Open Mike 28/09/2026

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24 comments on “Open Mike 28/09/2026”

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  1. 1

    Mike Hoskins talking down Hipkins speech as false and full of swearing. Poor guy can't win. When he comes across evenly he's a wimp. Surely, it can't be bias from Hoskins?

    My take is Hipkins has a right to be bloody angry at Nationals lies about Labour that is the basis of their campaign. Most times National trots out "you've done the hard yards, now comes the milk and honey" but they don't have that in mind this time – wonder why?

    And I'll leave you with this: I was on the phone with someone in Wellington yesterday and mentioned it seemed to be National billboards that people are trashing, plus the one off the northwestern motorway at the atatu that has "UTU'" painted across it. Apparently the same is happening in Welly.

    Reply
    1. 1.1

      And I wonder why Wellingtonians are trashing their billboards. I was in Hamilton recently and they have also been trashing National billboards,

      Nicola has a moko kauae on her chin and Lux-one has the words far cough on his forehead, the word fascist is also on them.

      Reply
  3. 3

    Excellent Chris Slane cartoon in the New Zealand Listener. Made me think of another Slane cartoon from November 2025 – not sure why.


    It’s Dirty Work.

    The octopus that turned on National [Grant McLachlan, 1 Sept 2026]
    Money dictating policy
    Matt Burgess left the New Zealand Initiative to become Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s chief policy adviser, then received a lobbying document from Fonterra and Z Energy seeking a law change to shield major emitters from Mike Smith’s climate litigation — a document he also received on his personal email and never disclosed under the Official Information Act. The Ombudsman found the Prime Minister’s own office had unreasonably breached the OIA. The Government changed the climate law anyway.

    Associate Health Minister Casey Costello followed the same pattern with tobacco. A leaked Philip Morris lobbying strategy named the Taxpayers’ Union and the New Zealand Initiative as positions the company could leverage to reach New Zealand First. Costello then cut the excise on heated tobacco products by 50 percent, and the Chief Ombudsman later found she had acted “unreasonable and contrary to law” in withholding related documents.

    Two ministries, two donor-aligned outcomes, two tentacles doing the reaching.

    Reply
  4. 4

    I would write something but have to reset my battery clock for summer time. As Groucho Marx advised 'Send for a child of five.' Getting used to tech huh. Nice look to the screen lprent.

    Reply
  5. 5

    I'll put up this interesting and informative post from Yanis Varoufakis about Brexit and Andy Burnham. Just as there was a strong push for UK to exit the EU now there is another trying to reverse that, making claims that the UK is not doing well and needs a vaunted superior EU connection; the report backing this line is badly flawed; Warning! must not be ignored!.

    Mr Varoufakis was Finance Minister in Greece, attempting to navigate that country between a rock and a hard place (Planctae – Wandering Rocks Wikipedia and Between_Scylla_and_Charybdis Wikipedia) The Greeks can talk with authority about facing problems! Now he leads a forward-looking and practically economic outfit called DiEM25 – Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 | https://diem25.org/about-us/.

    As for the claim that the EU would, at least, offer some protection from the vagaries of Donald Trump and a resurgent China, it sounds persuasive in theory — a version of safety in numbers. But in practice? Was it not Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, who bent the knee in front of President Trump, in his Scottish golf club of all places, giving him everything he asked for (including a pledge for $700 billion of European investments in the United States which was not in her gift to make)? Is the EU not riven by squabbles between German car industry representatives, who are resisting tooth-and-nail more tariffs on Chinese exports, while their French counterparts are gung-ho about them?

    Even the most ardent europhile can’t ignore the slow and sure disintegration at work here. The building up of unsustainable sub-sovereign debt won’t yield productive investments capable of repaying themselves, but will need to be financed by an already stressed EU budget that spendthrift member-states are working furiously to diminish, not to bolster. Evidently, this is a disaster in the making, not the sensible continental consolidation over which envious Britons should drool.

    None of the above, of course, means that Brexit has been a spectacular success — quite the opposite, in fact. But what it does mean, however, is that Britain’s stagnation will not be reversed by rejoining a hopelessly stagnant, indeed a deindustrialising, Europe. Nor will the UK’s low productivity, low-wage, diminishing prosperity equilibrium be transcended by Andy Burnham’s justified lamentations about how neoliberalism vandalised British industry under Thatcher and Blair. The time for thinking about what a New Deal for the UK entails, undistracted by the “Europe question”, is now.

    Yanis Varoufakis is an economist and former Greek Minister of Finance. He is the author of several best-selling books, most recently Raise Your Soul! A personal history of resistance. https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2026/07/22/dont-fall-for-project-smear-mr-burnham-unherd-op-ed/

    Reply
  7. 7

    Te Toi Mahana is a Community Housing Provider (CHP) established on 1 August 2023 to take over the management of Wellington City Council’s social housing portfolio. Te Toi Mahana is dedicated to providing safe, secure and affordable housing in Wellington. With a portfolio of over 1900 homes and over 3000 tenants, we are committed to building strong, sustainable communities that support the wellbeing of our residents.

    https://communityhousing.org.nz/cha_members/te-toi-mahana

    I have read stories about problems with a similar older organisation in Christchurch – that had problems meeting housing standards.

    The Post has done an expose of the new organisation by identifying its housing residents circumstances.

    A tenant without power for 10 years, including the last 3 over an unpaid power bill.

    For 10 years, Campbell Lurch has lived in the middle of New Zealand’s capital without light or hot water.

