Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 29 August 2026

Election 2026: The Great New Zealand Tax-Off

Christopher Luxon has promised “no new taxes” if National is returned to government. This makes a hell of a lot of sense given the opposition parties appear to be trying to outdo each other with the amount of new taxes they are announcing. Except Labour who swear they will not adopt these “bottom lines” of their coalition partners.

Chris Hipkins is adamant Labour will advance only its capital gains tax, but he has spent 3 years describing the restoration of landlords’ ability to deduct mortgage interest as a “tax cut for landlords”, and now will not say whether Labour intends to reverse it. National has its own clarifications to make after Revenue Minister Simon Watts initially declined to rule out increasing GST. Nicola Willis subsequently did so unequivocally. National will not increase GST.

Labour also announced it would cancel the scheduled fuel-tax increases next term. Willis promptly announced that National would not proceed with January’s scheduled 12 cent increase either, only for David Seymour to point out that Cabinet had not actually made that decision forcing Willis to clarify that she had been announcing National Party policy.

Meanwhile Te Pāti Māori looked at this election’s increasingly crowded tax auction and decided to whack up the volume big time outdoing even their colleagues in the Green Party. Its newly announced plan contains 5 new taxes (a wealth tax, an international profit transfer tax, a land banking tax, a vacant home tax, and a 5% stamp duty on residential property sales, including family homes unless the buyer is a first home buyer purchasing below $1 million). Company tax would rise to 33%, the 39% personal income tax threshold would kick in from $90,000 (currently it is at $180,000), and new rates of 42% and 48% would be introduced.

In return, there would be a taxfree threshold up to $30,000 and something called “No GST on Kai”, which does not, in fact, actually remove GST from food. Instead, people earning under $60,000 would receive an $800–$1000 tax credit, supposedly equivalent to about 8 weeks of groceries.

The rather important political problem with all of this is that Labour says its CGT is a bottom line and it will not adopt coalition partners’ taxes, while Te Pāti Māori says “meaningful tax transformation” is its bottom line. Rawiri Waititi’s message to Hipkins was simply “We’ll see you on the 8th.”

And there, in 6 words, is the entire reason National is bundling every opposition tax policy together despite Labour’s protestations. Hipkins can rule out whatever he likes before 7 November. But on 8 November, if the left is successful, he will have to negotiate with a bunch of tax maniacs.

Social Media Ban: How to annoy both your coalition partners at once

National’s under 16 social media ban has managed the impressive feat of being introduced as a Government bill despite 2 of the 3 parties in Government opposing it. NZ First and ACT were disgruntled to say the least.

I wrote about the substance of the proposal separately this week, so I won’t repeat the whole argument here. CLICK TO READ.

NZ First and ACT agree that social media is harming children, but think National’s enforcement model either will not work or will require unacceptable intrusion into everyone else’s online lives.

In any case, it seems that National may not even do anything about the Bill this term despite getting provisional support from Labour. Luxon has said they intend to prioritise getting their rates cap legislation through first.

The whole thing has played out oddly because National could simply have released the legislation as National policy and campaigned on it. Instead it has created an avoidable stoush with both coalition partners just weeks after surviving an attempted leadership challenge.

🇺🇸 Social media’s Big Tobacco moment?

On the topic, Meta has agreed to a settlement worth up to US$17.1 billion with 47 American states and territories over claims concerning the design of its platforms for children. The amount sounds gigantic until you learn prosecutors had been seeking US$200 billion and Meta’s own lawyers had contemplated potential exposure of US$1.4 trillion.

But money aside, the more interesting thing is the behavioural restrictions included. Under the settlement, Meta will impose nighttime restrictions for children, stop notifications during school hours, limit screen time to 2 hours daily, strengthen age controls for under 13s, and hide like counts and certain appearance filters.

The comparison is being made to the tobacco settlements of the 1990s, which restricted advertising and youth marketing and preceded a dramatic fall in teenage smoking. Hence why I find the claim that concern about social media and children is merely the latest technophobic moral panic so difficult to take seriously.

You can oppose the measures and National’s proposed ban, for example. But the underlying problem is real. These platforms are deliberately engineered products using infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendations, feedback loops, and popularity metrics to maximise engagement.

Election 2026: polling and candidate news

A Reid Research poll has found that 45.4% of voters thought National made the wrong decision by keeping Luxon, while 36.8% thought it was right. That result needs a fairly enormous caveat in that Labour and Green voters overwhelmingly thought National should have replaced him, which is not necessarily the leadership advice I would be rushing to take if I were National. Among National voters, 78% backed keeping Luxon.

There has also been some leaked electorate polling in my own electorate of Tāmaki, where a mysterious supposedly “internal” poll appeared on a blog putting ACT’s James Christmas on 26%, Labour’s Max Harris on 24%, and National’s Mahesh Muralidhar on 23%.

Strangely nobody will admit ownership of the poll. So we have a poll with no identified pollster, no identified commissioner, no methodology presented in the source material, and a result that would put Labour within 2 points of winning an electorate it has not held since 1957. By all means make of that what you will, but I would perhaps hold off remortgaging the house to bet on Max Harris becoming the MP for Tāmaki. I’ll be voting for James Christmas and hoping that my neighbours aren’t stupid enough to vote for a guy who was an economic policy advisor to Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. This economic policy was characterised by McDonnell saying he wished to “overthrow capitalism” and that he would be "the first socialist Labour Chancellor".

