Last week, Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong told media she was close to ruling NZ First out as a Coalition partner, after NZ First’s latest sexist video, claiming HMNZS Manawanui sunk because it was piloted by a female officer.
By current numbers NZ First and ACT are assured a place in Government, so a win for National is also a return to power for Seymour and Peters.
So by flirting with the option to rule out NZ First, Qiulae signalled to the left, and to a values based politics framework, that she is more open to forming a bloc with the left.
At least, that was what I thought until I learned she walked it back the next day.
Still, Opportunity will need to enter Government, and they are doing well in the polls, and are expected to “make history” this November.
On the National Party front, the party appears desperate. Simeon Brown, fresh from refusing to release Health NZ privatisation data, but not refuting reports 80% of new health funding, and almost 50% of current health funding is going to corporates and the private sector, spent his time in a press conference attacking Labour and repeating misleading campaign lies.
In Epsom, former Auckland Councillor and now 8-portfolio National Party Minister, Paul Goldsmith is pleading with voters to give him their vote, saying that David Seymour and he work well together, and Seymour’s seat is assured due to his list position in the party.
So please vote for me!
Many of National’s senior Ministers could lose their seats their election – that includes Bishop, Willis, Goldsmith and Brownlee.
Meanwhile, Christopher Luxon is calling on voters to ignore the latest poll, which shows National tanking at below 25%, a poll that Labour’s Campaign Manager Kieran McAnulty says is consistent with Labour’s internal polling.
Also, talking about McAnulty, what a poster:
Green Party electorate’s MP candidate, Lauren Craig, had this to say about Kieran today:
“I really do back Kieran for the electorate, and encourage anyone that lives in the Wairarapa to electorate vote Kieran (and party vote Green).
Kieran has been really great to work with across many debates. I have a lot of respect for him and genuinely hope he wins.”
Now I’ve come back for a few articles on a platform I dislike, but let’s be honest – my quality has dropped and I do not have the same capacity to do so in a way that is fair to the readers here.
But I do want to end with a reminder of something that’s very important to all Kiwis – regardless of age, colour, or creed.
And that’s healthcare.
I’ve written at length about Tend Health / Aratataki as one example of the systematic privatisation and corporatisation of our healthcare system under National.
And after learning of the billions moving to private and corporates under Simeon Brown, it reminded me of Cecilia Robinson, and the mystery of how Tend Health were helped by Health NZ to get a PHO contract during a PHO moratorium.
Or awarded mental health contracts when long standing community providers were cut off.
Today I was reminded that telehealth providers receive government funding of up to $95 per casual patient visit, compared to only $20.45 for general practice to see the same patient.
These policies have the effect of boosting corporate players and creating an environment where it’ becomes easier for them to acquire smaller, local, community GPs.
And these private, corporate telehealth providers that charge $99 for a phone call are essentially funded on taxpayers money, while the returns on investment get pulled to a select group of equity holders (foreign or domestic)
Our health system is in a state of absolute tragedy with only one, senior surgical doctor supporting 150,000 Kiwis in Nelson. And others near collapse.
It’s by design, so vote wisely …. and thank you for for your friendship.
The Paul Goldsmith letter reminds me of the Peter Sellers song where a failing pop singer "me discs are slipping" mourns the fact that he no longer has a record in the top 20 pops.
Very funny, and at the end the singer pleadingly says "Please buy this record, please".
I don't think so. I think she and OP are genuinely centrist and wanting to work across the political spectrum.
I also think it's pragmatic. The left may not be in a position for form government, and OP want to be in government.
What Wong said in the RNZ piece,
https://youtu.be/CPRvBL8kCHE (time stamped)
Which is interesting, because she is naming the abusive and childish behaviour rather than policy.
"Um, ultimately, if they decide not to act like that anymore "
SERIOUSLY???
The newly-party fires a kiss-kissy "shot" over Winston Peters bow, an ultimatum so weak you could rinse your contact-lenses with it, and hopes we'll take them SERIOUSLY???
one of the most eye opening things of this election has been the number of lefties who want hard man politics. More than usual.
She is saying: if you behave badly, you will lose power if we have the power to make that happen.
I applaud this, especially because it's about Peters, who has been behaving badly for 40 years and generally fucking up politics.
I've not seen evidence of "lefties who want hard man politics."
I certainly don't want such a thing.
"She is saying: if you behave badly, you will lose power if we have the power to make that happen."
I don't think that's captured the "threat" at all. It's a vague, wishy-washy, maybe-perhaps claim that will not bother Peters, nor will it be followed-up on, should any negotiation take place between them. Can you imaging OP turning down the chance to be in Government, if Peters won't promise not to say naughty things?
