Heather du Plessis-Allan: My winner of the week

Winner of the week has got to be NZ First. 

In the latest Taxpayer's Union Curia poll, they are the third biggest party now, overtaking Act and the Greens. 

If you’ve been watching the polls lately that’s not a surprise. This has been coming for a while. 

National has been up and down, Act has been pretty flat, but NZ First has just been heading up most of the year. 

There are a bunch of reasons for this. 

Winston is very statesman-like. He manages to disagree with his coalition partners without being quite as bratty as David Seymour can sometimes be. 

NZ First are choosing their battles. They stayed out of the pay equity kerfuffle, so they didn’t cop the blowback. 

But mainly, it’s because they’re being refreshingly blunt. 

Shane Jones doesn’t care if the lizard-lovers get upset that he wants to dig a mine where the lizards are. He just says it. 

Winston doesn’t care if Grey Lynn and Aro Valley are offended that he wants transwomen kept out of women’s sport. He just says it. 

He doesn't care if wool carpets into state houses is likely a bad financial decision. He got it done. 

This party is unashamedly appealing to a group of voters no one else really is, which is working class New Zealanders – people who see things simply and often more correctly than elites would care to imagine. 

It’s the same thing playing out in the UK with the rise of the Reform Party. It’s the same reason Trump is back in the White House. 

Of the three coalition parties NZ First is the only one hitting the same vein of voters. 

Now, we’re still only talking about 10% and 10% doesn’t a major party make. 

But it’s only been headed in one direction lately, and that tells you something. 

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