Seymour and Peters keep their hands down as Waititi offers to share te reo

Three hands went up. Two stayed down.

At TVNZ's multi-party debate on Tuesday night, host Tova O'Brien asked the five leaders whether they'd like to speak better te reo Māori. According to Joel MacManus's live coverage for The Spinoff, the three were Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi. ACT's David Seymour and NZ First's Winston Peters, the two junior partners in the National-led government, did not.

Waititi was the only leader who said he could already hold a conversation in the language. "To be a true New Zealander is to speak Māori," he said. "What we want to do is share our language with you."

O'Brien pressed Peters, and he reluctantly called te reo a "treasure", but said he didn't want to "force it down people's throats". He then complained that the Māori names of the new City Rail Link stations were confusing.

"You poor things," Waititi replied.

The pair then argued about the colour of a rīwai, a Māori potato.

The exchange followed the earlier TVNZ leaders' debate, where both Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins said they wanted to learn more te reo. With the prime minister and the opposition leader both on record, ACT and NZ First are now the visible holdouts among parliamentary parties. Luxon would need both of them to govern again.

The Treaty came up too. Asked whether New Zealand still needs the Waitangi Tribunal, Seymour said he wants to stop it investigating contemporary claims and aims to settle all historical claims by 2040, the country's bicentenary. Waititi gave an impassioned defence of the Tribunal and argued that all legislation should take account of the Treaty.

The sharpest exchange about race on the night was between Wong and Peters. Wong accused him of racist rhetoric over his telling Chinese-born Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan to "go back to your own country". Peters said that was "rubbish" and that he had spoken to Xu-Nan after the exchange in the House.

A 1News-Verian poll released at 6pm had National and Labour tied on 28%, the Greens on 15%, NZ First and ACT on 10% each and Opportunity on 8%. Te Pāti Māori sat on 0.4%. The Spinoff called that unsurprising, because the party is campaigning entirely for electorate votes.

The language will be part of the vote itself. Waatea News reports that the Electoral Commission has confirmed more than 2,300 voting places for the 7 November election. More than 220 of them are Whare Pōti Māori, at places such as marae, kura and wānanga. Sunday 25 October is the last day to enrol or update details. Unlike at previous elections, nobody can enrol at a voting place once voting starts. Advance voting opens on Monday 26 October.

At 67 bilingual voting places, voters can complete the whole process in te reo Māori.