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6:00 am, June 24th, 2026 - 51 comments
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Open mike is your post.
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Step up to the mike …
From Richard Harmon’s Politik Today.
”ONE NEWS POLL SPARKS EXTRAORDINARY RUMOURS.
A One News Verian poll last night, which showed the centre-left parties with 64 seats and the centre-right with 60, sparked an extraordinary tweet by Taxpayers' Union CEO Jordan Williams.
The tweet: “Things are getting serious for the Nats after tonight's poll. Rumours again within party highrarchy (sic) re Bridges being parachuted into a safe seat. Heck.”
My popcorn futures are looking good.
"Things are getting serious"… popcorn!!
What wonderful news, some pain for the sorted.
Perhaps we are seeing at last, how they have wrecked our communities while feathering their own nests.
Using AI for welfare is a huge wake up to their unfeeling ideology.
Australia Commonwealth is currently compensating welfare recipients whose families were hit with incorrect payments and tax in the billions, yet these bozos believe they are able to manage.
They have put a wrecking ball through the economy, and our employer base is toppling under their austerity drive and unbalanced borrowing and spending in areas they have no mandate for.
NZ economy is smaller, our reputation shakier, and our people divided, all while the top few got 20% richer and 80% got poorer.
They must go!! We can't afford three more years of this to gain a few trickle down crumbs.
I hope the next polls show a drop for the neoliberal views, and a sharp rise for the Greens, as they are pushing to change the settings for the 80%+
+1000 Patricia
When billionaires go from 18 to 26 in one year, it suggests active participation by government.
Time for ALL of us to party vote Green!
please post a link to go with that quotation.
Hello Weka, I was quoting Stephen D's comments on Richard Harmon's Politik.
I was asking Stephen for the quote. Not always obvious who is replying to who on a mobile.
Engineering an overhang seems to be looming as the way to defeat Labour's competitive cluelessness: https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/06/24/well-swallow-our-ego-te-pati-maori-ponders-the-ultimate-tactical-sacrifice/
I suppose the most likely outcome is that Labour wins some and loses some though (Maori seats) but I haven't looked at the margins from the last election to see which seats are likely to fall in this scenario. If Willie is able to return Maori voters to trad Labour loyalty in reaction to TPM's implosion, it's feasible that leftists who see Labour as the enemy within the left will make considerable headway. Yet they could also easily decide that TPM is just too separatist to support any further.
I don't think that the margins from the last election are going to help much.
It was an anti-Labour election, so margins everywhere are going to be changed in 2026; and TPM has had some seismic shocks over the last 3 years. In addition, Maori seats almost always go along personal relationship lines, rather than policy ones. So it very much depends on who stands in the different seats.
What would work best, in terms of engineering the greatest overhang, would be for Labour to stand party-vote only candidates in the Maori electorates, and TPM and independent candidates to campaign on electorate vote only, with party votes to Labour or Greens. The Epsom cup of tea written large.
"Labour to stand party-vote only candidates".
Why bother to have any Labour candidates at all in the Maori seats if this is your intention?
For the same reason that National stands Paul Goldsmith in Epsom. To campaign for the party vote.
That strategic voting sounds good Belladonna and it is essential that Labour stop bumbling around and concentrate on the pragmatic for the nation, keeping that goal close to their hearts and heads.
We know they have tied themselves in knots with past brainfarts, but now need to find someone who isn't on Prozac, not the fiery idealists fermenting, but a wise head if there is one, who isn't there mainly for the stimulation and money; who can lead on and over the crevasses!
Below is a representation of what the pollies and their alpine guides are embarked on, to our disadvantage. They are aiming higher – to be b
millionairesand we others are sliding down, first individually then in avalanches. Get someone with their feet on the ground, with their head high enough for excellent vision of what's going on around; that vision to include noting thinking humans who understand the needs and goods of the country's people who will act to meet and further these.Aim at what we can achieve that serves our purposes, give us the right to decide much for ourselves with wide consideration from informed citizens, so fewer laws (and tripwires), lower GST but progressive income tax from a broad small percentage,responsible business held to law, customs of behaviour and culture are as good as need be, and as good a life as we can manage sustainably! The heights we shouldn't think to go near as being deranged; perhaps psychotic would be a better word, (think on this Queenstown):
'I Stayed in World's Deadliest Hotel' :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfN2gXStOI – I'm going to spend the next 3 days crossing deadly glaciers and fighting high altitude as I try and get there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ5OyixEuNc High hotel in China
Wealth taxes and Norway discussed on Money & Macro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJttqFCWtQM 15.06m
"When Millionaires Say They’re Leaving—They Almost Never Do"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewleahey/2025/07/20/when-millionaires-say-theyre-leaving-they-almost-never-do/
Andy many other reports on the same lines
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=study+on+how+many+wealthy+leave+if+wealth+tax+implemented&ia=web
RW grump vs rw presenter: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/winston-peters-calls-ryan-bridges-coalition-query-a-wer-question-during-on-air-interview/ZMNNQGLAIBA7PIZDZBZ4MJCZZU/
Industrial orgs have always included many wankers – presumably the reason for BSA's pragmatic stance. It would be interesting to see the social science research the BSA uses to establish that the insult does not reach the offensive threshold.
