Daily review 27/10/2026

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 14 comments
Categories: Daily review

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

14 comments on “Daily review 27/10/2026”

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  1. 1

    Brian Easton has read (and reviewed) Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Work.

    Let’s quote Brian’s last paragraph first:

    Meanwhile we should all reflect on whether the current lobbying in New Zealand, with its heavy bias towards those who can afford it and its lack of transparency, is enhancing our democracy. Hager’s Dirty Work is a good place to start.

    https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/140823/nicky-hager%E2%80%99s-dirty-work-raises-questions-whether-money-has-too-much-political-power [HT to Newsroom Pro e-mail newsletter]

    It [Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Work] has little for front pages [in and of the media], but the book casts light onto a murky part of our political process – the activities of political lobbies. A democracy cannot avoid them. It is best we understand them. By focusing upon one of the most prominent – the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union (TPU), described by one of its founders as ‘the most effective political group outside of Parliament’ – Hager’s book does the public a service.

    It’s a good piece by Brian, and if nothing else it is to remind us of some of the murky players in and behind the Coalition.

    Reply
  2. 2

    Act has announced a policy to cut disability spending by $653 million over four years.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-10-2026/david-seymour-clearly-doesnt-know-how-hard-it-is-to-get-a-disability-allowance

    The narrative Act is spinning is that the current system is flawed because doctors are prone to caving under this pressure and are unable to think logically when signing patients off work.

    That’s an understandable argument for the voter to swallow, because why would intelligent and highly trained doctors be signing off the wrong patients for disability allowances unless it was due to some sort of external stress?

    The Act Party is banking on voters seeing these arguments as logical and reasonable. It doesn’t want to be seen as a party that, while in coalition, failed to stimulate the economy, so now it's raiding disability funding for cash.

    It’s quite horrific reading the article but not too surprising given that it’s ACT in an election campaign.

    Any vote that enables ACT to have a tilt at this and any vote that enables the formation of Coalition Mark II is a vote for being uncaring and cruel against fellow New Zealanders. It is that simple. Just remember the cold-hearted Brooke van Velden with the equally cold-hearted but over-the-moon Nicola Willis scrapping the Pay Equity claims – these people only have one goal.

    Reply
  3. 3

    I don’t know if Chris Hipkins and/or Labour strategists have read The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli but the following, written in the context of Australia and the Australian Labor Party (ALP), might shed some light on NZ Labour and possibly even generate some understanding, at least, among Labour supporters, disgruntled or otherwise.

    In times of economic constraint, campaigns become less about grand ideals and more about survival. Parties shape narratives, choose their battles and align their messages with dominant voter concerns: cost-of-living relief, national security, climate action. They sing seasonal songs.

    Machiavelli’s insight that leaders must be both lion and fox — commanding strength while knowing when to deceive — plays out in every tight election race. And this might show ideological inconsistencies, when parties adopt or forego policies that differ from their ideological backbone.

    But it isn’t confusion. Machiavelli would call it adaptation to secure electoral victory. As he put it: “A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.”

    https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-machiavellis-audaciously-honest-the-prince-reveals-how-politics-works-262726

    Reply
  4. 4

    For the Christmas reading list.

    Rua is semi-autobiographical. Tutauha has genetic rickets; Rua suffers the same condition. We meet her in December 1995, when… she is embroiled in a protest at her local library challenging institutional blindness towards disability. She comes “from a long line of wāhine who lived things the hard way. My mum died when I was born. My nan raised six kids on a cleaning wage.” She wistfully imagines pursuing journalism in New York – a place that appears implausible and distant from her Taranaki home. Kōwhai Grove, where she lives with Nan, Koro, her aunt, much-loved cousin Daisy and other family members, is a gang-ridden “dead-end street with dead-end people”. The distance between life there and the future Rua imagines is both geographic and social.

    https://archive.li/Jgw2p

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-listener/books/book-of-the-day-rua-by-candice-tutauha/premium/BMX33ILJ2ZDEBGB6ISS4K6Y7MY/

    https://e-tangata.co.nz/arts/candice-tutauha-writing-the-heroine-she-wanted-to-read/

    Reply
    1. 5.1

      Very true Kat. Tonight's Luxon 24 Hipkins 18 is far from good news for the Nats.

      Normally a sitting PM is well ahead of the opposition leader all the time simply because of the much higher profile and kudos the PM role gives.

      But for many months Hipkins has been ahead, level or just behind Luxon, which is very odd.

      Reply
    2. 6.2

      That is up there with the most concerning reporting I've seen in a while. It accords with what we see.

      My sister in law is a nurse in a private GP clinic. She complains about wages being less than hospital nurses, while failing to acknowledge no shift work and no weekend work. Wants the government (you and I) to top up her wages. I mentioned unions and teaming up to push back at the owners and she reacts as if I was trying to teach astrophysics.

      As an aside, she has also threatened to go to Aussie if Labour win because…Mowrees!

      Reply
      1. 6.2.1

        Remind her that ACT promised extra funding for GP's last election then did sfa from behind the coalition curtain.

        Except playing culture wars over who gets treatment to ensure that redneck vote is intact.

        She is not alone, plenty of misinformed people sucked into the coalition narrative.

        Reply
        1. 6.2.1.1

          It really is beyond me how people will vote against the best interests of themselves and their whanau so long as Tangata Whenua are 'kept in their place'.

          Reply
      2. 6.2.2

        Teachers, nurses, female noticeably, who have been trained and settled into doing a good job within their training, and are of the Right persuasion; it is very difficult to get them to see other POV, recognise they have misled themselves. even on some points. No they are right and you haven't been taught, understood the Right Stuff. Been there, done that, seen that.

        Reply

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