National’s failure to adequately explain how its new revenue policies will work has seen its support sag. And its problem is that if it depends on Winston Peters for confidence and supply he has expressed major reservations about these policies and there is no guarantee he will support them. And a significant majority of New Zealanders understand this.
As the polls show a further slump in support for the right and as Winston Peters emerges as a kingmaker there is growing concern about the possibility of a real coalition of chaos being elected.
Nicola Willis has essentially confirmed that the design of National’s foreign purchase of land tax was and remains sufficient to be done on the back of an envelope.
After Stats NZ shot down National’s claim that the country is in recession National pirouetted by claiming that New Zealand WILL be in recession in the near future and that the Reserve Bank has predicted this. But according to the Reserve Bank this may not be true …
A year ago this month, the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng mini-budget destroyed once and for all the myth that the Tories are better at managing the economy. The New Zealand National Party could not even wait until they were in government to prove the same applies to them.
From the outside, the New Zealand 2023 General Election seems both lacklustre and slightly strange. The Labour Government, having won a huge majority in 2020 is now fighting for its political life. Yet National, the main centre-right opposition party is still on average polling significantly worse now than they were when it lost power in 2017.
Despite repeated analysis that its policies do not add up National is refusing to release the costings behind its policies.
Independent economists have calculated that there is a half a billion dollar hole in National’s foreigner land purchase tax policy.
National has reached new levels of excessive hyperbole in response to the PREFU release which was better than expected.
The silver lining to last night’s Reid Research poll is that Act’s support is slumping and if there is a change in Government it may not be as extreme as it could have been.
National has proposed to direct teachers how and what they should teach to improve literacy standards.
National’s proposal to increase the number of electric car charging stations is something that should be considered but not at the expense of the extraordinarily successful clean car discount.
National, which perfected the art of dirty politics, and which has spent the past couple of years being relentlessly negative and which has had its sock puppets attack individual Labour MPs mercilessly is deeply, deeply, deeply upset that the CTU has pointed out to the public what a Christopher Luxon led Government would actually mean.
Yes we could do the next five weeks on teeth and taxes, but actually China is pulling us down and our political parties need to make it an election issue.
When the history of the 2023 New Zealand Aotearoa general election is written and if Labour gets up to win historians will point to the events of this week as the turning point in what has already been a dramatic year in politics. Because I cannot believe how bad National’s tax cut policy release has been researched and structured and how bad its release is going.
National’s announcement of four new taxes to fund tax cuts rely on herculean assumptions that will never be met. And their proposal for climate change will undermine the slow but steady progress the country has been making to meeting its emission reduction goals.
Yesterday was a good day for Labour. Leader Chris Hipkins started talking about what the party stood for and what its values are while also ruling out a coalition with NZ First.
If there was a change of Government the next Government could potentially be full of fundamentalist Christians, anti vaxers and all sorts of people whose view of Aotearoa is not conventional or reality based.
National MP Tim Van Der Molen has been found to have been in contempt of Parliament for aggressive, hostile and threatening behaviour towards Labour MP Shannan Halbert during a select committee hearing.
The brains trust of Labour’s leadership have recently released a policy providing for the compulsory teaching of financial literacy in schools. Tacking to the centre and seeking votes from the pro business part of the electorate is an interesting approach to campaigning. Time will tell if it is the correct approach.
It has been revealed that National issued a press release in support of litigation taken against the Government by a company without disclosing that the manager of the company had previously made significant donations to National.
David Seymour yesterday hit a new low in race baiting when he said that “in my fantasy we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in [to the ministry of Pacific Peoples] and it’d be all over”.
Since 2017 this Government has constructed 12,000 new Kainga Ora houses, overseen record numbers of new housing consents, moved to resolving the housing crisis and stabilised and reduced house prices. All this is at stake if there is a change of Government.
Some donors normally associated with the National Party have recently made significant donations to the NZ First Party.
When the news about an Act MP being shot in the foot when he was 17 during a drug deal was released I did not think too much about it. But on reflection maybe there is a story here …
National has this propensity of announcing policies that scratch conservative itches, cost nothing and hog media attention. Yesterday we had a classic example of this as they announced that cell phones would be banned at schools.
Some big news yesterday as the Government announced a deal with US Investment Firm Blackrock for a $2 billion fund for renewable electricity projects.
Nation building projects always take multiple terms, and the risk of Labour losing puts at risk some of the largest and most important we’ve seen in generations.
The Government is set to overturn the previous National Government’s laws that prevented proper protection of urban trees and which has seen a stampede of urban tree removal.
National’s latest policy announcement shows that it has an unmistakable fetish for tar seal.
My 2c on what I think Chris Hipkins needs to do to win this year’s election.
But should it be? Without acknowledging in any way its role in politicising Kiritapu Allan’s issues National has stated that politics is a blood sport.
There will be no respite for any of us this year and National has no cure for it.
Roger Douglas, who as Finance Minister under the fourth Labour Government caused major harm and the founder of the Act Party, has publicly declared that he has lost faith in the Act party and is now a swing voter.
Hipkins being himself is his election-winning attribute.
With 98 days to go despite large parts of the electorate being very grumpy the polls are neck and neck and Labour can still win. This is what they have to do.
