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Open Mike 22/09/2026
64 comments on “Open Mike 22/09/2026”
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A good performance by the Left in the weekend's local elections in Germany that has largely been glossed over by the AfD obsessed media.
In both Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania and Berlin the SPD, Left and Greens got enough votes to form solid majority governments.
Perhaps a good omen for the USA mid-term elections, and the election in a small South Pacific nation, both to be held in the first week of November.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/21/german-state-election-humiliation-friedrich-merz-borrowed-time-cdu-unrest-grows
Well, that's one way of glossing the situation.
In MP, The AfD were the highest polling party (for the third state election in a row), and the Greens got barely over the 5% threshold to keep them in parliament.
There may be a scraped together coalition to keep AfD out of power this time. But the trend towards the far right seems stark.
The results in Berlin are happier for the left. But 16% for AfD in a strongly left leaning electorate is still worrying.
Spotted this substack on the fall of the Greens there.
'Once a party of visionaries, they are now struggling to define their purpose. To survive, they must choose: recommit to radical climate action or fully embrace pragmatic centrism. Without clear direction, their future remains uncertain.'
That same struggle to define market segmentation has beset Labour.
https://martindeschner.substack.com/p/the-german-greens-from-radicals-to
Yes, the situation hasn't actually changed. Mainstream parties still refuse to do anything about mass migration and instead stake everything on the hope that the AFD's enthusiasm for Putin will put most people off voting for them. Big problem with that is that mass migration is on-site and highly visible, but Putin's a distant threat at best. Long term, the mainstream parties are betting their house while holding a pair of twos. The constant opinion pieces that amount to "Stupid Ossies and proles are clearly suckers for right-wing propaganda, so we must do something to curb foreign influence" don't help any either.
I agree I genuinely feel the peak of the global hard right has happened. I have a lot of optimism for the US mid-terms which is better than what I've felt in a while.
There are real worries ahead for France, India which now has no state with a centre-left government, and of course Germany at both state and Federal levels.
But I look around in the South Pacific and see stable successful governments in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and perhaps most importantly for us California, and I still get optimistic for our own trade (including tourism, students, screen industry, digital industries) and international relations into the future.
Found this neat site that harvests and analyses election results at many government levels worldwide. Lots of info for each.
Here's their report on the Berlin elections, for example.
https://electiomap.com/germany/state/2026-berlin
‘The Left makes the expropriation of large housing companies a condition of any coalition; the SPD’s Steffen Krach rejects expropriation but has not ruled out governing with the Left. The Greens have ruled out a coalition with the CDU. That makes the SPD and the Greens the kingmakers.’
That would be my wish BG.
My 85th on the 13th of Nov would be truly happy if we welcome a Labour Greens government here, and see the back of many nasties on the right.
I look forward to Nicky Hagar's new book, which I am sure will enlighten and inform.
I remain confident Patricia that the NZ people will see this CoC government for what it is. A racist, anti-poor, anti-women, anti-environment anti-public health, talentless Trump-light rabble.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/361031191/systems-just-broken-me-why-emergency-department-nurse-walked-away
Can ‘our’ CEO-led nACT1 CoC be good for Kiwis? Don't hold your breath customers.
Guy Body, in the New Zealand Herald, 31 March 2025.
Daniel Vernon, 21 Sept 2026.
After rightly railing against the reintroduction of interest deductability for landlords all term Hipkins has given us another example of why anyone wanting a move away from the centre right should avoid voting for Labour:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1509858/property-investors-relieved-at-labour-s-landlord-tax-deduction-promise
The argument that it's for the benefit of renters in a cost of living crisis is something Luxon would say. Laughable if it wasn’t so disappointing.
Arkie-luckily we can choose to Party Vote Green.
Lab 28 Gre 18 would almost certainly result in a government of the Left where the Greens could bargain hard for outcomes to the left of Labour.
'Here's why to party vote Green' is a far better message than 'Labour sucks, don't vote for them'.
The latter tells people not to vote. We need Labour to form government.
This is very sensible by Hipkins and very good news for tenants. Rents are no longer increasing at the high rates that they were under the Labour government. Hipkins has finally realised that the extra cost incurred by landlords will be passed on to the tenants.
Well, Barbara Edmonds does have 8 rental properties, as well as 8 children, showing she knows how to make money the easiest way in NZ.
Doesn't rule out a Greens-Labour rent cap. Or working towards an LVT or estate tax. Or removal of no-fault eviction, which is an important tool for cranking up rents and disempowering tenants.
Ah, don't know about that?
