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Government makes Move On Orders Bill less shit

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, September 6th, 2026 - 4 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, September 1st, 2026 - 22 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, August 30th, 2026 - 24 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 pm, August 22nd, 2026 - 69 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, August 16th, 2026 - 15 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, August 7th, 2026 - 3 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, August 6th, 2026 - 8 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, August 4th, 2026 - 25 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 6:21 pm, August 1st, 2026 - 139 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 1:11 pm, July 31st, 2026 - 37 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, July 29th, 2026 - 16 comments

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.

Written By: - Date published: 6:17 pm, July 23rd, 2026 - 18 comments

Iranian Ambassador Reza Nazar Ahari provides some fascinating analysis into why the Western strategy on Iran has been so disastrously flawed.

Stuart Gnash

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, July 23rd, 2026 - 29 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 1:47 pm, July 22nd, 2026 - 10 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, July 18th, 2026 - 28 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, July 14th, 2026 - 13 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, July 10th, 2026 - 18 comments

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.

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, July 3rd, 2026 - 115 comments

Denmark produces excellent beer, world class design, unmanageable open sandwiches and an object lesson in the operation of proportional representation. A particular interest in Denmark is triggered by the emergence of the Opportunity Party as a possible threshold party in the NZ system. It may, at a stretch, arrive at 5%, which, as commentators have […]

The simple case for Universalism.

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, June 27th, 2026 - 44 comments

Yeah. Why don’t we means test education, health, sickness benefit, the military, disaster help, police…..?

On Trump’s Temporary Fix In Iran

Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, June 20th, 2026 - 17 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, June 14th, 2026 - 36 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, June 7th, 2026 - 20 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, June 4th, 2026 - 117 comments

When it is a right wing astroturfing front.

No nukes

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, June 1st, 2026 - 30 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, May 31st, 2026 - 32 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 pm, May 27th, 2026 - 15 comments

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.

New Zealand And Palantir

Written By: - Date published: 3:13 pm, May 21st, 2026 - 7 comments

Palantir, founded by Alex Karp and New Zealand citizen Peter Thiel, is at the centre of an array of A.I. driven kill programmes for the US, Israeli and other militaries, including the NZDF.

Reformism or bust?: Making the best of a bleak future

Written By: - Date published: 2:42 pm, May 15th, 2026 - 4 comments

Some initial ideas about the integrated policy package Labour must consider if it is to meet contemporary challenges posed by emerging populism and the narrowing of the Labour vision over the past five decades

Stop This Madness

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, May 14th, 2026 - 33 comments

Why is Chris Bishop wanting to review the cost of the City Rail Link while at the same time is happy to proceed with roads of national signficance that are very expensive but provide limited financial return?

The Last Old Party Election

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, May 9th, 2026 - 23 comments

Anyone who thinks that New Zealand won’t be touched by the same rapid democratic pessimism as we see in our most comparable democracies, is like those who thought COVID could be stopped from reaching us.

Uncertain Futures and Political Change

Written By: - Date published: 5:54 pm, April 21st, 2026 - 65 comments

The world is turned upside down and challenges progressive politics to change gear.