'You poor thing' - Six big moments from the Multi-Party Debate

Five minor party leaders fought over major election issues in tonight’s 1News Multi-Party Debate, from supermarket prices and wealth taxes to te reo and the future of the Waitangi Tribunal.

The clashes and standout moments from the Multi-Party Debate - watch on TVNZ+

With the National and Labour leaders absent, the debate put NZ First’s Winston Peters, ACT’s David Seymour, the Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick, Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong and Te Pāti Māori’s Rawiri Waititi on one stage.

The leaders pitched rival fixes for grocery and power bills, debated proposed wealth and land taxes, and argued over suggestions that prisons should be abolished.

Here are the six moments and a few colourful answers that stood out.

Waititi, who appeared without co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer while she cared for her mother, is campaigning for compulsory te reo Māori in schools.

He conceded New Zealand did not have enough teachers to deliver it.

“No, but we do need to build the capacity to be able to have more teachers in the classroom,” he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with being bilingual ... I’m quite proficient, I would say, in the English language, but the majority of Aotearoa are not proficient in my language, so they only think in one world. I think in two.”

Peters, asked whether te reo was a taonga, said “of course, all these things are a treasure”, but called compulsion “coercion”.

“It’s a fantastic idea until you make it coercive and force it down people’s throats ... If I’m getting on a train downtown and I’m in a hurry and I don’t speak Māori, I’m not going to know where to go to because they decided to change all the names downtown.”

“You poor thing,” Waititi quipped back.

The NZ First leader had previously been critical of the reo naming of new City Rail Link stations in Auckland's city centre.

The exchange soured when Waititi quoted a line about land and language loss leaving “khaki-coloured Europeans” - a paraphrased line from Peters himself from 1975 when he was involved in Māori land rights as a lawyer and first-time political candidate.

Peters fired back: "Here comes the racist!"

Wong hit back at Peters after he mocked her political experience in a clash over the Treaty of Waitangi. The back-and-forth started when Peters dodged a question about whether the country’s first Māori prime minister was on stage.

“Look, why don’t we get back to the subject of the Treaty of Waitangi?” he said.

Peters invoked the late Dame Whina Cooper, who he claimed believed the Treaty was signed “to become one people”.

"We've got no chance unless we're going ahead with unity. It’s now become an industry. It’s a make-work scheme. A great honourable cause has been perverted by a whole lot of radicals, and the cost is immense."

When Wong then accused NZ First of being one of the most divisive parties in politics, Peters said she had “never been here for five minutes”.

“I have watched politics for the last 40 years, and that’s why I’m here, because it hasn’t changed in all that time. And we haven't made progress,” she said.

Seymour, who wants the tribunal wound up, said it acted as “a kind of quasi Parliament”. Waititi said settlements could not be “full and final” when many iwi “only got 1% of their total due”.

“It’s about protecting everybody,” he said.

Peters and Seymour, who sit together in the current coalition, split over the minimum wage, with the NZ First leader predicting his side would win the argument.

NZ First wants the minimum wage to rise with inflation for at least the next three years while ACT wants to freeze it.

Peters said the country needed “a high wage regime, not a low wage regime” to grow the economy and catch up with Australia. He also proposed tax credits for companies to help lift wages.

Asked who would win an “arm wrestle” on minimum wage if the coalition returned, Peters said: “Well, we’ll get more votes in this election. We’re going to win that debate.”

Seymour said that outcome was “entirely up to the voters”, but defended ACT’s record of holding wages down after what he called “really excessive increases in the minimum wage that put huge pressure on small business”.

“You don’t get higher wages from the government passing a law. You get it from risk taking and investment and innovation, people upskilling so they can produce more and get paid more,” he said.

The Greens and Opportunity split sharply over whether to work with National, with Wong saying the Greens could have stopped some of the Government’s “most egregious” moves if they had been willing to make a deal post the 2023 election.

Asked to spell out the difference between the two parties, Swarbrick said it came down to who would be in power.

“I think it’s clear that the Green Party want to change the government. We are not interested in reinstalling Christopher Luxon as Prime Minister,” she said.

“This is not so much a cost of living crisis as it is a cost of greed crisis, and the Greens are ready, willing and able to take on corporate vested interests.”

Wong said the Greens’ refusal to work with National had cost them influence.

“Imagine how many of those most egregious things that have happened in the last three years the Greens could have stopped if they were willing to work with National,” she said.

