Full Show Podcast: 19 October 2026

The Front Bench. Thrashing out the big issues. Analyzing the facts. Throwing out the fiction. Hearing what matters. No topic off limits. No holding back. No scripts. No rules. No bull. Barry Soper. Josie Pagani. Trish Sherson. Heather Dupacy-Allen. The Front Bench. On your home for election 2026. Newstalk ZB.

Hey, good afternoon. Welcome to the show. Coming up today, former Maori Party co-leader Te Orerua Flavell on why they won't shut up about the mongrel mob. Callie Jackson, the MVP of the Silver Ferns game last night. And Nicola Willis, the finance spokesperson for the National Party, is with us after six. It's seven past four. The Front Bench. Unbelievably, the mongrel mob drama is still rolling on today and this is now day six. There is now a video that has emerged of the hui at the gang pad in which Oriini Kaipara, the Māori Party MP, tells the mongrel mob that the Māori Party policies reinstate what should have always been. And depending on how you interpret that statement in the context of what she was just talking about previously, she was either meaning that the Māori Party policies will reinstate housing for gang members... all will reinstate the mana of gang members. Either way, neither are probably a priority for most voters, I would say. But it gets worse because the video shows that the Hui was a campaign event, which is basically where the parties were asking for votes. That is what the Green Party denied. They said it was a health and wellbeing promotion day. Doesn't look like that. Gets worse yet because now the MP, Oriini Kaipara, has given an interview defending herself in which she says she is more afraid of MPs in suits than And it gets worse yet, if you can believe it, because Kiri Tamahere Waititi, the daughter of John Tamahere and the wife of Rawiri Waititi, has also released an Instagram video slagging off Labour for decrying meeting with gang members who are whānau. Now, you do not need me to tell you that this is bad, that it's in day six. Because just when Chippy finally got on the phone to Marama Davidson and basically told the Greens to shut up, and they did at the end of last week, then the Maori Party decided to pipe up. And it's bad for the left wing because swing voters hate gangs, which then swings them to the right. And both sides are fighting over 15% of swing voters at the moment. But also, this drowns out everything that either the Labour Party or the Green Party say when this story is in the news. They can promote any policy they like. All they're going to get asked about is gangs. Every day that it carries on, they'll just get asked about gangs. It is unbelievable that these two parties, the Greens and the Maori Party, are taking turns digging this hole even deeper for themselves. Right, on the front bench with me, we have Barry Soper, Senior Political Correspondent, Trish Sherson of Sherson Willis PR, and Joseph O'Garney, Child Fund Chief Executive. Hello, you three.

Oh, good afternoon. All right,

Barry, what the hell was the Māori Party thinking then,

eh? Well, there's a supreme irony in this when you consider that last week Christopher Luxon said in the leaders' debate that law and order wasn't really