The Standard

Politics

Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation

Categories under Politics

How To Ensure Power Shifts

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, August 17th, 2026 - 41 comments

There is now a 50-50 chance that the government will change in November 2026, and Labour must have the plan to fully shift power beyond Parliament. This is how you do it. 

Vote Climate

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 pm, August 16th, 2026 - 9 comments

When voting this year vote Climate.

Big Hairy Te Tiriti Debate

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, August 15th, 2026 - 13 comments

The debaters for the night are:
David Seymour (ACT)
Casey Costello (NZ First)
Willie Jackson (Labour)
Marama Davidson (Greens)

Also participating is:
Pat & Chewie (BHN)
Paul Barlow (The Collective)
Ripeka Lessels (NZEI)
Nathan Seiuli (Pillar NZ)

Winning the battle but losing the war

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, August 13th, 2026 - 48 comments

Christopher Luxon may have kept the National Party leadership yesterday but National’s chances in this year’s election just became much worse.

Will he stay or will he go?

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, August 12th, 2026 - 77 comments

Christopher Luxon’s decision to call a National Caucus meeting this morning to vote on his leadership may result in him being forced to walk the plank.

Protest against American Imerialism

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, August 8th, 2026 - 4 comments

Anti imperialism protest on this afternoon at 2 pm at Auckland.

Luxon, Yahoo and Numpty

Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, August 7th, 2026 - 3 comments

Christopher Luxon completed a week from Hell by calling his coleaders Yahoo and Numpty and obliterating Media coverage of the announcement of the opening of Auckland’s City Rail Tunnel and of new industry designed school subjects.

A Labour Government Is Good For Business

Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, August 6th, 2026 - 8 comments

In the week that the Prime Minister offended small business, unemployment rose to 170,000 and over 6% in the North Island, and the Reserve Bank continues to raise interest rates, Labour showed, again, why the public knows they are better for small business than any other party.

Does Policy Still Win the 2026 Election?

Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, August 6th, 2026 - 20 comments

In a 2026 election beset already by bombast and hyperbole, is the big-policy-first approach of the left still working?

Uber Air Force One

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, August 6th, 2026 - 26 comments

It has been disclosed that Christopher Luxon used an Air Force plane to fly him from a National Party fundraiser in Whanganui to his home in Auckland.

Luxon’s biggest problem is Luxon

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, August 4th, 2026 - 25 comments

As we enter the home strait for the 2026 election National strategists must be thinking “what the f*(k do we do from here”? Because Christopher Luxon’s complete indifference to the difficulties businesses are facing and his inability to control Winston Peters are harming National’s reelection prospects big time.

TOP proposes cuts to Public Service that Act would be proud of

Written By: - Date published: 6:21 pm, August 1st, 2026 - 139 comments

The Opportunity Party has a hidden objective. They want to make huge cuts to the Public Service that even Act would look at and think “that is brave”. And they have been less than open about the cuts.

Winston Peters clings to a dying empire

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, August 1st, 2026 - 23 comments

It may feel to NZ First cultists that Winston Peters is being picked on this site. But if he chooses to act like an geriatric, erratic, and foolish foolish dickhead in the pursuit of the unthinking bigot vote.. Well, then opinion writers will notice and opine. Here is another opinion from Local Bodies which focuses on a foreign minister who appears to be out of touch with current international affairs.

Aotearoa’s very own Donald Trump

Written By: - Date published: 1:11 pm, July 31st, 2026 - 37 comments

New Zealand First is peddling nonsense law changes straight out of the Donald Trump playbook. And engaging in obnoxious racist behaviour. And Christopher Luxon does not have the ability to stop them or control them.

Sack Him Christopher

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, July 31st, 2026 - 46 comments

After the 2005 election, the Chinese Embassy sent Zhang Wei to ask me if Winston Peters would follow Labour government policy. I said I didn’t know, but would ask.

Our Worst Recession

Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, July 29th, 2026 - 16 comments

The very worst crisis is the one from which you learn nothing. New Zealand has not had an economic stagnation and housing market price decline this bad since the 1970s.

The Greens in their own words

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 27th, 2026 - 12 comments

The co-leader speeches at the AGM, and the new policy of a 1 year moratorium on AI data centres.

Stuart Gnash

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, July 23rd, 2026 - 29 comments

With the demise of Stuart Nash’s planned resumption of his political career the question has to be asked, did Stuart Nash leave NZ First or did NZ First leave Stuart Nash?

Electricity Policy and Power Bills In Winter 2026

Written By: - Date published: 1:47 pm, July 22nd, 2026 - 10 comments

The Green Party’s Kiwipower policy has a lot of similarities to the policy that the Greens and Labour jointly launched in the 2014 election. It will again be major issue in this election.

Jones should be sacked

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, July 21st, 2026 - 8 comments

Shane Jones underscored Christopher Luxon’s weakness by telling him publicly that he needed to “take off your kneepads” when receiving a visit from foreign leaders without repercussion.

Defusing the goddamn ticking time bomb

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, July 21st, 2026 - 8 comments

Our reliance on fossil fuels is a ticking timebomb, There Are Real Alternatives, and the Green Party have a plan

The World Cup final, and Defence double standards in the Pacific

Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, July 21st, 2026 - 17 comments

The World Cup is over and the good guys won, geo-politically speaking. When China fired a test missile a few weeks ago, it was as if the sky had fallen in.

The Greens: Kiwipower and Power for All of Us

Written By: - Date published: 3:34 pm, July 20th, 2026 - 16 comments

The Greens’ energy policy is about reducing costs to citizens, and making our generation system more resilient

Four Promises, Fifty Years On

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, July 18th, 2026 - 6 comments

Norman Kirk once said people do not ask for much: someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work, and something to hope for.

Dead Cats everywhere

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, July 18th, 2026 - 28 comments

Winston Peters has engaged in classic dead cat political behaviour by publicly announcing that one of the new Interisland ferries will be called “Cook” and diverting the debate from the cost to the name.

Green Party calls for union membership as default setting for new employees 

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, July 16th, 2026 - 26 comments

“Workers deserve the right to safe, fair and decent work, and being automatically a part of a collective is one of the best ways to ensure their rights will be fought for.” 

Does Parliament really need more shock jocks?

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, July 14th, 2026 - 13 comments

Michael Laws and Paul Henry are planning a return to Parliament. Laws as a potential New Zealand First MP and Henry as an Act MP. Does Parliament really need more shock jocks?

Latest poll – too close to call

Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, July 14th, 2026 - 64 comments

The latest RNZ Reid Research Poll suggests that the chances of Christopher Luxon needing a new job after the next election are increasing.

A Very High Impact Climbdown by Minister Bishop

Written By: - Date published: 5:57 pm, July 9th, 2026 - 21 comments

Minister of Transport Chris Bishop has now finally admitted that National’s 2023 election promises in transport were “very ambitious, ” and pushed many of them into simply future unfunded ideas, at devastating economic cost.

Simpleton Brown: an idiot about power

Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, July 9th, 2026 - 7 comments

I was struck by just how out of touch Simeon Brown is with the frustration of residential consumers of electricity. The ever rising prices, the frequent outages, and the stupidity of our electricity market. National’s fast-track doesn’t address any of that, nor their minuscule solar plan. Labour’s plan is a more useful fast-track to transform our real productive economy. Far more so than just exporting profits offshore from mining and data centres

Labour: Solar without the Upfront Cost

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, July 9th, 2026 - 25 comments

This is a very impressive policy from Labour