Coverage of the Election 2011 campaign for November 19.
6.20pm: Join us tomorrow for more live Election 2011 updates.
6.12pm: This weekend is the last opportunity for politicians to convince voters, says TVNZ's news reporter Garth Bray.
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From the Grey Lynn Festival, Bray talks to Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei and Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples about their main campaign messages.
6.00pm: TVNZ's news reporter Renee Graham says John Banks claims he can "close the gap" between National's John Goldsmith.
ACT party leader Brash is also positive about the party's ability to gain, says Graham.
5.25pm: The Standard posts a parody youtube clip of John Key saying "ACT have been very stable".
5.02pm: A New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows National unchanged at 53 per cent, Labour slightly down at 24.5 per cent and Green Party up 1 per cent at 13 per cent.
Gary Morgan says Labour's poll is at a New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll low and The Greens have emerged as the country's third party - it will "increase their representation in Parliament above 10 seats for the first time".
4.38pm: Labour candidate Kris Mana tweets pictures from his street corner meetings today. Five down, five to go, he says.
4.11pm: John Banks posts on facebook a " sea change in Epsom ".
He says the last 72 hours have caused Epsom voters to consider Phil Goff, Greens, Hone and Winston a "coalition of destruction".
4.07pm: Foreign affairs spokesperson Murray McCully says a National-led Government would seek a seat on the United Nations Security Council as well as strengthen trade relationships.
McCully says ASEAN and Asia would be a central focus of diplomatic efforts.
There are ten ASEAN nations, says McCully, "bringing New Zealand businesses into a market of 600 million people".
3.21pm: A few comments on a ONE News story posted on Facebook about the Epsom electorate:
"National always polls ahead in Epsom. Exhibit A 2005, Exhibit B 2008."
"Well , looks like we will be rid of the Act party soon, lol so how do we get rid of the National government, then this country would be a lot better off!!!"
"At the end of the day all these polls mean dickshit. The only polll that counts is the one on election day. End of story."
"John Banks was just sucked in by John Keys."
3.02pm: Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei says stronger action needs to be taken on climate change and National is only "taking us backwards".
Turei says National plans to "water down" the ETS and hand out "big subsidies for polluters".
A new report from the IPCC shows climate change is getting worse and is leading to more extreme weather events.
"This report highlights the dangers of our inaction, climate change is only going to get worse and lead to more and more extreme weather events. The cost of doing nothing now will be astronomical in the long term."
2.40pm: The National Party has "suddenly, and unexpectedly been forced to pretend that they are interested in policy" because of the teapot tape fiasco, says Anthony Robins, writing for The Standard .
Robins says the teapot tape story is "playing out with a momentum all of its own".
With National's focus on policy, Robins says we should ask the party about its policy on climate change - especially when it has "ties to a party of climate change deniers".
2.14pm: Winston Peters tweets "the mudslinging will get worse".
1.30pm: Kris Mana tweets from the Greenacres school gala.
1.15pm: Cameron Slater, Whale Oil blogger, says Labour candidates David Cunliffe and David Parker were "dumping all over Phil Goff" in an interview this morning.
When asked whether Goff should have known his numbers for the debate, Cunliffe says "well I'm sure he does, and did, but you never know the bounce of the ball on the day and what comes to mind but that's really a question you should address to him".
Parker says "of course" Goff was aware of the numbers. "He was aware of the numbers when we made decision to increase Kiwisaver compulsory - our fiscal numbers were worked out at that stage. The exact date of release was the Friday, the press debate was the prior Wednesday, the two day gap between that I don't know there's a lot in that," he says.
1.00pm: Labour says its social welfare policies will support the Pacific Island community.
In education, Labour would support Pacific literacy and bilingualism.
As part of Labour's policies regarding training and employment, the party would offer a Pasifika mentoring element to training.
"Labour will also speed up the process for residency applicants and encourage Pacific families living illegally in New Zealand to regularise their immigration status so that their children have access to all available entitlements," says Pacific Island affairs spokesperson Su'a Wiliam Sio.
