Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Surely the campaign will get better than this?

I don't want to bring you down but do you realise we have almost four full weeks of this crap ahead of us? Unbelievable.

Four weeks of small-beer politics about the price of airline tickets and school uniform logos. Honestly, is that what the contest for control of our central government has come down to? How many logos you're allowed to have on your school uniform?

Clive Bibby: The facts that should matter to voters

As a farmer whose survival has been for the last 46 years, dependant on prices received for the goods we produce, it frustrates me watching debates about which group of politicians can best manage the income we receive from the international markets on which those goods are sold.

And it matters not a tad if the Party leaders on show at the debate appear to be close relatives of either Genghis Khan or Darth Vader.

Kerry Butler: Why Maori Stand to Gain a Controlling Role in The Leadership of NZ

Remember the Public Interest Journalist Fund introduced by Labour during Jacinda Ardern’s term ... which involved the media organisations and newspapers being given millions of taxpayer dollars.

The first tranche of payments was $18 million (out of a total of $55 million) which all media accepted except for The Platform and the Westport News. The latter is privately owned and the owner said: "We prefer to paddle our own canoe", but all other papers and media grabbed the money.

Yvonne Van Dongen: The Boomer Bashing Vote

Young overseas voters urged to counter Old New Zealand

Ageism is alive and voting in this election.

Some of it is implicit as in the Opportunity Party’s annual land tax policy that includes the family home and the Greens’ policy of a capital acquisitions tax on large gifts and inheritances. Meanwhile Labour proposes a capital gains tax on investment property and ACT would like to raise the retirement age to 67 plus limit the winter hardship payment to beneficiaries and people over 65 with Community Services Cards.

Pee Kay: The Ice That Wouldn’t Melt!

Predictions of an Ice-Free Arctic Have Defied Expectations

In his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the oscar-winning documentary about former vice president Al Gore’s campaign to educate people about climate change, Gore predicted that “Global Warming” would cause severe and accelerated climate disruptions, including rising global temperatures, melting glaciers, stronger hurricanes, and an ice-free Arctic summer within decades.

Olivia Pierson: After the Fourth Listen to Rubio's Soaring Rhetoric...

After the 4th listen to Rubio's soaring rhetoric...

It's still like dying and going to heaven to hear a Secretary of State raise the bar in political discourse.. politics being 'downstream from culture' and all.

David Harvey: Execution

Banning a Livestream?

Introduction

The implementation of the death penalty in the United States has attracted some publicity of late.

The botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee has highlighted issues of the inordinate delays in executions, the methodology of state sanctioned murder and how it can go so badly wrong.

Nathan Smith: Politics As Usual In An Unusual World

It’s a tired cliché, but this election feels a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. In a post-Covid world, “politics as usual” comes across as just wrong, so hyperreal.

How can we still be talking about tax rates, defence spending and free speech? Have we forgotten what happened a mere five years ago? I suppose forgetting is a superpower. After all, as the Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran said, “without the faculty of forgetting, our past would weigh so heavily on our present that we should not have the strength to confront another moment, still less to live through it.” If only Cioran could see 2026.

Damien Grant: The biggest change to New Zealand in a generation is flying under the radar

The Resource Management Act defines its purpose as being to “promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources”. The operative word was sustainable. Your land was not yours. You were a brief custodian and your rights over it were constrained by who had come before and who would come after.

The Act began in 1991 at a relatively svelte 382 pages. It went through more revisions and reinventions than David Bowie and, when it was finally laid to rest, was a bloated 1008 pages.

Peter Williams: Risks and Benefits

Five years on there’re words of caution about the Covid vaccine

Among the personal traits I’m most proud of is that I believe I’m impervious to advertising.

Actually that’s not completely true. I still buy too much crap through Facebook but despite being bombarded daily by Harvey Norman wraparounds in the Otago Daily Times, I haven’t bought anything there in at least a decade.

However amidst the clutter of Newstalk ZB’s incessant commercial schedule this morning a couple of spots did find their way into my mindfulness.

Kerry Woodham: National's beneficiary drug testing policy looks desperate and cynical

Anybody who is taking money from the rest of us because they can't find a job should be ready, willing, and able to work when work is there to get. There should be an unwritten contract, and I think there is amongst most of us, that we as New Zealanders look after our fellow New Zealanders when they need a hand up until they can get back on their feet and get back into providing for themselves and providing for others who might suffer misfortune. And if people are simply using the money the rest of us are giving them to sit around at home and do drugs or skip off to the beach with their barbecue or wander through the wheat fields whistling, then sure, of course there should be penalties.

Bruce Logan: Pay Parity

On many issues, it's hard to discern where Labour and National differ. However, one issue highlights a real difference: the demand for pay equity. Labour supports it; see the Equal Pay Act Amendment 2020. National, at least for now, opposes it; see the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025.

But first, to clarify, pay equity is not pay equality. Pay equality means the same pay for the same work. The demand for pay equity would determine an occupation's relative value. This concern largely stems from the claim that work traditionally performed by women has been undervalued. The Ministry of Women argues that pay equity is the instrument to correct the historical undervaluation of female-dominated occupations.

 Monday October 12, 2026 

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Qiulae Wong fired a truth torpedo at National

Qiulae Wong fired a truth torpedo at the National Party didn't she? She says she doesn't believe Christopher Luxon when he tries to pretend he's not going to be calling her after the election. And she's right because of course he's going to call her after the election.

Gareth Morgan: Not All Tax Reform is the Same

Wealth taxes kill entrepreneurship – and New Zealand needs entrepreneurship these days more than ever. Our abysmal productivity record will not be reversed any other way. Real incomes cannot rise without productivity gains.

Against this backdrop the tax reforms proposed by Labour, the Greens and now Opportunity are regressive for New Zealand. There exist far better ways to facilitate productivity gains, lifts in real income per person, and equitable outcomes.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 11.10.26

Tuesday October 13, 2026 

News:
Winston Peters takes aim at ‘wokeness’, Aotearoa and Māori spending
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has criticised “wokeness” and accused those pushing changes around te reo Māori and New Zealand’s identity of doing so without a democratic mandate.

Speaking to Stuff columnists Verity Johnson and Damien Grant in the new Polls Apart political interview series, Peters said he saw “wokeness” as more than patronising liberal culture.

Guest Post: Why the appointment of Jason Winstanley to RNZ is massive

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Fish Across Face:

When outgoing RNZ Chief Executive Paul Thompson addressed the Select Committee hearing on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill in February 2024, he began his submission with a remark about how timely the various media representatives’ appearances were.

David Farrar: Every health target is improving

The previous Labour Government abolished almost all the health targets, did a distarous mega-merger during a pandemic, and outcomes in the health sector fell across the board. The health sector is still under great strain, but the data shows that there has been considerable improvement in all five target areas. This is the latest data to June 2026.

Mike's Minute: The best performing party of the campaign so far

Week two of this campaign of 2026 – is it close? They say so.

But then one poll had Labour at 23%, and another poll had them at 29%. That's how bad polling has become, so who would know?

It might be as simple as what happens with the Opportunity Party – if they're in, the Government is out. If they aren't, the Government are back.

Richard Prebble: Bad news and more bad news for National.

The bad news is that the latest TVNZ–Verian poll has the coalition losing.

The more bad news is that applying a 5% swing based on the poll, National loses nine electorates: Banks Peninsula, Henderson, West Coast–Tasman, Hutt South, Wairarapa, Wigram, East Cape, Kāpiti and Mt Roskill.

That leaves National with 36 electorates.