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6:00 am, October 15th, 2025 - 43 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Given the state of TPM currently this might be a moot point.
But does it matter electorally if Labour doesn't win any of the Māori seats, seeing as how the majority of the Māori party vote goes to Labour anyway.
The best tactic to change the government in 2026 would be for TPM to win all seven Maori seats but for the TPM party vote to go to the Greens or Labour. It is in the best interests of Maori to split their vote.
John Tamihere is not a dumbo, he knows this.
Depends on what you mean by does it matter.
If you are just looking at an overall Left result – then, actually, strategic voting by the Maori electorates (voting for all TPM MPs, and otherwise voting only for Labour/Green as the party vote) – results in the highest number of Left MPs (since all of the Maori seats would be overhang).
[That could also be a high-risk strategy, since it would be just as blatant manipulation of the MMP election rules as the Epsom cup of tea – widely decried by the Left. And would provide a lot of ammunition for those parties on the right wanting the Maori seats disestablished]
But does it matter for Labour?
Do they abandon the Maori seats altogether? There's a long history there, and a lot of Maori MPs with very strong connections.
And, while list MPs can theoretically also represent a geographic area, in practice it rarely works (apart from Swarbrick, the electorate MP in Auckland Central – can anyone think of a Green MP who represents the interests of Auckland voters?) List MPs typically represent the party, rather than an individual electorate.
Does it result in Maori representation in Parliament being captured by a single party, and being more radicalized? We're certainly seeing this in the current environment, with differences (perfectly healthy ones) developing between TPM MPs and Maori Labour ones.
And with TPM claiming to represent 'Maori' (despite the fact that more Maori are on the general roll, than are on the Maori one).
Does it matter for TPM?
While it would seem like a winning strategy for TMP – guaranteed seats. Developments over the last few months (Ferris, Kapa-Kingi) – have made it clear that many of the MPs see themselves as electorate representatives first, and members of TMP second.
Not decrying this – I think that our parliament needs more MPs to stand up for their consituents over their party.
But it makes them uneasy, and unreliable coalition members.
Of course, I don't know that TPM actually *want* to be in government.
Going electorate only is a high risk strategy. We've seen substantial changes in voting patterns over the last 20 years in the Maori electorates – with Maori parties being flavour-of-the-month – and then being dropped like a hot potato at subsequent elections.
In a nutshell? Absolutely.
Because if Labour can’t manage the former, we can’t be confident they’ll achieve the latter. The biggest mistake any political analysis can make is assuming voting coalitions and demographics are fixed in place.
Yes, Labour has traditionally won the lion’s share of the Māori party vote and has a long, storied relationship with Māori communities. But that doesn’t mean we can take that for granted.
Because if Trumpism and the global rise of the extreme right have shown us anything, it’s that traditional left and centre-left voters can be surprisingly vulnerable to more radical alternatives.
And in a more practical sense, in a close enough election, a full Te Pāti Māori sweep could create an overhang that makes a viable left coalition mathematically impossible.
Do you mean a viable *right* coalition mathematically impossible?
That makes more sense to me, given that party votes rule.
At the very least a a viable right coalition would be similarly imperilled?
Given that TPM seem highly unlikely to ever enter a right coalition – it's probably irrelevant.
They did before… though to be fair, that was a different iteration of TPM, with a different iteration of National.
Given that Luxon has no ideological stakes in the ground, no discernible ideas of his own, and, on the evidence , no personality, is it really unthinkable that he (or more likely, someone on his staff) might see dumping ACT and bringing TPM into the tent, à la John Key, as a viable path to clinging to power in 2026?
If there’s one thing we can always rely on with National, it’s that power comes before principle. They’d cheerfully knife one of their own if that’s what it took to keep hold of the Treasury benches.
No. In fact its chances of being in government are higher if TPM does win the seats.
Whether TPM wins the seats, or not, many Maori who vote for them in the electorate choose another party – Labour or Greens on the party list.
