Opinion by Patrick Gower
What really made the worm really turn?
Talk of the potential coalition partners - ACT for National, and NZ First for Labour; the mere mention of these crews and the worm started to head for middle earth.The coalition partners on either side of the major parties are worm killers.
It seems the room full of undecided voters don't like Winston or Don Brash. The worm started flatlining when talk turned to John Key's dirty deals in Epsom with ACT and Ohariu with Peter Dunne (he's got a party called United Future).
It goes to show both Key and Goff are defending the indefensible. I will say this though - if Peters does the Lazarus, he'll do it with a moral victory over ACT - he'll get over 5%, but ACT will only get in through the Epsom deal.
Goff was calling out Key as "donkey deep" with ACT and "breathing life" into them tonight, actually batting away Key's attack on Labour working with NZ First pretty well by using ACT.
It’s almost a double-negative - they cancel each other out. Put it this way I just looked at my notes and saw the words "rogue political entity" - now I can't remember if that was Key talking about Winston or Goff talking about ACT.
Key was honest when he said all he cared about ACT was that they were stable voting partners - not that all their MPs had quit, including one for stealing a dead infant's passport.
Key has also been bagging Goff for potentially working with Hone Harawira - but Goff pointed out tonight that Key had Harawira in his Government while he was part of the Maori Party.
Then Goff doubles down and says he has ruled out working with Harawira (although no one believes they wouldn't come to some kind of arrangement if it came to the crunch).
Another worm turner was asset sales – the worm went through the roof when Goff talked about how many New Zealand families couldn't afford the shares Key says will go to "Mum's and Dads". I think Key's explanation of the case for selling them was the best I've heard since he announced it at the start of the year.
But Goff was strong on asset sales tonight – it’s almost all he's got left. The question is whether this issue can get people out to vote.
It was interesting what Goff didn't talk about.
We didn't hear the words Capital Gains Tax or Compulsory Superannuation all night. Goff did well without them coming up - Labour has obviously decided this policy platform is a weakness.
Key only slipped in attack lines about these once tonight, I'd expect his strategists to bring it up a lot more in the coming days now they've seen Goff’s approach.
So Phil Goff got a bit of a boost from the worm. That's got to bit a bit of a coup for Goff, we all know he hasn't been getting much luck elsewhere.
In that early sparring, the worm was all for Goff - it seemed like he could say "I secretly wanted France to win the Rugby World Cup" and it would go up. Some are saying this debate was a draw - but I give a points victory to Goff.
John Key tried to blind Goff with spreadsheets early on. We know Key has got it all over Goff on numbers, but Goff had a counter-punch. He told a few yarns, he gave a bit of a commentary.
Yarns beat numbers on the day. Key's strategists might be telling him to tell a few more yarns now too. I thought Goff got it right on the underclass - that's a big issue and one that we aren't talking about enough.
Goff talked about what the Salvatrion Army have been telling him. Goff told a story about his father-in-law Goff took Key down McGehan Close - where the girl Key took to Waitangi came from, and has now left for Australia.
That whole stunt has turned into a dead-end for Key.
But the real dead end for both parties appears to be their coalition allies.
As they say, you can choose your enemies, but you can't choose your coalition allies.