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election 2026

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Electricity Policy and Power Bills In Winter 2026

Written By: - Date published: 1:47 pm, July 22nd, 2026 - 3 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.

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 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

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?

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

Chris Hipkins: Vote for hope and optimism over fear and division

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, June 29th, 2026 - 14 comments

Chris Hipkins’ speech at the Labour Party conference yesterday

The Greens’ new tax policy: A tax system for all of us

Written By: - Date published: 6:11 am, June 22nd, 2026 - 48 comments

“Enough is enough. No more tinkering around the edges. It’s time for the super-rich to pay their damn taxes”

The Alarming Echos between Trump and Luxon on elections

Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, June 17th, 2026 - 10 comments

In the United States and in New Zealand the current administrations wish to speed up the finalisation of election results by supressing the right to vote.

Which side is TOP on?

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, June 14th, 2026 - 159 comments

The Opportunity Party which has a suite of progressive policies thinks that it can work with National, even though National’s priorities should be an anathema to it.

Labour’s list

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, June 10th, 2026 - 44 comments

Labour’s recently announced list contains a number of new impressive candidates and is clear evidence that the party is being rejuvinated.

Walking backwards off the cliff

Written By: - Date published: 1:36 pm, May 22nd, 2026 - 6 comments

The coming oil shock is not just about oil. The future is baked in, and its not good. National’s backward-looking budget will make it much worse.

National Is Destroying Wellington

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, May 21st, 2026 - 13 comments

Wellington is being deliberately targeted by National and it is destroying the third largest region of New Zealand.

Does the centre left need Te Pāti Māori to win the election?

Written By: - Date published: 7:14 pm, May 9th, 2026 - 55 comments

Does the centre left need Te Pāti Māori to win the election?

Who’s best on Foreign Affairs?

Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, May 1st, 2026 - 6 comments

When Ambassador Chen Mingming sent Zhang Wei in 2005 to ask me whether Winston Peters would follow government policy, I said I didn’t know but would ask. I did, and he did.

As stable as a three legged stool?

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, April 26th, 2026 - 46 comments

The Peters-Willis-Jones stoush during the past week underlines the importance of Labour indicating that it will not go into coalition with NZ First after the next election.

Luxon is toast

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, April 21st, 2026 - 36 comments

Any time a political leader has to put their position to a vote, they become a dead pigeon. David Lange knew winning the vote didn’t end the matter.

Greens’ State Of The Planet Calls For National Electrification Plan

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, April 21st, 2026 - 28 comments

“The plan would electrify homes, transport and industry, ending New Zealand’s dependence on unpredictable global fossil fuel markets, cutting household power bills, and building real energy security at home.”

I could be completely wrong, but…

Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, April 18th, 2026 - 36 comments

My hunch is that Luxon stands down as Prime Minister, to be replaced by Mark Mitchell.

Changing government in 2026

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, April 17th, 2026 - 48 comments

We need to stop slagging off the people who have the only chance of forming a centre left government this year.

Tick tock …

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, April 17th, 2026 - 34 comments

National is leaking like a sieve. Either a coup is under way or a group of disgruntled MPs are busily attempting to destabilise Luxon’s leadership. Either way this is not good for National.

National’s incredulous plan for challenging times

Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, April 11th, 2026 - 36 comments

An ideological reflex to an economic challenge has severe limitations by design.

A change of government this close or this far away…

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, April 2nd, 2026 - 59 comments

reasons to feel hopeful but not complacent.

Is the Government’s $50 a week a vote winner?

Written By: - Date published: 2:57 pm, March 25th, 2026 - 31 comments

The Government’s targeted fuel support is pork-barrelling.

Don’t fight the last war

Written By: - Date published: 5:53 pm, February 28th, 2026 - 29 comments

Hannah Spencer’s stunning win for the Greens in the the UK’s Gorton and Denton by-election has some lessons for political strategists here as well.

Game on: Labour and the Greens speak to media from Waitangi

Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, February 3rd, 2026 - 28 comments

Chris Hipkins, Marama Davidson, and Chloe Swarbrick speak on unity, working together while being separate partners, and the upcoming election.

What does Labour do about Winston?

Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, February 1st, 2026 - 61 comments

Current polling suggests that we may witness something that has not happened before, a one term National Government. But this may mean Labour making a deal with Winston Peters. What should Labour do?

The rise of Winston follows the rise of Pauline Hansen and Nigel Farage

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, January 25th, 2026 - 47 comments

Ten months to go and there is no political party currently countering the sustained rise of New Zealand First.

Management speech mumbo jumbo

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, January 20th, 2026 - 17 comments

Christopher Luxon’s latest State of the Nation speech suggests that over summer he has been spending more on his Spotify summer list than he should have.

Flooding the zone with Trump trumps Godwin’s law

Written By: - Date published: 3:24 pm, January 18th, 2026 - 16 comments

When intensely watching the orange orangutan in the White House we miss the invisible gorilla in the oval room.