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RECORD NUMBER OF VIEWERS

Sunday's "Agenda" drew this year's record audience --- it peaked at 114,000 viewers and averaged just below 100,000. It was the highest rating daytime programme on TVOne yesterday. Proof that we really are regraded by the audience as "The Authority" when it comes to politics.  We haven't done a transcript because there wasn't really a main interview but  you can see the whole programme on TVNZ On Demand. But there were several themes evident in the programme:

• Colin James analysis showing that this was an old fashioned type election with a massive swing to National in provincial New Zealand.
• Jonathan Hunt agreeing that Phil Goff would be the next leader with possibly Anette King alongside him.
• Whata Winiata saying the Maori Party's priority in any talks with National would be for a "mana enhancing" role rather than entrenchment of the seats.
• And Steven Joyce's analysis of Nationals campaign including a concession that Maurice Williamson and Lockwood Smith hadn't helped.
• Sir Roger Douglas not willing to rule out a return to Cabinet.

But what struck me about this election result was the geography of it. There were quite clearly two New Zealand's evident on Saturday night. One --- the National seats --- is that part of New Zealand where the people seem more exposed to globalised economic forces. Either because they have private enterprise urban jobs (Seats like Auckland Central or Waitakere) or because they are in the export economy (West Coast or New Plymouth) and consequently voted National. These people  presumably shared Nationals worry that our current economic performance was driving our young people offshore. Craig Foss, National MP for Tukituki) put it well I thought some months ago when he suggested to me that he was in politics to stop his grandchildren being the "jpeg generation" --- only seen by  pictorial attachment to their emails from Australia or wherever they lived. An elderly Kuia on the East Coast said much the same thing when we interviewed her for a TVNZ7 debate we produced. Her mokopuna were in Australia and she blamed the economy for destroying her sense of whanau. In the almost entirely urban seats that remained with Labour two trends are evident. In the South Island in its inner city seats there is the historic Labour loyalty built on a relatively low wage economy where there are few self employed. In Wellington the politically correct public servants, the authors and cheer leaders of the nanny state, stayed loyal. But in Auckland the Labour vote was very clearly ethnically demarcated. Its core was Pacific Island South Auckland. But Labour cannot rest easy here. Philip Field's Pacific Party did not poll well but even so it came third in all seats with its message of social conservatism. Surely this marks the last term for Pakeha MP's like Ross Robertson and George Hawkins representing these seats?

So where can Labour rebuild? Where is National vulnerable? The answer to that is surely that "it's the economy stupid". And it is thee economy as it effects that part of New Zealand exposed to globalisation; in other words, that part of New Zealand that just voted National. Plainly the worst of the international recession is yet to hit, and it could hit those National voters very hard. It may be that their relative economic losses are much greater than Labour's supports, so many of whom rely on Government payouts one way or another.  It is that thought that will define how "Agenda" continues to cover the Key Government.