Nicola Willis: Finance Minister and National Finance Spokesperson on party's fiscal plan, whether it wants to change superannuation

Why are you guys losing?

Well, look, obviously there's a lot of bad stuff happening in the world.

People understand we can't control that.

But I, I think what this government has successfully done under Chris Luxon's leadership is demonstrate that a three-way MMP coalition is possible, and possibly what that has given some people the confidence to do is shop around a bit more.

But my view is the only reason we've delivered strong, stable government delivering the reforms that matter is because we've had a strong National Party-

So-

... at the heart of it.

You know-

Okay, but is your argument then that if it was a really, really strong knocking it out of the park National Party, it would still be sitting below 30% and people would be shopping around? 'Cause I don't buy that.

Of course we want to be on a higher number than that.

That's exactly-

So but why aren't you?

... what we're campaigning for.

Well, as I say, I think we've delivered a stable coalition, so it's given people confidence that they can shop around a bit with their vote, whereas in previous elections, uh, they weren't doing that as much.

But again, I think the reason the coalition has worked so well is because you've had a big, strong National Party at the heart of it, and that's what I want to see happen again.

Do you think it's had anything to do with crazy ideas like your supermarket policy?

No, I think that that policy's been well-received.

In fact, Foodstuffs' own polling, uh, showed that the majority of National Party voters actually liked it.

But it didn't lift your polling, did it?

It's the right thing to do.

Not everything-

What, what happened in the polling?

... is about...

Not everything is about-

What did you guys see internally?