The wider issue is that Labour will compete in the seats, it has a history of doing so and winning. It continues to do so, even though it now loses as National did in the past.
One reason is to challenge TPM to have good candidates. Thus assist TPM by beating those who are not.
The worst result for Labour would be to win all 7 seats and have a 3% party list for TPM wasted.
If Labour + Green=46% + 7 TPM seats, majority. I think?
7 seats is a 5% vote equivalent.
So 46% to LG via MMP + 5% to a narrow majority.
Given TPM get about 3% on the party list this is advantageous.
I think if the numbers rolled that way, Chippy would be looking for a return to 2017 in my view.
Coalition with NZ1 – with Greens supporting from outside of cabinet.
That is a much more stable government than going with a party that is clearly in some kind of internal war.
"A Detailed Business Case for the electrification of the Golden Triangle’s rail network has been underway for a while but information recently shared by KiwiRail with Waikato’s Regional Land Transport Committee sheds some light on their emerging thinking on what this might look like."
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2025/10/15/electrifying-the-golden-triangle/
What a wonderful concept. I wonder if it fits with Priyanca Radhakrishnan's ideas.
Trumpism has given license to the worst of us, encouraging Rimmer, Peters and their CoC.
If you think Trumpism will simply end in three years, you are naive. Left unopposed, global populism of the sort Trumpism represents could dominate for a generation. This could be the rest of our lives, and our children’s, too.
So why are we doing so little? Are we just going to stand in passive witness to the degradation of our democracy?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/11/autocracy-resistance-social-movement/684336/?gift=SCYx-5scVta3-cr_IlgTyQrc4c_XQDCUoj_2ZARZiBg
Trump is just a figurehead.
The multi decade project, to make up for the inevitable "declining rate of return in capital", by appropriating ever more if the commons, will continue.
It was hard case to hear the 'reasonable voice for business', Phil O'Reilly wanting government to fund this, government to provide that.
Neo-liberal dogma has the government get out of the way and let business get on with business.
So long as that business doesn't have to invest in training (drivers licenses), business doesn't have to provide basic gear (tool belts).
If a business can't fund toolbelts and allocate time for a license then maybe they shouldn't be in business.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019008474/calls-for-govt-to-incentivise-employing-low-skilled-workers
Business has always relied on various 'free gifts' for its profitability. These include free gifts of nature (water, forests, fish, etc), of human nature (resourcefulness, intelligence, unpaid child-rearing, etc) and from the state (subsidies, property rights, taxpayer-funded infrastructure, etc).
So nothing new here really. The pretence that it's all heroic individualism doesn't really wash. It's not that entrepreneurs don't exist, they do, but there is a lot of 'valorisation' going on. It's best to get this clear in our heads, because that opens the way for socially useful entrepreneurism to be encouraged and socially useless forms to be discouraged..
Good comment!
Rather than a binary I think there’s an optimum and the nature changes over time.
Neo-liberal "dogma" is remarkedly flexible when it comes to "socialising the losses and privatising the gains".
It is, as one economist remarked. "Economics has long consisted of finding moral justifications for greed".
Simply another step, in the centuries long appropriation of the commons for private benefit. "The chain across the river"!
How many lives did Netanyahu's gimmie to tRump cost?
/
“This deal could have been done a long time ago,” Baskin wrote in an essay revealing his involvement. “Hamas agreed to all of the same terms in September 2024 in what became known as the ‘Three Weeks Deal’ that I had received in writing and voice message in Arabic and in English. But at that point the response of the Israeli negotiators was that ‘the prime minister did not agree to end the war’.”
[…]
Baskin would soon learn that the Israelis had no intention of striking any agreement before a change of administration in Washington. On December 26, 2024, Baskin met Ronen Bar, then head of the Shin Bet agency, where he “was requested not to use my back channels, because ‘in three weeks there will be a ceasefire deal’”.
https://archive.li/fbRlg#selection-1643.0-1643.323 (thetimes)
What peace deal?
/
שראל כ”ץ Israel Katz
@Israel_katz
Translated from Hebrew by Grok
Israel's great challenge after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas's terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States.