OK, apologies to TS and to Edwards, rowing back on that as incorrect, having looked at her declaration on the Parliamentary Pecunairy Interests Register. I remembered it as a factoid, obviously incorrectly, from an interview with her I watched a couple of years ago, possibly when she was a candidate for Mana. She IS a tax lawyer, however.
Isn't it usual when apologising to a person for insinuating that they are self-serving and/or hypocritical to at least get their name right? And then to follow it up with anther insinuation………
However, indeed.
That is a serious, probably malicious, stuff up tWig.
Perhaps you should spell out what is actually on Edmonds' Register of Pecuniary Interests.
I choose to believe that tWig made some (non-malicious) mistakes.
The NZ MPs who declared two or more rental properties are:
Dr Carlos Cheung (National, Mt Roskill) – five jointly owned rentals
Tim Costley (National, Ōtaki) – two rentals
Georgie Dansey (Labour, List) – two rentals (in trust)
Nancy Lu (National, List) – two rentals
Cameron Luxton (ACT, List) – two rentals (as beneficiary of trust)
Katie Nimon (National, Napier) – five rentals owned by holding company
Dr Parmjeet Parmar (ACT, List) – seven rentals
Hon Tama Potaka (National, Hamilton West) – two rentals, one jointly owned, one in trust.
https://www3.parliament.nz/en/mps-and-electorates/members-financial-interests/2026-register-of-pecuniary-and-other-specified-interests-of-members-of-parliament/
Apologies for any omissions and other inaccuracies.
Not sure that this register gives the full picture. For example, CEO Luxon lists: Residential properties (x2) – Auckland; Investment property – Auck.
One investment property, or several investment properties?
@tWig I feel that you are a player in the game of paint splatters. https://www.esheets.io/splatter/
But you might curb your enthusiasm by ensuring you pick the right opponent and that your aim is true. We are into serious territory here and now.
Rents arnt going up because the country is in recession
Rents aren't going up because demand is soft. Immigration to Oz is a big part of that picture.
Because the economic moron in national think blood letting is how you cure the patient
But if Labour brought back non-deductibility of interest for landlords, I would bet the house on rents increasing.
A bit pointless to bet. They've announced that they won't do so.
Fewer wanting to invest in rentals would reduce demand. With the market stagnating capital gains are less likely. Poor old chippy, he may be backing the wrong horse tax-wise.
Not what's being discussed here.
It's why rents are not going up.
Fewer landlords AKA fewer properties available to rent doesn't result in lower rents. If there are fewer rentals available (because landlords don't want to invest) – then rents go up, not down. Because there is increased demand, for a more limited supply.
ATM both rent and house prices are lower – because of emigration. Not because of any setting the government may have done or not done over taxes, etc.
But, I agree, depending on any form of CGT for government income requires that the property market increase over the relatively short term. Which means that governments have a perverse incentive to create settings which force house prices higher.
So I'm guessing you and your relatives are prepared for the impact of Labour's CGT on our housing market:
A sharp, long-term slowdown in sales volumes and reduced investor appetite … that's on top of the depressed North Island market and a collective private debt market so big and so delicate that even a shift of half a percentage point is enough to get every real estate commentator and bank economist racing to their keyboards and bringing sales and investment down further.
Hipkins is smart enough to understand that the CGT even in its limited form will have a high impact and it's best to not make its impact quite so hard.
Housing is for people to have homes to live in, not to operate as a speculative assets for the sorted.
Neither me nor my family own other peoples homes. Nor do I care if my house loses value, it's value to me is as a residence.
I don't think a Labour party should be siding with landlords, I think the deductability for new builds was good policy to encourage property investors to build more houses rather than buying pre-existing ones. It wasn't just a revenue stream, it encouraged the right kinds of development. This move just makes sure that investors have no good reason to build new homes. Taxes are used to modify behaviour, the revenue is secondary.
Agree 100% Arkie. Hipkins has bottled-out again. Thank goodness for MMP.
Gordon Campbell comments on the narrow policies that present Parties are considering.
I put this up yesterday night:
https://thestandard.nz/hagers-next-book/#comment-2073252
Yes I will make sure I get to the Dunedin Metro screening.
So many of the 1999-2008 remaining achievements were Anderton-driven.
In theory, I agree with you (as someone who's lived in my current house for over 30 years).
However, there are limits. People who have taken out mortgages in the early 2020s, and are now faced with property prices of 15% lower than they paid – are rightfully nervous about the dropping property market.