NZers are not merely restless, they are revolting, the latest poll suggests: https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/06/23/analysis-nz-sours-on-national-and-labour-minor-parties-on-the-rise/
In '96 disgust with the Nat/Lab duopoly was so intense we switched to MMP. 30 years later we now have that same intensity of loathing for trad left and right options.
Poor Winston will be spitting tacks from here on in. To lose control of the political center 30 years after the GP yielded it to him seems a huge shift in voter optionality.
The combined total for Labour/National is pretty much the same as it's been over the last 6 months (within the margin of error). If you go back to November 2025 – the combined total in the Roy Morgan poll has them at the same 61%, and the same pollster has them at 57% in December 2024 (so nothing like as far back as 1996)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2026_New_Zealand_general_election
The reality is that as minor parties gain electoral share, this must come at the expense of the larger parties.
Which is why what matters is the overal right/left bloc – before the individual shares of each party within that bloc.
It will be interesting to see if any of the other pollsters (apart from Roy Morgan, which consistently top rates TOP), show the same boost in support for TOP. I'd like to see a sustained upwards polling trend, before I count them into parliament.
We are well overdue for a new and stable political party, after the catastrophe of Te Pati Maori.
Top+Greens is the proper challenge to NZFirst as a coalition partner for Labour.
NZFirst just lost its (false) teeth.
@ Dennis above.
In my bones I feel it is less to do with the parties and their personnel (although a few of them are easy to despise), it's to do with adhering to neo liberal orthodoxy.
Sub contract expertise, global labour markets, debt to GDP ratios, weakened state capacity and upward drift of wealth.
The revolving door of lobbyists/advisors/MPs/ministerial staff, that neither of the big 2 show enthusiasm to change doesn't help.
That's why Johnson, Truss, Starmer, Ardern are gone.
Yes, I share your view. Paradigms are real hard to shift due to their inherent inertial embedding. Neolib world-view contagion is likely to end only when a better option becomes evident. I have pointed to resilience in recent years as the best conceptual basis for that positive alternative. It is fully consistent with darwinian adaption.
Folks will embrace that on the basis of pragmatism in reacting to how the establishment keeps lurching from crisis to crisis, yet there does need to be some kind of ideology – no matter how simplistic. History suggests the role of schema in the collective thinking of political groups as the basis of ideology. You could revise class thinking as an easy intro into such intellualising. Precariat is a valid timely framing too…
UK Labour have a front-runner even more unpopular that Starmer:
Ouch! The Union got hit by a zinger from Labour. Total warfare within the left seems evident when 0% gets registered in serious sampling. Yet we lack a reason why. Guido is top UK blogger on the basis of media savvy. Not thought, or he'd venture one.
Nice one by Emma Cook – KiwiSaver to the cost-of-living rescue, in a decade or six.
So weird to see National trumpet a longstanding Labour policy, and do it so successfully.
National are fully in command of the media cycle at the moment, 5 months out from election.
Even weirder is to see the things that were Labour policy in recent elections that are now opposed by the current leader of the party because they are being proposed by National and therefore seem to attract an instant NO from Chippie
4 weka @1.2.
The Politik story was from their daily newsletter.
Here’s a link to its site’s politics page.
https://www.politik.co.nz/category/politics/
Piercing through the smoke generated by the tobacco industry & lobby.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/06/24/six-steps-to-manage-illicit-tobacco-trade/
Which nicotine-addict would risk their clogged brain arteries to argue against that?
Kiwisaver is effectively a tax.
Just like State super.
But, a private tax, like bank charges.
However unlike increasing taxes to invest in future capabilities, it is mostly invested in overseas securities, with private finance skimming off the top.
The aim of Cullen was to supplement State super.
But, as I commented at the time, it was a big step towards removing our successful and relatively cost efficient State super.
However this mob wants to privatise it. So their finance company cronies can make a killing.
We seen in so many ways how dysfunctional and expensive privatising State services almost inevitably becomes.
I've read a lot about the issues in Oz, with low quality super funds investment. Compulsion is a bonanza for finance companies, who end up getting away with low returns, and high fees, because Aussies are compelled to "invest".