This is the primary significance of implementing the agreed-upon principle of demilitarizing Gaza and neutralizing Hamas of its weapons.
I have instructed the IDF to prepare for carrying out the mission.
https://xcancel.com/Israel_katz/status/1977253298580160601
The living hostages are home, the IDF is off the leash, the lebumstraum project will continue and Hamas has no reason to show any restraint.
The Gaza nightmare continues.
Israeli soldiers kill at least nine Palestinians trying to return to their homes in northern Gaza City and southern Khan Younis in the first major violation since the US-brokered ceasefire began.
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/liveblog/2025/10/14/live-trump-signs-gaza-ceasefire-deal-with-leaders-of-qatar-egypt-turkiye
I don't understand how anyone could be surprised by that. It's no more in Israel's interest to make ceasefire agreements with Hamas than it would have been in the WW2 Allies' interest to make ceasefire agreements with the Nazis – which they didn't. The ceasefire agreements in this war have mostly been due to US pressure on the Israeli government, and any sensible Israeli government would now be making plans for how to prosecute the war against Hamas by other means (targeted assassinations, for example).
Where do I find which MPs voted which way on a particular Bill? I can't see it on this Bill's page, but it's only just been voted on yesterday.
https://bills.parliament.nz/v/6/72989FD8-09E8-4B89-5E08-08DD18A12BFB
I tried to help out, but that site now "verification check" blocks me from using it.
I guess future submissions are out from now on.
Better Regulation of access to the process, as per voting?
I'm not getting that. Try a different browser?
Found that the site doesn't love Firefox (my default) but is perfectly happy with MS Edge.
Yeah Chrome worked.
It should be up on Friday, they do the bills of the week then.
PS I've used Firefox no problem so far.
I've given up predicting which browsers will be acceptable to any site and any time 😛
I just try them all in rotation, now, if I get a failure on the first one.
I'm using FF on a mac with no problems, but I also find the internet generally requires multiple browsers now, esp when use ad and autoplay blocks.
it's the Broadcasting (Repeal of Advertising Restrictions) Amendment Bill. Conscience vote that passed 93 – 29. I wanted to know who on the left voted for it.
NZH article,
https://archive.is/8uCfu
I got into parliament via your link at 6. But could not access Hansard.
Try the Hansard link for the 3rd Reading.
Yeah, doesn't include the votes (although there was a very interesting discussion on how the votes should be recorded for a conscience bill – and whether proxies were acceptable) – also a note that since there were fewer than 20 members present, the matter was postponed until the next sitting.
Haven't found the vote yet, by Shanan Halbert (Labour) spoke in favour of it.
The third reading (continued) from the 14th of October – should have the votes recorded – but the document in Hansard is blank.
Suspect it's not up yet.
Broadcasting (Repeal of Advertising Restrictions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading (continued) – New Zealand Parliament
Got it!
Vote – New Zealand Parliament
https://www3.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20251014_051480000/vote
I checked another bill a while ago and it took a couple of days to show up, so maybe have a look tomorrow
Broadly
National ACT and Labour voted for
Greens some of NZF and TPM against.
Can I just take this opportunity to say **** Labour?
You certainly can
Stuff poll tells us what we already know … that Luxon should/will be rolled, and National's chances improve under a new leader.
It is frustrating that we have to wait for the inevitable and keep pretending that Luxon is going to stick around. Get on with it, National MPs. They are only damaging their own credibility by saying "Totes support our wonderful leader!" before totes dumping their useless leader.
Chris Bishop emerges as successor-in-waiting as half of voters want Christopher Luxon gone | Stuff
Maybe the cops get called and can slip a pair of handcuffs on her.
Complicit in impeding justice for those tortured in state care. No wonder she is held in high esteem by Collins. The Attorney General is up to her eyeballs in guilt too.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/10/14/solicitor-general-stepping-down-after-10-years/
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/10/14/crown-cover-up-when-the-state-turned-on-its-victims/