“That is what we need, a more pragmatic environmental party that can work across the political spectrum to make progress and keep the extreme ideas out of Cabinet.”

“And allow the vulnerable to be punched down upon,” Swarbrick shot back.

Opportunity was the only party on the stage willing to negotiate with anyone, though Luxon has ruled out talking to the party.

But Wong said she did not believe him. “I think he’s playing politics,” she said, and added that she would reach out if National won the most seats. Swarbrick said the Greens would work with Labour, Te Pāti Māori “and it’s becoming clear with TOP”.

Neither leader would say whether they would settle for Labour’s capital gains tax.

“You don’t negotiate before you get to the negotiating table,” Swarbrick said.

“I think we have to get around the table and see how the votes fall,” Wong said.

Wong was questioned about Opportunity’s plan to cap political donations at $30,000 despite the fact that her party has received numerous large donations.

"You've got parties being able to raise millions to spend on numerous billboards and social media ads, instead of actually sitting here and debating the issues," she said.

"We need to make this a contest of ideas, not about who has the deepest pockets."

Seymour, whose party has received more than $2.3 million in donations, said his donors “want to see the ACT Party win” and “lock Labour out”.

He then turned on Opportunity’s origins.

“Opportunity was founded by one person giving $3 million. That’s Gareth Morgan, the biggest political donation in New Zealand history,” Seymour said.

She fired right back: "That proves just how hard it is to break in."

Seymour continued: “If Qiulae is right that that somehow corrupts you, then she is leading a corrupt party." Wong responded: "I haven't said that you're corrupt."

He added: "If she's wrong, then actually maybe she doesn't need the policy."

Seymour’s plan for a cancer hospital funded partly by wealthy donors sparked one of the night’s sharpest exchanges, with Swarbrick likening it to the Hunger Games.

Seymour said the hospital would not treat its first patient until 2035.

He said one donor had already put up $5 million to explore the idea, and ACT’s alternative budget set aside money for construction.

“It’s an unfortunate thing to get cancer, but you shouldn’t feel that it was bad luck to be born a Kiwi,” he said.

Swarbrick said a wealth tax would mean health did not depend on benefactors.

“We could just implement a wealth tax so that we don’t have to have our public services relying on the charity and therefore the discretion, the choices of incredibly wealthy people about who survives and who does not,” she said.

Seymour said New Zealanders had long "got together" and built “schools, hospitals, right since the first settlers arrived”.

“Through taxation and public investment,” Swarbrick interjected.

“Actually, no. Often through charity and people getting together, mucking in and building a community together,” Seymour replied.

“He’s talking about the Hunger Games!” Swarbrick said.

Seymour hit back: “The implication that somehow a New Zealand doctor who is there to treat people in a New Zealand cancer hospital is going to treat it like the Hunger Games is either ignorant or offensive.”

Asked what they would hold a referendum on, Seymour and Peters both said “going to a four-year term”. Wong chose a citizens’ assembly on superannuation, and Swarbrick chose a wealth tax. Waititi said "entrenching Tiriti o Waitangi".

In lighter parts of the debate, the leaders also showed off their personalities.

Peters, who will become the longest-serving MP if he wins one more term, said the record “doesn’t mean a thing” to him, and claimed he had turned down a knighthood.

“I’ve turned everything down — knighthoods and embassies and high commissions and being a diplomat and what have you,” the NZ First leader said.

“Frankly, I’m happy to do the job properly.”

Asked whether they would also turn down a knighthood, Waititi said: “Absolutely.”

Seymour said, to audience laughter and doubts from at least one of the other leaders: “I’ve never thought about it, to be honest. Are you offering one?"

Peters said any oil and gas windfall from exploration should go into a sovereign wealth fund run on a Singapore-style model, not by “inexperienced politicians”.

Asked whether he expected to still be in Parliament when that happened, if it happened, he said: “That’s quite possible. Yes.”

Wong, who says she would still try calling National's Christopher Luxon after the election even though he has ruled out working with her, admitted she didn’t have his number.

“I’m sure anyone can hand it over,” she said, gesturing to the other leaders.

Meanwhile, when the Greens’ 15% poll result came up, Waititi claimed some of the credit, saying Te Pāti Māori’s campaign to focus on electorates only had helped.

“So you’re welcome,” he told her.