    He is 66 years old, lives in a unit and spends his nights in near-total darkness. Lurch goes to bed when the sun sets.

    When he needs to charge his small radio or basic mobile phone – his primary connection to the outside world – he must carry it down to the communal area of his Newtown complex.

    Across town from Lurch, Khanania Danial, 91, and 81-year-old wife Kamala live in a freezing flat.

    Because of a knee injury, Kamala relies on a cane and walker and suffers from severe asthma. For at least the last year, she has barely been able to leave her home.

    Their unit is on the first floor and she cannot manage the stairs.

    The couple, who are Iraqi, struggle with English. Frustrated neighbours say Kamala is effectively trapped inside her flat, cut off from outdoor space and natural sunlight, while nearby ground-floor units sit vacant awaiting lengthy renovations.

    There are a lot of other cases.

    They say they are just a housing provider – on that alone it is a risible performance.

    Transferring such a role to a specialist agency appears to lead to an unaccountable silo (one not that accessible for its inmates) – a clear lack of oversight.

    https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361086191/ten-years-without-power-how-wellingtons-social-housing-system-failing-its-most-vulnerable

    Reply
  8. 8

    Oh dear, DPM Seymour has got his knickers in a twist over potential 'unethical' interference in the wonderfully free market.

    Apparently it's a betrayal of the invisible hand. My inexpert diagnosis is that Seymour suffers from 'Ethical Derangement Syndrome', and has done for years. Must be funny, in an ACT MP's world.

    ACT's David Seymour slams 'unethical' promises to break up supermarket duopoly [RNZ, 28 Sept 2026]

    ACT outlines policy to freeze adult minimum wage for three years [1News, 15 Sept 2026]


    Chris Slane, in the New Zealand Listener, 9 Feb 2026

    Reply
    1. 8.1

      High time he faced interrogation over his shambolic school lunch program and this ministry of mates.

      Wasteful spending personified with his tantrums over the supermarket policies of other parties pathetic.

      The ACT 'solution' is just more talk assuming a competitor will enter a market designed to keep them out by the existing duopoly.

      Reply
  9. 9

    National’s election campaign is a mix of dogged defensiveness [of its own shambolic record] and [the usual] fear-mongering.

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/09/28/nationals-taxing-campaign-to-hold-the-throne/

    Nicola Willis talks up Investment Boost as if it’s their flagship policy. Unfortunately, the flag is only half-mast, at most – it has missed the mark because it was off-course from the get-go.

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/27/just-3-percent-of-big-businesses-spent-more-under-investment-boost-data-shows/

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/09/03/business-tax-relief-last-priority-for-kiwi-firms-icehouse-survey-shows/

    This is one key reason why Labour will cut and re-direct it to small businesses.

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/07/labour-zeroes-in-on-small-business-relief-not-big-business-stimulus/

    Reply
    1. 10.1

      Zombie town ?…was wondering if a 28 days 28 weeks 28 years? Turns out its 40 years later !

      I looked at one comment incremental tax ? Balclutha (with cows in vid) could well need an excremental tax.

      Good link aj : )

      Reply
  11. 11

    Much can be said about NZ First’s 15-point Make New Zealand Healthy Again plan but I thought to myself that less is more. Several smoking butts have been conveniently left out by NZ First, so it should be taken with a drop of alcohol.

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/09/28/nz-first-health-policy-more-vibes-and-vitamins-than-actual-evidence/

    Then, weirdly, the policy singles out a handful of very specific nutrition topics. Nutrition in mental health, intravenous vitamin C post-surgery, and vitamin D for ‘maintaining health’.

    I suspect these are Winston Peters’ post-Covid hangover, no more, no less.

    I’d add that regulation plays an important role in our collective response to our personal & communal health & wellbeing and that it’s the Government’s duty & responsibility to administer a healthy regulation system that works effectively. However, the Coalition has a strong aversion to regulation, especially partner ACT goes into anaphylactic shock by the sheer mention of it, and industry lobbies remain as strong as ever – they should learn the true meaning of ‘first, do no harm’.

    Reply
    1. 11.1

      It read like a merge of MAHA and agricultural policy to me and a very lazy one at that. But hey it is the party of smoking, shane Jones and Winnie ‘wheres those boats I signed for ?’

      Reply
    2. 11.2

      From the Newsroom article:

      Health Coalition Aotearoa’s food policy expert group reviewed the evidence and came up with these top three most effective policies for improving nutrition:

      • strengthening and extending the Healthy School Lunches Programme
      • restricting unhealthy food marketing to children
      • applying a UK-style sugary drinks industry levy.

      None of these appear on NZ First’s list.

      Now those policies might actually achieve something, rather than just making a populist noise!

      Reply
  12. 12

    Asked about the prospect of tax cuts, Luxon said National's "primary priority" was to return the books to surplus in 2028, but that relief could come after that.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/1631467/national-sharpens-spending-pledge-on-eve-of-treasury-update

    So, if we’re lucky enough – yes, luck is a factor – we only have to wait 2 more years before National & Partners Ltd. may provide some relief to those who need it now and who need it badly – don’t cry him a river, because Luxon won’t have it. The wealthy & sorted will be, well, sorted, as always.

    Reply
    1. 12.1

      A Surplus they never get to ( see Blinglish etc) as you need to run an economy for all constituents to do that. Willis and co have grounded this one via austerity and ideological stupidity.
      They intend to cut their way to surplus i.e. more austerity, privatisation, selling out.

      Reply

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