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The cult of reasonableness

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, November 11th, 2025 - 10 comments

Labour’s capital gains tax isn’t the end of the debate — it’s the beginning of a reckoning. The left’s real problem isn’t its policy. It’s the cult of reasonableness that’s made conviction sound impolite.

Some Number 8 Fencing Wire in Gaza

Written By: - Date published: 4:01 pm, November 7th, 2025 - 10 comments

The importance of a New Zealand focus
on the rebuild of Gaza.

CGT – The Empire strikes back

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, October 30th, 2025 - 140 comments

The usual voices have publicly attacked Labour’s proposed Capital Gains Tax using arguments that do not stack up.

Tax: the debate must continue

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, October 28th, 2025 - 46 comments

Today’s leak of Labour’s tax policy is unsurprising. The later Robertson and long-term Parker views are lost. And this position is at odds with much of the thinking in the Labour Party.

Is that it?

Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, October 28th, 2025 - 151 comments

Labour’s Capital Gains Tax has been released in less than an optimal manner. And the policy is more modest than some would have liked.

Labour’s Future Fund is full of promise

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, October 21st, 2025 - 6 comments

Labour’s first cornerstone policy is a solid start

Labour’s Sub-Therapeutic Dose for Economic Sickness

Written By: - Date published: 6:41 pm, October 20th, 2025 - 53 comments

Why is Labour proposing $200 million for a growth fund when New Zealand First got $3 billion?

Hayek’s Acolytes and History’s Judgement

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, October 18th, 2025 - 44 comments

While we should acknowledge Jim Bolger’s life of service to New Zealand we should also recognise the critical and continuing damage done to New Zealand by his government.

Christopher Luxon: We’ve shown meaningful leadership on Palestine

Written By: - Date published: 4:56 pm, September 29th, 2025 - 53 comments

Hipkins also declared his stance on Palestine recognition on the day, but it wasn’t widely reported.

So, New Zealand First Then?

Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, September 4th, 2025 - 43 comments

In 2026 New Zealand First in all likelihood will be back in power because Labour and National will need them to form government.

Metiria Turei was right but did we learn the lesson?

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, September 1st, 2025 - 44 comments

In 2017 the Greens shifted the Overton Window on a compassionate response to poverty, but where are we now?

Why Changing the Government Should Be Enough

Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, August 28th, 2025 - 30 comments

Outrage is easy. Outrage feels righteous. But outrage without discipline destroys the very people it claims to save.

If we want transformation that endures, we must build it brick by brick. Or watch it burn, again.

It Is Not Enough Only to Change the Government

Written By: - Date published: 6:41 pm, August 27th, 2025 - 19 comments

Everyone on the left can agree that we must change the government. Elliot Crossan argues that if Labour wins in 2026 and refuses to transform the system generating extreme inequality, NZ society will continue to fragment. Change the government. This is currently the unanimous goal of trade union leaders, left-wing politicians and progressive NGOs. At rallies, […]

Fight Like You Mean It: Why Message Discipline Matters

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, August 22nd, 2025 - 74 comments

Screaming on social media about how weak Chris Hipkins is as Labour leader may make us feel good. But It also won’t do much do push back against the Coalition of Cockups. So, what if instead of searching fruitlessly for ideological purity, we put our energy and effort into winning instead?

National Government will have increased gross debt by over $100b – Who benefits ?

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, August 19th, 2025 - 21 comments

The debt bogeyman has been unleashed in NZ, which we will examine – but even on face value, National Party debt is 25% more than Labour’s full debt contribution over 6 years – with no global pandemic

Should Labour attend a set-up?

Written By: - Date published: 10:57 pm, August 13th, 2025 - 158 comments

The Government is accusing Labour of all sorts of bad things for not attending the second week of the Covid-19 inquiry.

Goldsmith’s Voter Suppression Affects 15-20% of Voters

Written By: - Date published: 7:31 pm, July 25th, 2025 - 21 comments

The voters registered about 13 days leading up to and including election day surpasses total ACT and NZ First votes by 140,000

The Time For The Left To Act Is Now

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, July 23rd, 2025 - 50 comments

None of National’s policies are working. But the time of Labour’s policy vacuum needs to be over. It’s time to make their mark and take Luxon front on and win.

Why is National so desperate for Labour to release policy?

Written By: - Date published: 7:09 pm, July 21st, 2025 - 23 comments

National Party Ministers have been goading Labour to share policies for a while now. Why?

The left should unite on tax, fast

Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, July 20th, 2025 - 39 comments

… before the election starts to get real.

A different way of doing politics

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, June 29th, 2025 - 56 comments

Hopefully what we witnessed in Parliament this week will return a trend to the politics of kindness that Jacinda Ardern practised. And one holding respect for Te Ao Māori at its core.

Homelessness up by 58% in Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 5:35 pm, June 7th, 2025 - 8 comments

$250mn in emergency housing “savings” a year under National, while government increases corrections budget to ~$2b a year, and will surpass NZ’s ”moral and fiscal prison failure prison rate” by 2026

Which animal does Labour resemble?

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, May 30th, 2025 - 7 comments

In the United States Republicans have been compared to Apex Predators and Democrats to a deer in headlights. Which animal does Labour resemble and which animal should it aspire to resemble?

Nicola Willis’s Debt Higher Than All 6 Years of Ardern Government

Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, May 28th, 2025 - 18 comments

Current & planned debt will surpass Labour’s full term debt in less years. Willis also admitted Budget 2024 had a higher deficit than all of Grant Robertson’s bar Covid.

Vale David Parker MP

Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, May 8th, 2025 - 20 comments

David Parker’s Deputy Leader ‘s speech in 2014 at the Wellington Labour Party Conference was the best I ever heard from a Labour Leader. Vision matched values in intensity and scope. Parliament now loses one of its very best.

Did someone mention “class”?

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, April 23rd, 2025 - 55 comments

The “Win the Wealth Tax” group offers a welcome return to Labour’s political and policy roots.

Winston’s war on wokeness

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, March 25th, 2025 - 41 comments

In what looked like an early election campaign launch Winston Peters has done his old man shaking his fist at the sky tirade against everything woke.

NZ Science is in Big Trouble

Written By: - Date published: 5:36 pm, March 13th, 2025 - 12 comments

Science and tertiary education are being ignored in NZ, which is just dumb.

Climate change?

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, March 10th, 2025 - 101 comments

Chris Hipkins has released his priorities should he be Prime Minister. They do not include addressing climate change.

Labour to campaign on tax reform

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, March 10th, 2025 - 57 comments

1News: The party leader told Q+A that Labour would be announcing its tax policy later this year, ahead of the 2026 election. He said too much investment was going into property rather than “productive businesses that create jobs”. “We’ve got to rejig the tax system so that the burden of taxation is more evenly spread,” […]

Luxon’s Untenable Grasp

Written By: - Date published: 4:24 pm, March 7th, 2025 - 11 comments

Last year I predicted Luxon would be replaced within the term. But by linking his credibility to Seymour’s preservative laden, scalding, burning and burnt school lunch program this week, Luxon has accelerated his political demise.