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Missing in action

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, April 6th, 2026 - 47 comments

As this Government’s inaction over the oil crisis becomes more pronounced more and more people are noticing that Christopher Luxon is missing in action.

Pawn takes Bishop

Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, April 5th, 2026 - 17 comments

Christopher Luxon this week showed strong leadership by demoting Chris Bishop for a coup against Luxon that was staged six months ago.

In a crisis the left does better

Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, April 2nd, 2026 - 31 comments

The Government’s complete reluctance to do anything about the approaching oil crisis is in stark contrast to the approach adopted by more progressive administrative governments overseas.

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.

Cash for Access: $8000 for National Party Cabinet, $10000 for PM

Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, March 25th, 2026 - 5 comments

National is fundraising and for $10,000 you can buy access to sit with the PM

Nicola Willis signals higher pollutant fuel coming to New Zealand

Written By: - Date published: 7:21 pm, March 22nd, 2026 - 3 comments

As fuel crisis continues, National continues to hesitate and “analyse”. Today Willis denied she was not taking it seriously but also said her first port of call was to increase the range of fuels available for import into the country

We owe a great debt to Grant Robertson

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, March 22nd, 2026 - 9 comments

Today I learned, we owe a great debt to Grant Roberston and just wanted to say thanks

What We Can Do

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 pm, March 20th, 2026 - 30 comments

In absence of a concrete leadership plan from this government to address the impending oil supply crisis, this post is for us to simply note down what actions we are taking ourselves. 

The oil crisis: “We live in challenging times”

Written By: - Date published: 4:33 pm, March 19th, 2026 - 46 comments

The government has shifted position and is now directly talking about the need to plan and prepare for a potential crisis and doing so for the worst case scenario.

Why scrapping Labour’s climate change policies has made the oil crisis worse

Written By: - Date published: 1:38 pm, March 17th, 2026 - 10 comments

Driven by ideology, this Government has worsened the country’s prospects to reduce oil dependance by axing policies that would have cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

Dead man walking

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, March 6th, 2026 - 65 comments

It has been a hell of a week for Christopher Luxon. His performance particularly over Iran has been appalling. And a new poll puts National under 30%.

Paul Goldsmith tried to get homeless arrested 18 years ago

Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, February 26th, 2026 - 7 comments

Senior National Party Cabinet Minister tried to have police arrest homelessness in Auckland 18 years ago. This year he succeeded

A comparison between the LNG Terminal deal and the NZ Steel deal

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, February 16th, 2026 - 14 comments

A comparison of the LNG Terminal deal and the previous Government’s deal with NZ Steel to replace its coal fired furnace with a renewable energy supplied electric arc furnace clearly shows what this Government’s priorities are.

Think Big 2.0

Written By: - Date published: 2:02 pm, February 12th, 2026 - 34 comments

The Government has responded to a perceived urgency caused by dry years to the country’s power supply by proposing something that is counter intuitive. Instead of rolling out solar it wants to burn imported Liquified Natural Gas. And use enabling legislation to avoid any overview of the proposal.

Fast Track law fails at the first big hurdle

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, February 8th, 2026 - 18 comments

Environmental groups have cheered the draft Panel’s decision refusing to allow Taranaki’s continental shelf from being smashed up to extract rare earth minerals. But how will the Government respond?

“Surprise” unemployment high masks more damaging developments

Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, February 4th, 2026 - 8 comments

Unemployment hits 5.4% in the December quarter, but that doesn’t include the 140,000 plus Kiwi citizens that have fled in the last 2 years

Shane Jones loves fossil fuels

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, February 2nd, 2026 - 9 comments

National has allowed Shane Jones to effectively veto the country signing up to a road map away from the use of fossil fuels supported by much of the world that was consistent with current policy settings.

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?

Who would have thunk that slashing Health IT budgets would result in IT outages

Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, January 29th, 2026 - 9 comments

A year after the Government slashed a third of Health IT jobs the Auckland hospital system has suffered a massive IT outage.

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.

MCERT V MAF V MBIE V Treasury

Written By: - Date published: 3:01 pm, January 15th, 2026 - 4 comments

The merger of many functions of the central public sector concerned with cities, the environment, housing and urban development, and transport, was announced in the week before Christmas and is now underway. There’s plenty of good on the face of it.

Some random predictions for 2026 …

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, January 2nd, 2026 - 8 comments

What will election year 2026 bring to Aotearoa?

Politician of the year?

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, December 31st, 2025 - 3 comments

Chris Bishop is thought by some to be the politician of the year, mainly for drafting a couple of bills plaigarised from the work of David Parker and untested promises to build hugely expensive roads of National significance. But they are ignoring the most extraordinary performance by an opposition leader in recent decades.

Peters spits the dummy over India Free Trade deal

Written By: - Date published: 7:54 am, December 24th, 2025 - 22 comments

“National preferred doing a quick, low-quality deal over doing the hard work necessary to get a fair deal that delivers for both New Zealanders and Indians.”

Good work if you can get it

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, December 21st, 2025 - 9 comments

National’s Ministerial Retail Advisory Group leader Sunny Kaushall has hit the headlines for huge catering costs inluding paying $9 for bottles of coke worth $5.50. But the deeper story should be why his activity, which is clearly political in nature, being funded by a fund set aside for victims.

Holy feck

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 pm, December 17th, 2025 - 22 comments

The last poll of the political year and it is a doozie. Labour is 8 points ahead of National.

Accelerating climate change under urgency

Written By: - Date published: 2:02 pm, December 11th, 2025 - 7 comments

The Government is legislating to halve methane emission reduction targets and remove the requirement for the ETS to accord with Paris Accord obligations. And intends to pass these changes under urgency despite there being no requirement to do so.

“National is Getting NZ Back on Track”?

Written By: - Date published: 2:21 pm, December 8th, 2025 - 13 comments

That’s the headline of the pamphlet in the letterbox. But from their own measures is that true?

Why the next election will not be easy for Labour

Written By: - Date published: 12:12 pm, December 7th, 2025 - 27 comments

This may be a one term National Government. But electoral law reform, the state of Labour’s coalition partners, a possible economic upturn and a change in National’s leader threaten this.

The Government’s 59 policy changes that are destroying the country’s climate response

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 pm, December 5th, 2025 - 8 comments

Count them and weep.