She hasn't ruled them out in light of their behaviour, she's said, stop it, or I'll be growly.
Yes, Peters has behaved abysmally for much of his political career but that inconsequential slap won't have even been felt by the old fool.
Of course, she hasn't ruled them out and why would she if is going to get her party more votes Wong is playing the game just like the others, but we will soon see what her party really stands for.
I don’t think they know themselves [dual meaning], as neither their idea(ls) nor their candidates have ever been tested in Parliament – they’ll be shaped in & by [the] fire.
"Wong is playing the game just like the others"
Yes, she is. I thought they claimed to be different and not like the others.
" we will soon see what her party really stands for."
Will we?
Why don't we know already? They are asking for our vote.
You literally just called OP's strategy weak piss. Instead of exactly? Be specific.
I literally didn't, but no matter.
What is weak, as I described, is claiming you will do something "if" the behaviour you object-to, happens again. That's weak, imo.
A strong stand would be, "you did it, now I won't work with you".
Vague warnings, walked-back soon after, are not a sign of strategic nous, imo.
So her saying "If you act like this, you will lose power" and then walking it back the next day to make it viable Peters returns to power, is evidence of values, weka?
no, I think that was the update, not the first statement.
I see it as you see it, Tui.
These are my values. If you don't like them, I have others.
This election is the ultimate in weirdness.
First there is the potential for an overhang on the right. But, so far as the left goes, from the polls so far, the left would require Opportunity party to get the numbers. But, if Labour and the Greens do their job too well, they might push Opportunity just below the 5% threshold, and the wasted vote might give the result to the right. So, all a delicate balance and on a knife edge.
Actually, it’s the other way round, National is pushing up TOP, and the vote splitting shambles is probably encouraging this.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/2305619/national-s-voters-are-walking-here-s-where-they-re-going
The TVNZ poll tonight should give some insight into all this.
It is all very strange. In some ways the left are best to encourage right leaning voters to party vote National if they can't stomach changing sides. And the right are best to encourage Opportunity voters to vote Labour or Greens for party vote, but only by a little bit.
"The TVNZ poll tonight should give some insight into all this."
Hilarious!
For some odd reason, I always read your name as, "tinsmith".
The Barnum effect on display. What exactly do you mean by “all this”?
Unless any new poll provides more granular info on how National is losing previous vote-support and where to, it won’t give much new insight at all.
Nope, they should encourage those ‘right leaning’ (?) voters to party vote for the new untarnished centre Party.
Nope, they should encourage those 'right leaning' voters to get a brain and a heart and go volunteer for some charity or other.
But will they be moved by homeless people?
Homeless
There's something a bit sad, but also a bit embarrassing about seeing a cabinet minister grovelling to his constituents in the way Goldsmith just did.
Goldsmith spoke out against beggars, but what he's doing now seems to me to be not too dissimilar to the poor people at the traffic intersections. Only the medium is different. I see him having become what he despised.
IMHO, he's spent the past three years basking in his own arrogance, dehumanizing people around him and even treating a section of the community in the way other people treat a blowfly or cockroach that found its way into the wrong place.
I know he'll be looked after by The Establishment, but in my daydreams I see him in the CBD, being moved onto a state sponsored bus, like the pieces of trash that make Queen Street look untidy and like the homeless and unemployed that caused his Prime Minister to say "Cry me a river".
I hope there are still enough forthright people in Epsom to 'move Goldsmith on'… Seymour deserves your tick in preference to this guy.
All in my opinion of course.
Goldsmith's a groveller.
We are used to seeing Seymour win that seat, so no extra pain on election night.
Seeing Goldsmith going down in flames would give some folk cause for celebration.
Ode to Paul Goldsmith, Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis:
In Bishop's case, the Hutt river.
Very much looked after by the establishment is goldy boy.
He finally got to blow his favourite dog whistle, targetting the homeless, even though nothing was required as existing law covered it.
Way out of his depth but well protected as national are desperate for any kind of seniority. Paul supplies it by simply hanging around.
Ugly behaviour reveals and ugly soul.
Repent, Goldsmith and beg our forgiveness 🙂
Do we really need to talk about the Teals?
when https://allianceparty.nz/manifesto/
Bishop is wearing his sad face, self-pity and trying to make Hutt south voters feel sorry for him and vote for him, it is sickening to see and hear as he didn't care about all the state workers that lost their jobs and the next nine thousand that soon will if his party gets back in.