Polling and TV3

United Future and the Progressives are understandably really pissed off that they have been excluded from the TV3 leaders debates, after a TV3 decision to include the leaders of the top parties of their own polling. Strangely enough, if a couple more people voted United Future in the polling, it may well have been ACT that would be issuing the media releases complaining of unfairness as they would have been excluded. The TV3 poll of 1000 voters had 16 supporting Act and 14 supporting United Future.

It is unfair. There was just two votes in it. The TV3 poll has a margin of error, and the difference between the polling between ACT and United Future is well within that margin. Since when has a party in Government been expelled from a TV debate in an election campaign - and a party with a confidence and supply agreement, no leass?

What will TV3 do if future polls showed that United Future polled greater than ACT? Or aren't TV3 polling before the debates in case polling fortunes change?

If TV3 want to be fair (and it doesn't) it would state that they want to screen a debate with the leaders of the top polling parties and any other party that falls within the margin of error of the lowest polling of these. Particularly given that both leaders of UFNZ and the Progressives are likely to get into Parliament, whereas ACT is more likely to miss out on getting a seat.