It's six months exactly until New Zealanders go to the polls. We've heard a lot this year about Chris Hipkins' Labour Party, with National largely shaded. But how prepared, in policy and capability, is Christopher Luxon's team to possibly take power after October 14?

The panel also weighs whether renaming and renumbering the entities in the water reform programme will help the Government shift the antipathy it has faced over so-called pinching of public assets and co-governance.

And with a visit from a top Nato policy chief to Wellington, how might New Zealand get closer to the trans-Atlantic security alliance and what are the risks? Foreign Affairs editor Sam Sachdeva answers that, and what NZ might have learned from Washington this week about the leak of Top Secret Pentagon papers on internet gaming sites.

Moir is Newsroom’s political editor, having been in the gallery for eight years also with Stuff and RNZ, Sachdeva is our national affairs editor, former political editor and was a Stuff political writer and Murphy is Newsroom’s co-editor, a former member of the Parliamentary press gallery and former editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald.

Watch Raw Politics on YouTube, or download or listen to it as a podcast on Spotify, or via Apple Podcasts. And send us your burning political questions to jo.moir@newsroom.co.nz and we’ll endeavour to find out the answer and explain the issues.