12.32pm: Education spokesperson Anne Tolley's decision to shut down a programme for Maori students at Moerewa School is an act of spite, says Labou r candidate Kelvin Davis.
"Her decision has nothing to do with Maori achievement, nothing to do with a Maori community's aspiration for its children, but everything to do with a spiteful Minister. It's become personal.
Davis calls for the decision to be reversed immediately.
12.10pm: National candidate Hekia Parata tweets she is at Raumati South School Gala.
11.50am: John Key should stop protecting Banks, says the New Economics Party candidate Laurence Boomert.
"More important than the teaparty scandal is the austerity measures that National will be implementing as our debt crisis lands next year," he says. "ACT of course, even if they don't get into Parliament, will be prodding them for more heartless cuts to government spending."
11.34am: Forest and Bird quiz the major parties about environmental policy.
Read their answers here .
11.26am: MMP's rough edges have been shown over the last week, says Maxim Institute researcher Steve Thomas, because one party leads all others by 20 per cent of the vote and there is still no certainty they will be in government.
Thomas says one of the downsides of MMP is that it does not guarantee clear electoral outcomes. For example, "if a five-party coalition government were to emerge after election day-through the Labour Party, the Green Party, the Maori Party, the Mana Party and the New Zealand First Party stitching together a coalition-it would be difficult for voters to know who to hold accountable for that government's performance at the 2014 election," says Thomas.
He says voters could be surprised at this outcome, but not shocked. "This is exactly how proportional systems like MMP work," he says.
11.12am: Paula Gillon, Labour candidate, jokes on twitter she bumped into Don Brash at the Beach Haven Primary School Fair.
10.45am: The Vote for Change website has incorrect advertising, says Robert Peden from the Electoral Commission.
Vote for Change states MMP "requires 120 MPs" while the alternative "could work with 99 MPs".
Peden says the organisation can campaign to reduce the number of MPs, but "to promote that view in a way that a implies a link between a vote for change, and a change in the number of MPs is factually incorrect, and misleading".
10.31am: National candidate Hekia Parata tweets she is in Otaki with Nathan Guy this morning.
10.00am: Phil Goff speaks at the Pike River Mine memorial.
He says he knows today will be "extremely difficult for them" and pays his "respects to all those affected in this time of grief".
"I know the process of the Royal Commission investigating the disaster is a terribly difficult one for all involved. But I hope that it will allow us to learn from what has happened and avoid a tragedy of this nature occurring again," he says.
9.40am: Public Address blogger Russel Brown tweets from the Grey Lynn Fest, where the Green Party has a stall and interviews will be held with Jacinda Ardern, Metiria Turei and Len Brown.
9.19am: Martyn "Citizen Bomber" Bomber is MCing the Grey Lynn Fest today, interviewing Jacinda Ardern, Metiria Turei and Len Brown.
9.11am: TVNZ's political reporter Michael Parkin talks to the Breakfast team about the Colmar Brunton poll on the Epsom electorate last night .
Banks is "off the pace" Parkin says, and now Epsom voters are faced with more strategic voting options.
Labour and Green voters could give their votes to Goldsmith and get rid of ACT in 'one fell swoop", says Parkin.
8.54am: A break-down of the ONE News Colmar Brunton poll on the Epsom electorate :
National - Paul Goldsmith 41%
Act New Zealand - John Banks 30%
Labour - David Parker 17%
Green Party - David Hay 11%
TVNZ's political editor, Guyon Espiner, says "all the agony for John Key over his cup of tea chat with John Banks appears to have been for nothing, Epsom voters are ignoring his signal to keep ACT in Parliament by voting for Mr Banks instead of the National candidate".
8.28am: Phil Twyford tweets he has been to 92 street meetings, with eight to go - every neighbourhood in Te Atatu.
8.11am: Good morning and welcome to our live updates of the Election 2011 campaign. We are now only seven days out from the general election and referendum on our voting system.