Kiwisaver is simply New Zealanders taking care of themselves.
NZSuper currently costs us $24.7 billion or 12% of the entire budget.
There are more people getting to entitlement age every year, so in just 3 years it's going to get to $31 billion.
It's already sucking over 5% of our GDP and will head only upwards.
60% of NZ retirees rely on NZSuper totally or near-totally for their income, and that is just miserable. New Zealanders need more than that, and the state has provided them the structure and the incentives to do so.
So. Your solution is investing in offshore securities to suck up more of our GDP?
How does that actually increase NZ’s capability to provide resources to our people in future?
Magic?
Super. Reprise. « The Standard
I don't recall the quoted post above, but the finance Industry includes more than Kiwisaver investment managers; I am not aware of negative returns other than normal short term market fluctuations, and Kiwisaver charges are fairly transparent – are some exorbitant?
One of the worst things to do in relation to long term savings is to take a large money out and not expect it to have a significant impact on longer term savings – allowing long term savings to be used for short term financial problems is his gift to increased poverty for many New Zealanders – in both the short and long term. Allowing hardship withdrawals to offset short term problems of too little income turns out to suit this government well – they think of it as deferring welfare payments and enabling the country to cope with a lower level of assistance to those in desperate need. Other actions by this government have increased the levels of poverty where cashing in Kiwisaver accounts is reaching record levels. Increasing contribution rates sounds good, but how many of the opening balances for new babies will disappear to cover family financial crises?
Then there is the inability for many low paid to increase contributions without getting into greater financial problems – if we keep electing an ACT/Nat government they will use balances to keep welfare benefits low, and to strip those funds before giving access to normal welfare benefits.
Then there is NZ Superannuation – the ACT/Nat policies indicate they would be prepared to see the poor staying poor both during their working age and in retirement. The "Cullen Fund" was set up to cover extraordinary future costs as the Baby Boomers go through retirement, and needed contributions in future years to meet the expected and known need for additional payments during the retirement of that population bulge. Has any National-led Government since paid anything into that fund? Certainly the current ACT-led government has not. The "Cullen Fund" was never part of the finance industry – it had requirements to invest for a much longer period of need than most of the finance industry, and the ability to invest for that long term resulted in good returns.
The high Kiwisaver contributions being paid to Members of Parliament seem to be mostly intended to mask the real level of total remuneration – it would be interesting to see total remuneration for Ministers and Members of Parliament instead of just salary, which appears to be a smaller percentage of total pay than previously. No wonder spending over $10,000 in parking costs seems reasonable to one Minister . . .
In most parts of NZ, services for retirees is not only a large part of GDP, but also income for a lot of younger people.
We are going into a doom loop if you believe the latest industrial revolution (AI) is going to change the employment landscape. I'm a doomer who can see a steady rise in unemployment in coming years that will lock in a growing group of people who can NEVER save for retirement. And never own a home. Hence I find it easy to agree with TOP over the need for a UBI. I can't see that 60% in that quote ever going down.
Luxon of course shudders at the thought of us all becoming beneficiaries. He would – he's sorted.
You would think that Luxon would love a UBI.
His wealthy cronies still need customers.
Trouble is his cronies would have to pay for it, with everyone else out of work.
Absolutely it's a tax, particularly if it becomes compulsory. It's an additional tax to either supplement Superannuation to reduce its burden or to replace it entirely. Naked privatisation of welfare.
Workers will be forced to pay (eventually) an additional 3% nominally and likely 6% because employers will reduce wages by that much to absorb their part of the cost. Employers never lose, employees always lose.
It's also highly regressive because wage and salary income is fully captured by this and wealthier people avoid exposure to PAYE and WT and rely on assets to generate wealth instead.
It's a tax, which is fine but National needs to be honest about it and the opposition needs to make sure they are honest about it.
According to the BBC more than half of France is affected by a record-breaking heatwave (43 degrees) leading to several deaths by drowning.
A correspondent reported from Cap Ferrat where the beach was empty apart from thousands of large jellyfish that were washing up: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w1730bn292k25bd
But the climate change deniers are still at it. Give them credit for tenacity.
A Labour government would provide cheaper funding for social housing providers.
This via full guarantee rather than the current 80% of new loans guarantee.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361030710/labour-wants-950m-increase-crown-guarantee-community-housing
Like kiwibuild or different this time?
https://www.emptyhomes.co.nz/
There are too many empty investment properties in NZ, but nACT will fix it
The ethos of our lucky but fair Lotto lady Nicola Willis is particularly noteworthy.
https://www.greens.org.nz/tax_system_for_all
https://vote.nz/
Sigh.
