Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, April 21st, 2026 - 36 comments
Any time a political leader has to put their position to a vote, they become a dead pigeon. David Lange knew winning the vote didn’t end the matter.
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, April 6th, 2026 - 48 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.
Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, March 27th, 2026 - 23 comments
Nicola Willis and Shane Jones present the details in the current plan for the Hormz oill crisis.
Written By: - Date published: 5:04 pm, March 21st, 2026 - 24 comments
Don’t hold on to an old umbrella in a wuthering storm.
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.
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, March 18th, 2026 - 10 comments
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be fired over the imperilment of the New Zealand economy by his government’s laissez-faire response to the coming energy shock.
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, March 14th, 2026 - 43 comments
Jacinda Ardern led the country through some of the most taxing international crises imaginable. How would she deal with the potential oil shock caused by the Iranian war and how does this compare to Christopher Luxon’s response?
Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, March 12th, 2026 - 29 comments
Shane Jones has been making a song and dance about how the previous Labour Government was responsible for the closure of the Marsden Point Refinery. But a perusal of the cabinet paper he cites in support shows that this clearly is not the case.
Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, March 11th, 2026 - 90 comments
In the short and medium term, what should this government do as a plan?
Written By: - Date published: 12:53 pm, March 9th, 2026 - 16 comments
Winston Peters has been in this scenario before. The brutal replacement of Jim Bolger as PM in 1997 eventually saw Peters walk away from the coalition. What will happen this time around?
Written By: - Date published: 11:44 am, March 5th, 2026 - 39 comments
Trump’s attack on Iran, in cahoots with, or in support of, his regional proxy, Israel, is illegal, but also unconscionable in moral and political terms. It is a resurgence of the post-war experience, in which the development of the rules-based international order was qualified by the arbitrary actions of “big players” in Iran, Suez, Cuba […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, March 3rd, 2026 - 22 comments
A prime minister who does not understand how vulnerable New Zealand’s economy is to a Middle Eastern war as we have now, is a Prime Minister who should be removed from office.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, March 1st, 2026 - 29 comments
Trump’s attack on Iran is one hell of a way to divert away from the Epstein files.
Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, March 1st, 2026 - 42 comments
Trump’s attack on Iran has a high risk of turning into another Afghanistan in which the United States was utterly humiliated.
Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, February 26th, 2026 - 12 comments
Chris Bishop was forced to eat humble pie this week on his plan to make Auckland a more compact city. And the Government’s backflip on the number of new dwellings makes a mockery of Auckland Council’s recent consultation on Plan Change 120. How councillors are supposed to weigh the new proposal with open minds under that kind of pressure is anyone’s guess.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 23rd, 2026 - 20 comments
Fining beggers will only increase their problems and moving them on will not solve the problem only spread it around.
Written By: - Date published: 5:31 pm, February 22nd, 2026 - 22 comments
All the signs are pointing to a new Shock and Awe campaign by the United States, with the goal of a fast knock-out of Iran.. War seldom goes entirely to plan.
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, February 14th, 2026 - 79 comments
If you dismantle welfare, you push many New Zealanders into desperate poverty.
Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, January 30th, 2026 - 27 comments
There is no evidence of immediate improvement in our economy, or of this government improving it.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, January 22nd, 2026 - 11 comments
Some NZ hospitals are going into critical status at least twice a day, turning away patients who are then as twice likely to die. Plus: National isn’t meeting its targets and election day announced.
Written By: - Date published: 6:09 am, January 22nd, 2026 - 44 comments
“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.
But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just.
…
The powerful have their power. But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.”
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, January 17th, 2026 - 10 comments
Christopher Luxon is extracting utu on Chris Bishop for his pre Christmas attempted coup by making Bishop eat humble pie on his plans to allow intensification in Auckland’s inner suburbs.
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 pm, January 16th, 2026 - 26 comments
To understand what’s going on in Iran, abandon what the Persians invented centuries ago: Manichaeism, black-and-white, political framing.
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, January 1st, 2026 - 7 comments
Happy New Year to all the readers, commenters, and fellow authors/mods at The Standard
Written By: - Date published: 12:03 pm, December 23rd, 2025 - 11 comments
Advantage gets out the crystal ball and postilated what may happen next year.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, December 20th, 2025 - 13 comments
The plan ignores standard traffic planning practice, takes no account of predicted sea level rise and will be obsolete before the last stone is turned.
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, December 19th, 2025 - 6 comments
The Taxpayer’s Union campaign against Nicola Willis’s Socialist handling of the economy, complete with novelty fudge has crashed unceremoniously. The sponsors have clearly spoken.
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, December 13th, 2025 - 5 comments
Under a series of science driven policy options, National / ACT and NZ First unanimously choose “catastrophic peril”. Anything for the fossil fuel and farmer industry, but at what cost, NZ?
Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, December 10th, 2025 - 13 comments
Jason Walls is a former Newstalk ZB Political Editor turned TVNZ business correspondent. Under his choices, can we still rely on 1News business reports? Plus: Chris Bishop’s nefarious RMA play
Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, December 7th, 2025 - 2 comments
The world is entering a generation of challenges not seen since the late 1930s. New Zealand is better placed than most states to weather this challenge if it prepares now.
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, December 2nd, 2025 - 22 comments
David Seymour’s campaign to reduce the so called excessive spend on Labour’s school lunches have struck a rather awkward problem. At least for one school recently provided lunches were inedible which basically destroys the whole reason for having them.
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