While they are OK so long as they don't move (banks are unlikely to foreclose, so long as you can pay the mortgage). Life and life changes happen. Things like job loss, illness and marriage breakup can force a house sale. At which point the losses are baked in – and people can come away with nothing.
In addition, people often rely on the value of their house being enough to fund them into aged care (e.g. a retirement village, or rest home). The prices/value of which don't appear to be tied to the rest of the residential housing market. Again a reason to be nervous.
I own a house,(well the bank owns 2/3) I'd be happy if it doesn't go up much in the next 10 years if it means the kids can by houses at 3 times their income again by then.
I thought that the ratio waz 10 times income in the past. I don't think that would be right for now, say 8 times annual income. But three, no.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/350634876/housing-through-the-decades-what-is-affordable
Despite Mr Eaqub, economist/figures person, I feel there is a problem in economics; the difference between taking the pulse of the nation, with averages compared at regular points, and on-the-ground affordability and prices v income confronting real people seeking a mortgage.
Two different situations utilising similar sets of figures. The Stats Dept presenting figures to describe a situation at a certain time, which is then followed in the same way each year or period so as to compare like with like.
The figures may not truly represent the experience of the ordinary person in their ordinary life though.
According to the current figures, it's around 6 times the average income.
Still too high – but a lot lower than the peak of 9 times in 2022.
Note: that's an average. Auckland is higher, Invercargill is lower.
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/house-price-income-multiples
I'm with Bwaghorn – I'd like to see it around 3 times (which is what I paid, when I was buying in the early 2000s). I reckon a decade of static house prices, coupled with wage growth, should see us there.
I'd agree that in the long run it would be a good idea to end private residential landlordlism. It is a socially unnecessary extractive layer within the housing market that drives inequality both in the present and inter-generationally. It also diverts investment away from industries that might employ skilled workers in producing high quality goods and services for both the domestic and international markets. It is a social bad and an economic bad.
But the effects of trying to reach this outcome too quickly can't be ignored. What would a CGT plus no interest deductibility do to rents? What would it do to house prices – if they fall further, would this deepen the recession? Is it more important that the notion of a CGT as a normal part of our tax system gets embedded in the public consciousness and is hard to overturn in future, rather than making life as difficult as possible for landlords right now? On the other hand, has Labour now limited its fiscal headroom so much that even if elected, they simply cannot make enough difference to people's lives – meaning they would get booted out after one term and Prime Minister Winston Peters would start his premiership at the age of 84?
Interest deductibility should apply to the first rental property only, so remove it from the second rental property onwards, to target more the full-time investors rather than small time landlords.
Practical tinkering Chris – what is needed to make change. Reminds me of very old saying:
Festina lente (Classical Latin:…is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" (sometimes rendered in English as "more haste, less speed")… It has been adopted as a motto numerous times, particularly by the emperors Augustus and Titus, then later by the Medicis…During the 1960s the Cuban Revolution used this ancient phrase (apresúrate lentamente) in its message to the masses…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festina_lente
I think you have hit on a point that has been found important over past centuries. I think if we want to last into future centuries we need the determination to follow process that Cuba has shown. (And how to think in oxymorons – the 'better' sort of morons!)
In Britain non deductibility was introduced when David Cameron was PM, but it's accompanied by a 20% rebate. 20% is the lowest tax rate in Britain so I would assume the rebate was for the benefit of the small time landlord.
@arkie Disappointment has been the name of the game in NZAO for 40 years. Suck it up and look for the least disappointing possibilities and encourage them. We are not in a world that was envisaged by the good, thoughtful, progressive people of the past; we can't even hold onto what they achieved. We in this country and the world, have been taken over by the images of wealth, power over people and resources which can be supplied and expended at will, perfect systems through economics, blah blah. (A new sort of base puritanism as I see it.)
So finding fault; that implies there is a possibility of better. The call of the day is – 'steer the ship away from the rocks and keep us afloat'. This excerpt from a political commentator states clearly about our 1980s which continues to where we are now.
…the government’s headlong embrace of Thatcherism. Public assets owned by the public – that were the foundation blocks of the nation’s prosperity – were being gleefully privatised by zealots entranced by market forces, which they had imbued with magical powers…. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2609/S00051/on-the-ongoing-relevance-of-jim-anderton.htm
Is Labour is engaging in magical thinking by promising to pay for free doctors visits from their proposed CGT?
It seems to me the magical thinking part is imagining the extra doctors needed to make this work will suddenly appear. It is hard enough to get a doctors appointment now. So, where are the extra doctors supposed to come from to accommodate the increased demand this policy would likely create?
