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Negotiation of chaos

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, November 15th, 2023 - 132 comments

So the coalition negotiations are going as well as I thought they would.

War crimes in Palestine

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, November 12th, 2023 - 88 comments

There is a growing recognition that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip constitute war crimes.

What will National do about special voting rights?

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, November 11th, 2023 - 45 comments

One of the most democratic changes that Labour made to the electoral system was to allow people to enroll and vote on election day. The right hate it.  And may be planning to change it.

Nu phone who dis?

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, November 6th, 2023 - 37 comments

It is very early days and already, in what appears to be a finely calibrated insult to make David Seymour appear weak, Winston Peters has responded to the first overture from the Act leader for talks by ignoring him.

What happened in the Maori seats

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, November 5th, 2023 - 48 comments

The final results in the Māori electorates clearly indicate that there was a great deal of strategic voting taking place.

Pagani and Edwards do not understand the working class

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, November 1st, 2023 - 87 comments

Bryce Edwards and Josie Pagani have suggested that there should be more working class in Parliament. But the quality of their analysis leaves a lot to be desired.

National’s gang policy has no foundation

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, October 27th, 2023 - 35 comments

National’s Mark Mitchell has proposed a law that will require Gang Members to apply foundation to any gang insignia tattoos before they can go out into the public.

Let’s do the time warp again

Written By: - Date published: 10:53 am, October 26th, 2023 - 39 comments

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary Winston Peters has accused Jacinda Ardern of hiding the fact that her office received the Christchurch Massacre shooter’s manifesto shortly before the massacre occurred.

Don’t get angry, get organised

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, October 23rd, 2023 - 87 comments

Labour day is a good day for all progressives to start getting organised for the next three years and working on the election of the next progressive Government.

New Zealand’s response to the Palestine crisis

Written By: - Date published: 4:22 pm, October 20th, 2023 - 129 comments

Nanaia Mahuta’s carefully crafted responses to the Palestinian crisis underlines that the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks by targeting civilians is disproportionate and completely unjustified.

How the special votes may work out

Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, October 17th, 2023 - 57 comments

Special vote counts may see Labour win back some important electorate seats and see the National/Act majority vanish.

That was not as good as was hoped for

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, October 15th, 2023 - 129 comments

Last night was not a good night for the Labour Party …

Neck and neck

Written By: - Date published: 8:12 pm, October 13th, 2023 - 8 comments

Last post before election day but the big mo is on and the election is getting closer and closer.

About last night’s debate

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, October 13th, 2023 - 42 comments

It is very clear now why National did not agree to a further debate between the leaders. Last night’s debate between Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luzon was totally one sided.

Down to the wire

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, October 12th, 2023 - 52 comments

Two new polls were released last night and they both confirm a tightening of the race with the right slumping and the left improving.

Multimillionaire landlords are the real squeezed middle according to National

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, October 11th, 2023 - 24 comments

Craig Rennie of the CTU has continued his excellent work analysing National’s proposed tax cuts and has come up with a doozie.  Landlords who own multiple properties will get huge tax cuts if National’s policy is put in place.

Labour surges in latest poll

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, October 11th, 2023 - 82 comments

A new poll has Labour surging into the 30s, Act continuing its decline and National going backward. This election is not over.

Winston Peters? I barely know him

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, October 9th, 2023 - 46 comments

National has over the past couple of weeks indicated that it will ring Winston if it needs his votes, then saying that if he negotiates too hard it will seek a further election. This is real coalition of chaos stuff.

The Big Mo

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, October 8th, 2023 - 48 comments

Recent polls suggest that National and Act is going backward while Labour has stabilised. A win for the left is possible but this last week will be all important.

Like two cats in a sack

Written By: - Date published: 1:38 pm, October 6th, 2023 - 15 comments

The minor leader’s debate last night confirmed the fact that David Seymour and Winston Peters hate each other.

National’s credibility problem

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, October 6th, 2023 - 31 comments

National has suffered further damage to its credibility with its promise of a $250 tax cut per fortnight for an average family only being realised if that family spent at least $300 per week on childcare and was a two income family with each adult earning between $53,500 and $66,000.

Even Capitalists think that too much Capitalism is a bad thing

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, October 5th, 2023 - 9 comments

In recent times Goldman Sax has warned National that its policies will hurt the economy. And S&P has praised Labour’s handling of the economy and expressed a high assessment of various factors relating to the country.

The weird and wacky 2023 election campaign

Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, October 4th, 2023 - 30 comments

In a week of weird events National’s decision not to debate Labour in the Press’s leader’s debate has been a massive own goal because the country will be able to see how toxic David Seymour’s and Winston Peters’ relationship is.

What really matters this election – poverty

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, September 30th, 2023 - 38 comments

National has shown its real priorities with proposals to cut benefits that will pay for increased tax concessions for landlords and increasing prison resources in anticipation of the crime wave the increased poverty will cause.

Hipkins goes on the offensive

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, September 29th, 2023 - 39 comments

Chris Hipkins has upped the ante in the election campaign by directly calling out the right’s use of dog whistle racism.

Winston adds to National’s tax cut credibility problem

Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, September 27th, 2023 - 26 comments

National’s failure to adequately explain how its new revenue policies will work has seen its support sag. And its problem is that if it depends on Winston Peters for confidence and supply he has expressed major reservations about these policies and there is no guarantee he will support them. And a significant majority of New Zealanders understand this.

Even Mike Hosking thinks that a National-Act-NZ First coalition would be an absolute disaster

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, September 26th, 2023 - 63 comments

As the polls show a further slump in support for the right and as Winston Peters emerges as a kingmaker there is growing concern about the possibility of a real coalition of chaos being elected.

National’s back of the envelope $715 million tax calculation

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, September 25th, 2023 - 39 comments

Nicola Willis has essentially confirmed that the design of National’s foreign purchase of land tax was and remains sufficient to be done on the back of an envelope.

National really, really needs New Zealand to be in a recession

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, September 24th, 2023 - 22 comments

After Stats NZ shot down National’s claim that the country is in recession National pirouetted by claiming that New Zealand WILL be in recession in the near future and that the Reserve Bank has predicted this. But according to the Reserve Bank this may not be true …

TVNZ concludes that Luxon’s pants may have been on fire

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 21st, 2023 - 39 comments

Fact checking by TVNZ has determined that much of what Christopher Luxon said in the recent leader’s debate was not true.

There is no recession in New Zealand

Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, September 21st, 2023 - 57 comments

The growth figures are up and National operatives will be in despair.  Not only did the economy grow considerably faster than anticipated in the last quarter at 0.9% but the previous quarter’s figure has been resolved from -0.1% to 0%.