convincingly that he appeared to win a debate he wasn\u2019t actually contesting. At times, he did better than either of the Chrisses at their debate<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Seemingly out of nowhere, Key decided to take issue with a section of Tuesday night\u2019s leaders\u2019 debate which pondered whether it was morally acceptable to be a billionaire.<\/p>\n

Key asked \u201cwhat sort of wowsers have we become?\u201d and compared celebrating successful businesspeople with celebrating sportspeople and artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to celebrate the Warriors and the All Blacks … but if you\u2019ve built a world-class space company like Peter Beck, that\u2019s morally offensive?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re Graeme Hart and built the best packaging business in the world, that\u2019s morally offensive?\u201d Key asked, rhetorically. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is nuts!\u201d he said, saying New Zealand needed to celebrate all success, including success that made people wealthy.<\/p>\n

Later, he also took aim at the Greens\u2019 and NZ First\u2019s opposition to gene technology, warning it was undermining New Zealand\u2019s competitiveness in agriculture. Again, gene technology was only tangentially related to the debate topic, but Key clearly wanted to make a point about National\u2019s opponents and their allegedly ruinous policy so he went ahead and made it. <\/p>\n

Paul was also watching Tuesday night\u2019s leaders\u2019 debate and posted to social media that she did not think it was morally acceptable to live in a society with billionaires. <\/p>\n

Bridge warmed Paul up by saying he was going to ask about \u201cthe \u2018B\u2019 word\u201d \u2013 billionaires.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few grenades lobbed in that panel before,\u201d Paul said, referencing Key. <\/p>\n

Asked whether billionaires were immoral, Paul, who at times seemed to have more fun debating Bridge than her fellow candidates, said: \u201cWell, Ryan, you referenced my TikTok video so clearly you\u2019ve watched the two-and-a-half-minute video that I made about it \u2013 and it\u2019s parasitic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul said she did think being a billionaire was immoral<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to pay their fair share. I\u2019m not saying they should not exist altogether, I\u2019m saying they need to pay their fair share. Why do nurses, teachers and tradies pay more of an effective tax rate [than billionaires]?\u201d Paul said. <\/p>\n

As is often the case with these battle royale formats (there were seven candidates on stage), it was impossible to pick a winner. <\/p>\n

Paul seemed to have the most fun, but also showed a bit of policy backbone often lacking from her blunt, sometimes crass, social media blasts.<\/p>\n

National\u2019s finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis was probably the most accomplished debater. In a time when voters are clearly feeling fed up with the status quo, and all parties agree things have been tough, it is very hard to be the incumbent. <\/p>\n

She wisely got stuck into Barbara Edmonds over Labour leader Chris Hipkins signalling during Tuesday night\u2019s debate he might soften the one-hour reading, writing and maths mandate in schools, leaving it to schools to determine.<\/p>\n

The panels were pretty clear: education is key to the future.<\/p>\n

And education was a topic on which most public commentators seemed to think National leader Christopher Luxon bettered Hipkins. <\/p>\n

Edmonds herself had a decent interjection. When Willis explained Luxon\u2019s openness to phasing out bottom trawling, she said she was \u201cin agreement with the Prime Minister \u2013 that\u2019s how this works\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve had a vote of confidence twice, by the way,\u201d Edmonds said to some laughter. <\/p>\n

\"CandidatesCandidates at the Future of New Zealand debate. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori\u2019s Oriini Kaipara didn\u2019t do a great job explaining why her party hadn\u2019t costed its climate policy (she said it would evolve as the climate evolves). <\/p>\n

NZ First\u2019s Shane Jones\u2019 ear-splitting interjections may have had viewers reaching for the volume control. What plays well in Parliament doesn\u2019t always play well on TV. <\/p>\n

Poor Opportunity\u2019s Daniel Eb, standing next to Jones, looked positively deafened. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He made his points so calmly and convincingly that he appeared to win a debate he wasn\u2019t actually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,1863,5432,11346,1565,3013,4101,5903,793,2740,3273,2518,30689,49531,78,5126,4277,13840,6722,9062,111,43,139,2551,69,1118,90,17357,415,18661,5128,38889,30948,175483,122,1680,80],"class_list":["post-623721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-back","tag-between","tag-billionaires","tag-bridge","tag-but","tag-debate","tag-election","tag-felt","tag-former","tag-future","tag-green","tag-heralds","tag-hosted","tag-in","tag-john","tag-key","tag-like","tag-minister","tag-moments","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-paul","tag-prime","tag-pushes","tag-ryan","tag-shines","tag-showdown","tag-tamatha","tag-unlikely","tag-wednesday","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}