While I was away over Easter and then another week, I was not a slave to the news cycle. I opted out for a while because I figured the insanity would still be here when I came back on duty and I was right.

The Straits of Hormuz are still closed, Trump is still threatening to obliterate Iran. New Zealand homes are still being flooded, roads are still being closed in weather events, they're just in different parts of the country. And political commentators are still saying Christopher Luxon is a dead man walking.

When he came in for his weekly chat with Mike this morning, the Prime Minister didn't sound as exasperated as I thought he might. I thought he'd be getting so fed up with it. He was very calm and seemed to understand I suppose a bit why the questions were being asked.

He said when it came to the dissent within his own party he thought there were about five grumpy backbenchers who were the root cause of all the grumblings, who would lose their jobs if they got their wish and saw him rolled because New Zealand voters in the past have not responded well when sitting Prime Ministers are dumped if you look at David Lange and Geoffrey Palmer and Jim Bolger. New Zealand voters don't like that.

So the backbenchers might be the turkeys voting for an early Christmas or an early Thanksgiving depending on which part of the country you're in.

When it came to the polls, Christopher Luxon said well which one do you believe?

That's the problem.

I've seen polls in a given week where I've had one that has us at 36 one that would have us at 30 just a couple months ago.

So you can get bounced around by polls and I listen to it to a degree, but at the end of the day the public do not want me fixated on that.

We've seen examples in the Australian election where polls were all over the place.

So you've got to listen to it because there's some genuinely good feedback in there about what you need to do better, which is good.

Perfectly reasonable. I don't think I would have been as reasonable. Must be so frustrating.

But look, if some New Zealanders think a Labour Greens Te Pāti Māori coalition would get the Straits of Hormuz open tomorrow and gas prices down, well good luck to them.

They probably believe in unicorns and they probably still believe in Santa.

And the polls are starting to trigger oppositional defiance in some people I've been talking to.

They can work a number of different ways. They can be informative for voters, they can give parties feedback about their performance or perceived performance as Christopher Luxon was saying. But Grant Duncan from the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland was writing in The Conversation and they can be unhelpful when framed by media in sensationalist or biased ways.

Ya reckon?

He says people should be left to make up their own minds about which candidate or party best represents them rather than view an election as a contest narrated in terms of who's up and who's down.

And I think people do, I think people do start to look at the polls and go don't tell me what to think or do.

He says in the end we should read the polls and the media critically, check for example who's done the survey, who's sponsored it, what the methodology was, and he says remember that they don't predict future outcomes, they're only looking at past trends, they're a snapshot in time of what happened before.

He says they can also, you can't even take anything from the polls like oh well with everybody saying Labour Greens and Te Pāti Māori are going to win, which was almost like coughing up a furball but there we go.

If you see a poll saying that you might think 'oh well better tick them, I'll go with the winner'. Or you might think 'oh well I better give a tick to the centre right, I'll go for the underdog'. Or you might think it's a foregone conclusion and not vote at all.

So, as Grant's saying, you can't even take anything from what voters will do from the polls. If you look at the US presidential election it was neck and neck up until the actual result, which was not. And when you look at our past elections, the polls at this time of the year did not get it right in the lead up to the election. They massively overestimated National support and underestimated the sort of support that Labour would get.

So the polls in a way are a media construct. They're sponsored by media organisations, the media organisations have their names in them and it helps generate a headline.

Bang, kapow, wham as Mikey Sherman might say on 1News. They're feeding themselves.

We all have a vote, we all have different views about how best this country should be run, we all have a view about the sort of priorities a government should have and we'll be able to exercise our democratic right later in the year.

Are the polls going to make a blind bit of difference to you?

We're not allowed to publish polls on polling day. In European countries there's a blackout on polls a little bit earlier than that. Quite frankly I'd like to see a moratorium on them for three years.

I'm sick to death of them.

It's a bit like the weather news, you know, in a way I want to be informed, I want to know where the storm is coming and when it's supposed to be hitting, but once a day, not every minute of every hour because otherwise you just become inured to the news that they're supposed to be giving you.

I'd like to know perhaps once a day, but turning it into a media circus I don't think is very helpful. And it's the same with the polls. In the end you get a bit of oppositional defiance and stick one finger and say 'I'll vote exactly how I want to vote thank you very much and all of the hype in the world is not going to make me change my mind'.

