Mike's Minute: Did October 15 change the election?

Is it too far-fetched to ask two things: 

1) Whether the campaign turned dramatically against Labour yesterday. 

2) If within a 24-hour period, whatever chance they might have thought they had is now blown to smithereens. 

The Greens want to fund gangs. They are unapologetic about hanging with gangs and they fail to accept the simple premise that this puts them so far outside what you would loosely call "mainstream New Zealand". It will most likely see whatever voters there are wavering between National and Labour scarper back to National. 

Then if that wasn’t bad enough, David Seymour of all people decides he can live with the Opportunity Party better than he can live with being in Opposition. 

Is it too big a stretch to ask whether this is not some unbelievable self-implosion by the Greens? Almost a self-sabotage attempt? Or is it more likely a group carried away by their perceived polling success that they can say and do anything they like and to hell with the consequences? 

It's certainly an insight into the dynamics of the Greens. As normal as Chlöe Swarbrick might like to paint them, she looked lost, bewildered, and unable to respond in a way a normal leader would i.e. pull some of the madness into line, reject some allegations, cancel some perceptions, and stamp down some rampant madness. 

She looked bereft of leadership skill. 

Can we ask whether Seymour is the key to the Luxon turnaround re: Opportunity? If David can, maybe Luxon can too. 

Put the two events of a singular day together and the election is over. 

The math was always easier for the incumbents anyway; National on 30%, NZ First and ACT on 10% each, that's 50%. Add Opportunity and it's over an hour after the polls close. 

Obviously, there are three weeks left. But in a spectacularly boring campaign, where the debates sent you to sleep and Groundhog Day had set in early, out of nowhere came an event that might well have turned the whole thing on its head. 

Gangs in New Zealand are abhorrent. We hate them and we hate what they do. The Greens and the Māori Party want to hang with them, give them our money and rub them in your face. 

It's Hipkins' worst nightmare. 

His two partners, who are already fringe, are going full rogue on a subject that defies left and right. No one backs gangs. There isn't a single vote in them. 

October 15th might just be the day Labour kissed it all goodbye.