Luxon couldn’t be more like Trump if he tried
Christopher Luxon, who changed the law to limit special votes, supposedly so the next government could be formed more quickly, has cast a special vote.
Social issues
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“Government does things not for profit but to build a country”
In the Greens’ fiscal plan policy speech, Chloe Swarbrick lays out what good government is, and lays down a challenge to National’s Minister of Finance Nicola Willis.
Twopenneth on MMP and Class
A contribution to the current discussion of MMP and the next election.
National plans to slash overseas aid
National’s announcement made yesterday to make savage cuts to overseas aid to pay for cancer treatments is a stunner. Imagining seeking the votes of those who want to have an improved health system and those who harbour racist thoughts at the same time.
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.
How Could Labour Pay for Transport Without Raising Fuel Taxes?
Labour has promised it will not raise fuel taxes across the next Parliamentary term. That’s a basic cost-of-living politics move. But it’s going to hurt the transport system.
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.
Hager’s next book
This Tuesday Nicky Hager is releasing a new book. And there are some indications it may be about the role of astroturf organisations in Aotearoa and how they are funded.
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?
City Rail Link Is Really About Workers
Plenty of politicians will seek credit when it opens, but none of them will have lifted a spade. The reason New Zealand’s largest infrastructure project exists is because over 1700 workers actually built it.
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.
Who is to blame for Air New Zealand’s latest result?
Christopher Luxon has asked Air New Zealand to explain what caused its recently announced significant loss. The answer appears to be a decision made by Air New Zealand while he was Chief Executive.
The Government suddenly wants to limit the damage it has caused to our climate response
After spending all term undermining the Country’s climate change response the Government now wants to improve the country’s ability to meet the Country’s Paris Accord obligations.
Elon Musk would be pleased with Opportunity Party’s Data Centre policy
The Opportunities Party wishes to enrich Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison by giving them tax breaks to establish data centres in Aotearoa.
Naidoo deserves an apology
A late police response to an OIA request concerning Labour List candidate Rakesh Naidoo raises concerns that the Police are acting politically.
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.
A Labour Government Is Good For Business
In the week that the Prime Minister offended small business, unemployment rose to 170,000 and over 6% in the North Island, and the Reserve Bank continues to raise interest rates, Labour showed, again, why the public knows they are better for small business than any other party.
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.
TOP proposes cuts to Public Service that Act would be proud of
The Opportunity Party has a hidden objective. They want to make huge cuts to the Public Service that even Act would look at and think “that is brave”. And they have been less than open about the cuts.
Aotearoa’s very own Donald Trump
New Zealand First is peddling nonsense law changes straight out of the Donald Trump playbook. And engaging in obnoxious racist behaviour. And Christopher Luxon does not have the ability to stop them or control them.
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.
Iranian Ambassador: why the US blundered so badly, the state of diplomacy and ways forward.
Iranian Ambassador Reza Nazar Ahari provides some fascinating analysis into why the Western strategy on Iran has been so disastrously flawed.
Stuart Gnash
With the demise of Stuart Nash’s planned resumption of his political career the question has to be asked, did Stuart Nash leave NZ First or did NZ First leave Stuart Nash?
Electricity Policy and Power Bills In Winter 2026
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.
Dead Cats everywhere
Winston Peters has engaged in classic dead cat political behaviour by publicly announcing that one of the new Interisland ferries will be called “Cook” and diverting the debate from the cost to the name.
Does Parliament really need more shock jocks?
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?
Let’s celebrate Kiwi music
Something to do on Matariki Day, celebrate Te Ao Aotearoa. RNZ has invited people to vote and comment on the list of the 100 best Kiwi songs and the top 50 will be played today.
Opportunity knocks.
Denmark produces excellent beer, world class design, unmanageable open sandwiches and an object lesson in the operation of proportional representation. A particular interest […]
The simple case for Universalism.
Yeah. Why don’t we means test education, health, sickness benefit, the military, disaster help, police…..?
On Trump’s Temporary Fix In Iran
Trump has finally said what New Zealand has been too afraid to say about Israel’s bombing of residential areas in Lebanon, and in Gaza.
Local Bodies: The myth of New Zealand’s economic backbone
If the farming sector is the ‘backbone of the economy’ then why is it that we are struggling to stand upright economically at the moment? Is it because agriculture is a economic drain on the rest of NZ. It provides 85% of our export revenue. But contributes just 5% of GDP, 5% of the workforce, and 1-3% of tax revenue – which effectively measures the profit to NZ.
In defence of the MP’s lot
Surging populist thinking is compounding neo-liberalism’s dislike of the public sector and our democratic institutions.
When is a Free Speech Union not a Free Speech Union?
When it is a right wing astroturfing front.
No nukes
The timing of the recent suggestion by Chris Penk that New Zealand should review its nuclear free policy makes you wonder if the Trump Administration has applied pressure to do so.
Hegseth accuses New Zealand of freeloading because we don’t want to arm for war
Pete Hegseth has claimed that New Zealand is freeloading because it is not spending enough of weapons of war at a time of international chaos created by the United States.
More fishy than a bait shop
Christopher Luxon has implied that a junior staffer met major polluters and received submissions urging him to sink Mike Smith’s bid to hold them to account which were then hidden. But it was his Chief Policy Advisor.