It is an upgrade of a National's 2024 policy
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/618688/labour-hopes-new-community-underwrite-scheme-will-incentivise-more-housing
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360997275/opportunity-polls-46-takes-swipe-nostalgic-and-backwards-nz-first-contest-centre
Clutson accidentally endorse top, by saying the would be best with labour/greens , !!
Luxon is so funny (unintentionally, of course). Brain simply doesn't connect with mouth. From that link:
“They want a land tax, they want to make every New Zealander a beneficiary with a universal basic income [UBI],” he said. “I haven't given them any thought. Their policy prescription looks like a Greens and Labour policy.”
I expect his advisers have tried explaining to him why his media answers are constant gifts to Nationals' opponents, but they should have used shorter words. Maybe crayons.
I'm just over halfway through Rebecca Macfie's Pike River Disaster, in the days leading up to the first explosion.
It is a sickening tale of greed, a focus on the books to the detriment of the workers (sound familiar?), spin and corporate negligence.
Now I know van Velden is exiting parliament, but part of her legacy must be undone with urgency should there be a change of government.
The easy easy approach to employers and the defanging of Worksafe needs to be reversed. There needs to be an increase of funding to the inspectorates. We can not rely on corporations word on Health and Safety.
At the moment, despite being very close, TOP doesn't have quite 5% to get in.
In that scenario, the party votes of other parties expand a bit.
So, if the left can stay ahead of the right, then come election day that would get magnified by, say 100/95.4% or 1.048 multiple (95.4 is the 100% less TOPs 4.6%).
It’s how I managed to get UE. Somehow, my marks were increased and I passed subjects I would have failed.
That's like scoring 49% and it becoming 51%. Not a lot, but the same would work to help the right, if they were ahead in the polls.
When you add all the bits and pieces for parties that have no show of getting in, it adds up a bit beyond TOPs 4.6%.
So, we must make sure that the left remains ahead in the polls.
Polling around 5% is tenuous the younger the demographic of voters as the Greens already know.
And it might be worse than usual this year with the earlier enrolment cut off.
I really hope the next left coalition govt legislate to make the exploitation of employees and egregious wage theft a criminal charge rather than deal with it through the ERA sure it's a big fine but a criminal conviction would be a far better deterrent and a ban from employing migrants would be a far better outcome.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/indian-taste-restaurant-owner-penalised-nearly-400k-for-exploiting-migrant-staff/6VD75HNL6VDHVAGA2Q2DW4BXXQ/
National, Luxon, and Conservation Minister Tama Potaka are digging a bigger hole for themselves on our (NZ’s) conservation land.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/06/24/luxon-offers-to-change-bill-after-conservation-land-sale-backlash/
It’s asset sale and more pillaging & plundering of our lands.
It's their direction of travel and no soft-soapy, mealy-mouthing can convince us otherwise.
"“There was no threat to, the public, or to police officers, but the incident has resulted in a person being critically injured,” "
Then … who was threatened and why was there a critically injured person?
Nick Smith, come on down!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360997308/cordon-set-nelson-police-station-amid-ongoing-incident
PM puts on 'usual Luxon charm' for rural sector at primary industries summit https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/619232/pm-puts-on-usual-luxon-charm-for-rural-sector-at-primary-industries-summit
Luxon said he had dinner with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Laos, a meeting that "started the whole relationship, actually, for the FTA."
"We were sitting together side by side, and I said 'Narendra, what's going on for you in India?' He said, 'Chris, I've got 1.5 billion people, I've just overtaken China as the most populous country on earth.' He's supposed to be a $12 trillion economy by 2030, but he'll probably get there in 2028.
…I thought it was started by the last government, and Luxon had agreed it had ..
Dennis Frank recycling rw UK propaganda generated at the 'Guido Faux' site in their comment above on UK minister's popularity. Mentioning this because Dennis gives the source their seal of approval.
Media Bias 'rate Guido Fawkes Right Biased due to word choices that favor the Right and Mixed for factual reporting based on poor sourcing….[founder] Paul Staines is a former member of the Committee for a Free Britain, a shadowy organization funded by Sir James Goldsmith and Rupert Murdoch'.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/guido-fawkes/
As for the article itself, while it's the govt that raised their pay, the push for an increase would have come from teachers' unions financial and lobbying pressure on Starmer's government.
' "Our members should be proud of what they have achieved through a hard-fought campaign … but the Government should be in no doubt that we see it as just a first step in the major pay correction needed," NEU head Daniel Kebede said in the statement.'
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/teachers-england-vote-uk-governments-55-pay-offer-2024-09-30/
Teachers well know who fought for the increase.