If labour get in it's with the greens and opportunity, so there's going to be a big tax change somewhere, anyone who votes for any of those 3 must know that? I am and I do.
Money is one thing (and it's envisaged in their policy that the CGT won't make enough to cover this in the initial years, and will require top up from other sources).
However, I don't know where the new doctors are coming from, either.
We have a current shortage of GPs across the country, which is worst in poorer areas.
What I'm saying is that cgt will moat likely be 1 of a couple of new ones
Well, they (like National) could opt to increase current taxes without breaking their promise.
Guy Body, in the New Zealand Herald, 23 March 2024
I find it helps to read the policy.
https://www.labour.org.nz/familydoctorloanscheme
There are still critiques to be made of that, but at least it's starting with the actual proposal.
Fair enough. I looked at that.
The problem I see is that a lot of the stuff they plan to free up doctors time is already in play. For instance, I use myindici to organise perscription repeats and the like. And there are already medical helplines. So, not convinced that what they propose will make a difference. Sure, it might make things a bit better as things stand now. But, they are pouring more fuel on the fire by offering free doctors visits.
I think what is likely is that doctors will make "free" visits available if people are prepared to wait six months for them.
And the other bit of magical thinking is assuming the CGT will generate what they are expecting.
Firstly, property values are flat or declining atm. Secondly, these sort of ideas often assume nothing else changes.
But, landlords, for instance, may be less inclined to sell their properties if they are going to get hit with a CGT.
What healthlines are you talking about? Healthline is a triage services that tells people to go to their local GP or afterhours clinic. Bad luck if you don't have one. Hence the policy of loans to GPs to set up in practice. This is a very very good policy for places that don't have enough GP practices. It also increases GP owned rather than corporate owned.
Here is what we need to take us into this election – a rousing Maori chant. This is beautifully achieved and produced and could fire up the whole of the country to go forward. Have a listen and make like cicadas, keeping the encouraging whirr of thoughts all the way to NZ election day Nov.7th.
The Virtual Sing – A Te Tarakihi
12K views 6y ago New Zealand Choral Federation
Please note – there is an incorrect name on this song about cicadas. Te tarakihi is a fish.
https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/7644
Te tātarakihi – …The wingless cicada nymph (matua kihikihi) lives underground for at least three years, sucking roots. When ready to hatch, it crawls out onto a tree trunk at dawn and the winged adult breaks out of its old nymph skin (ngengeti) and flies away.
When Luxon is replaced by National (about 5 minutes after the election, win or lose) this will be the perfect example of why. Not the policies (people on TS might not like them but most here aren't swing voters) but his extraordinary personal failure to learn, to change, to "get it".
He could take a few seconds to acknowledge the error ("shouldn't have happened, not good enough") before pivoting to his party message ("law and order"). But no. Instead he does what he always does – hector and bluster. Treat the public with contempt. Thereby making the minor story (social media screw-up) a worse one (PM digs hole).
107 seconds of free help for the opposition:
Crime footage in ad accusing Labour of 'gaslighting' happened under National's watch | Stuff
Have you learnt nothing about dirty politics. Lie loudly and blatantly then quietly back away never admiting anything.
They are scum
So? You think the point is that they're bad?
Key was smart. Luxon is not.
And if you think that Luxon doing this is working for National now, you're wrong.
Just another right-wing pollie accidentally saying what they really think.
All in a lucrative day’s work – "Why, yes! We do take reque$t$!"
Ginny on fire in the house at the moment (3.15pm) in a special debate on Stanford's corruption.
Stanford would be a disaster for this country if she ever becomes leader of the Natz.
New Zealand Aotearoa still has a relatively low level of corruption according to some international comparisons, although we have been slipping for a decade, albeit with a slight improvement in 2020.
https://www.transparency.org.nz/blog/new-report-exposes-gaps-in-public-sector-anti-corruption-controls
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/anti-corruption-and-integrity-outlook-2026_0c8910f8-en/new-zealand_521c4ca1-en.html
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1519282/green-party-seeks-to-cap-political-donations-stop-companies-donating
May not stop corruption, but at least it's a start and seems like a pretty good policy, not sure they will be able to get it through any of the other parties though.
https://coranz.org.nz/more-reflections-on-the-election/
Good work by the Herald to publish the video. Somewhere at the back of the office there must be an actual journalist working there.
On the face of it …you might consider this reasonable…unless the guy saying it is Shame Jones and you look past his distractive eggbeaters.
Who is NZ's Fisheries Minister actually working for? Clue for the hard of understanding : It aint the the Fish or our Environment : (
This..the reality which Shame chose to ignore….because money!