Calculated cruelty
National has announced two populist cruel policies today of benefit cuts for beneficiaries on the Jobseeker benefit for over two years and random drug testing for beneficiaries.
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The Leader’s debate
Some thoughts on the first Leader’s debate, essentially to agree with Thomas Coughlan that Luxon is leading National to a defeat and this debate did not help.
To overhang or not to overhang, that’s the question
National has a snowball’s chance in hell of creating an overhang for its nefarious need to lead Coalition Mark II.
The Race for Tamaki
Normally the seat of Tamaki is won by the right but given a potential vote split, a Teal type response to the right’s culture war campaigns and an outstanding campaign by Labour’s Max Harris anything is possible.
The Race for Mt Albert
A Spinoff poll suggests that the race for Mt Albert is a clear choice between Labour’s Helen White and National’s Melissa Lee.
Nicola Willis high on a surplus of inflation and unemployment
The PREFU reveals an approaching Nicola Willis surplus based on inflation and fiscal drag. It has nothing to do with economic growth. Meanwhile our young adults are experiencing the joys of very high and sustained unemployment. The same kind of environment that stunted the generation in National’s recession of the 1990s. This time we have a rapidly ageing population. And Nicola Willis in fantasy land.
Watch Waitaki
Damien O’Connor has a unique chance to wrest the safe seat of Waitaki off National’s Miles Anderson.
The Latest One News Verian Poll
It’s only one poll, but it’s broadly in line with other recent polls.
Stanford gets caught out
This week, a video emerged of a senior official telling staff not to document draft curriculum rewrites exchanged between Erica Stanford’s office and the Ministry of Education, to avoid OIA disclosure. Recent changes also suggest education is being politicised in an offensive way.
National’s LNG terminal tax is on hold (for the moment).
National proposed building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Port Taranaki. Ostensibly for dry year support for the electricity generators. National were planning to have this signed up before the election. Act and NZ First appear to have quashed that. The outrage of consumers to being taxed yet again by the National government for their piss-poor 1990s energy management broke through?
Unmasking the TaxPayers Union as the Tobacco Protection Union
The most interesting thing so far about Hagers’ Dirty Work book has been revelation of the extent that the Tobacco industry funds the Taxpayers Union and the people operating it. It appears that the organisation should be regarded as an organisation dedicated to killing citizens with tobacco products.
National’s pro climate change obsession
Despite the Iranian war threatening supplies, the Methanex plant closure creating an LNG surplus for the foreseeable future, and enabling legislation still pending, National wants to rush through a construction contract for the LNG terminal before the next election.
Comrade Christopher and the breakup of Foodstuffs
Christopher Luxon’s announcement that if re-elected National would move to break up Foodstuffs has met resistence from within his caucus, from the Act Party and from some of the party’s strongest and best resourced supporters.
Kiwisaver and the 2026 Election
A review of its behaviour over time shows that National can’t be trusted with your Kiwisaver.
The problem with foreign funded polls
Why does our media allow potentially foreign funded polls that are out of kilter with other polling results to affect local political discourse?
Why does National despise the poor?
Under National the MSD thinks that food is not an essential need. And it pushed through under urgency a botched up law change which cut the benefits for tens of thousands of elderly kiwis.
The Right is winning the bullshit media narrative
Last weekend saw a continuation of right wing parties coming out with inane policy announcements that make a media splash without any hard questions being asked.
Government makes Move On Orders Bill less shit
This week the Government reluctantly reversed its intent to allow homeless teenagers to be prosecuted if they did not move to somewhere less safe when required to move on by police.
Homelessness kills
Very sad recent news from yesterday. Three homeless people in Aotearoa, the land of plenty, have recently frozen to death.
How To Ensure Power Shifts
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.
Winning the battle but losing the war
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?
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.
Luxon, Yahoo and Numpty
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.
Does Policy Still Win the 2026 Election?
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
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
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.
Our Worst Recession
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.
Jones should be sacked
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.
Latest poll – too close to call
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
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
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
With friends like NZ First …
This week Tama Potaka announced the Government will backtrack on a proposal that would have allowed for the sale of up to 60% of the country’s conservation land. But Shane Jones then completely undermined the announcement by talking about using Conservation land for mining.
National panics with Kiwisaver announcement as polling crashes
National’s recent Kiwisaver announcement, expected to cost $110 million a year, only pays back some of the savings from its erlier Kiwisaver cuts expected to save $610 million a year, and appears to be signs ofincreasing panic.
The Alarming Echos between Trump and Luxon on elections
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.
National panics
It is strange for a party in power finishing its first term to call a media event on a Sunday just so it can attack the opposition. But this is what happened yesterday.
National intends to proceed with the LNG terminal and welch on the country’s Kyoto Protocol obligations
National, a party of supposed economic geniuses, will spend billions on an LNG terminal that is not needed, billions on roads of National significance whose business cases are appalling, and attack Labour for a policy that is cheap, will help ordinary people, reduce fuel dependancy and greenhouse gas emissions.