While I was away over Easter and then another week, I was not a slave to the news cycle. I opted out for a while because I figured the insanity would still be here when I came back on duty and I was right.
The Straits of Hormuz are still closed, Trump is still threatening to obliterate Iran. New Zealand homes are still being flooded, roads are still being closed in weather events, they're just in different parts of the country. And political commentators are still saying Christopher Luxon is a dead man walking.
When he came in for his weekly chat with Mike this morning, the Prime Minister didn't sound as exasperated as I thought he might. I thought he'd be getting so fed up with it. He was very calm and seemed to understand I suppose a bit why the questions were being asked.
He said when it came to the dissent within his own party he thought there were about five grumpy backbenchers who were the root cause of all the grumblings, who would lose their jobs if they got their wish and saw him rolled because New Zealand voters in the past have not responded well when sitting Prime Ministers are dumped if you look at David Lange and Geoffrey Palmer and Jim Bolger. New Zealand voters don't like that.
So the backbenchers might be the turkeys voting for an early Christmas or an early Thanksgiving depending on which part of the country you're in.
When it came to the polls, Christopher Luxon said well which one do you believe?
That's the problem.
I've seen polls in a given week where I've had one that has us at 36 one that would have us at 30 just a couple months ago.
So you can get bounced around by polls and I listen to it to a degree, but at the end of the day the public do not want me fixated on that.
We've seen examples in the Australian election where polls were all over the place.
So you've got to listen to it because there's some genuinely good feedback in there about what you need to do better, which is good.
Perfectly reasonable. I don't think I would have been as reasonable. Must be so frustrating.
But look, if some New Zealanders think a Labour Greens Te Pāti Māori coalition would get the Straits of Hormuz open tomorrow and gas prices down, well good luck to them.
They probably believe in unicorns and they probably still believe in Santa.
And the polls are starting to trigger oppositional defiance in some people I've been talking to.
They can work a number of different ways. They can be informative for voters, they can give parties feedback about their performance or perceived performance as Christopher Luxon was saying. But Grant Duncan from the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland was writing in The Conversation and they can be unhelpful when framed by media in sensationalist or biased ways.
Ya reckon?
He says people should be left to make up their own minds about which candidate or party best represents them rather than view an election as a contest narrated in terms of who's up and who's down.
And I think people do, I think people do start to look at the polls and go don't tell me what to think or do.
He says in the end we should read the polls and the media critically, check for example who's done the survey, who's sponsored it, what the methodology was, and he says remember that they don't predict future outcomes, they're only looking at past trends, they're a snapshot in time of what happened before.
He says they can also, you can't even take anything from the polls like oh well with everybody saying Labour Greens and Te Pāti Māori are going to win, which was almost like coughing up a furball but there we go.
If you see a poll saying that you might think 'oh well better tick them, I'll go with the winner'. Or you might think 'oh well I better give a tick to the centre right, I'll go for the underdog'. Or you might think it's a foregone conclusion and not vote at all.
So, as Grant's saying, you can't even take anything from what voters will do from the polls. If you look at the US presidential election it was neck and neck up until the actual result, which was not. And when you look at our past elections, the polls at this time of the year did not get it right in the lead up to the election. They massively overestimated National support and underestimated the sort of support that Labour would get.
So the polls in a way are a media construct. They're sponsored by media organisations, the media organisations have their names in them and it helps generate a headline.
Bang, kapow, wham as Mikey Sherman might say on 1News. They're feeding themselves.
We all have a vote, we all have different views about how best this country should be run, we all have a view about the sort of priorities a government should have and we'll be able to exercise our democratic right later in the year.
Are the polls going to make a blind bit of difference to you?
We're not allowed to publish polls on polling day. In European countries there's a blackout on polls a little bit earlier than that. Quite frankly I'd like to see a moratorium on them for three years.
I'm sick to death of them.
It's a bit like the weather news, you know, in a way I want to be informed, I want to know where the storm is coming and when it's supposed to be hitting, but once a day, not every minute of every hour because otherwise you just become inured to the news that they're supposed to be giving you.
I'd like to know perhaps once a day, but turning it into a media circus I don't think is very helpful. And it's the same with the polls. In the end you get a bit of oppositional defiance and stick one finger and say 'I'll vote exactly how I want to vote thank you very much and all of the hype in the world is not going to make me change my mind'.

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Kerre Woodham: I'm sick to death of polls

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/6f024779-e6bc-4107-b0ce-b43101776b03/transcript