NZ First has had a kind of one-in-one-out this week. Out was Papakura candidate George Ngatai, who stepped down after screenshots were released by Shubz (Martel Wikeepa) showing he had been shopping himself around to other parties before securing his NZ First candidacy.

In was much more interesting with Former Financial Markets Authority chair Craig Stobo announced as the party’s Botany candidate. Stobo resigned from the FMA earlier this year after what certainly appeared to be a coordinated attempt to oust him via not one but two reviews. The first one clearly did not produce the desired outcome, but the second found that some of his public political comments breached the neutrality expected of someone chairing a Crown regulator. Funnily enough, CEO Samantha Barrass now finds herself stood down and facing her own investigation announced by the board a couple of weeks ago. Live by the sword and all that.

Craig Stobo (supplied)

“The tribe has spoken”: Davina Smolders gets voted off the island

Far North District councillor and ACT list candidate Davina Smolders has been kicked off the council’s Te Kuaka Committee for Māori Strategic Relationships, after months of doing the apparently intolerable thing of questioning how it operates.

Te Kuaka has 15 members made up of 7 elected councillors and 8 unelected iwi and hapū representatives. Smolders was appointed in March and has persistently questioned, among other things, why unelected representatives have voting rights in council decision making.

Things came to a head after the Northland Iwi Chairs Forum, Te Kahu o Taonui, formally complained that Smolders had engaged in “ongoing hostile and undermining attacks” on iwi and hapū, challenged the legitimacy of their participation in council processes, and risked encouraging hostility towards Māori involvement in local government. The council subsequently voted 7–3 to remove her from the committee.

Smolders says she was not told about the complaint before the meeting and was not given an opportunity to respond to it. The forum itself had apparently asked for its complaint to be dealt with under the council’s code of conduct process, but Mayor Moko Tepania said that was not possible.

Councillor Arohanui Allen insisted the decision was not about silencing her but about the “trust and respect” required to sit on the committee. Deputy Mayor Chicky Rudkin said Smolders’ words had been hurtful, hōhā, and damaging. Councillor Kelly Stratford said councillors should remove themselves from committees where participation conflicted with their values. Smolders reminded them that the money council spends is not theirs. It belongs to ratepayers and that is who she is accountable to.

ACT wants Parliament back in charge of the law

In somewhat related news, ACT has released what it is calling its “One Law for All” policy, aimed squarely at combating judicial activism, vague Treaty clauses, and the increasingly expansive role tikanga has been allowed to play in the courts.

They propose to amend the Constitution Act to state 3 principles explicitly: Parliament is sovereign, the rule of law is fundamental, and all New Zealanders are equal before the law. They would also amend the Legislation Act so statutes are interpreted in the context of the time Parliament passed them, rather than being progressively reimagined by judges decades later.

Seymour also points to cases such as Ellis, where the Supreme Court expanded the role tikanga could play in common law, arguing that judges have been moving into territory Parliament never actually authorised. His argument is that judges are there to interpret the law, not to stealthily invent new sources of it. “Parliament is elected, judges are not,” he says.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer responded by comparing the policy to the Treaty Principles Bill, calling it “nonsense”, a “drama that doesn’t exist”, and accusing Seymour of “dog-whistling”.

Apparently wasting $40 million and contempt of Parliament won’t get you sacked

Well, there is currently no better encapsulation of Wellington’s accountability problem than the wet bus ticket that slapped the wrist of public servants who were found to have outright lied to ministers this week.

The Privileges Committee found that senior MBIE officials deliberately misled Parliament about the failed Biometric Capability Upgrade immigration IT project when during a select committee appearance, chief executive Nic Blakeley and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald were asked about the project and failed to disclose that it had already been cancelled. At least $40 million was wasted, and the wider scandal includes allegations that officials misled ministers and used “creative accounting” to avoid Cabinet scrutiny.

The committee found the ministry in contempt of Parliament, Blakeley offered his resignation, and Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche… refused it.

Roche said the finding was “extremely serious” and “completely unacceptable”, but accepting Blakeley’s resignation would not be “fair or proportionate”, partly because he had been chief executive for only 6 weeks when the misleading occurred.

What exactly does someone in the upper echelon of the New Zealand public service have to do to lose their job?

Blakeley did not personally create the 7 year disaster he inherited, but there is a real problem with no one having to bear a cost for the appalling behaviour of the ministry.

Taking “full responsibility” means absolutely nothing if bureaucrats know they will not face any consequences for even seriously egregious conduct. Our top public servants are on salaries of half a million dollars or more. At that level you are being paid to carry responsibility when things go spectacularly wrong.

Taxpayers’ Union v LGNZ: The battle of the calculators

The Government has confirmed its proposed cap on council rates increases at between 2% and 4%, although legislation will not pass until next term and the full regime won’t begin until July 2029. Simon Watts says the idea is to put a brake on runaway increases and force councils to focus on core services, Winston Peters points to “squanderous spending” by some councils, and David Seymour notes that Auckland ratepayers have just endured a 7.9% increase and says 4% sounds pretty good by comparison.

Then RNZ reported that Local Government New Zealand estimated the average household would save just $34 a year under the cap and Watts confirmed the figure when questioned, while arguing that the average disguises what the policy could mean for ratepayers in councils contemplating much larger increases. Thirty. Four. Dollars. Rather underwhelming for a policy being sold as putting the brakes on runaway rates. It will probably buy you a couple of blocks of butter by 2029…

But wait, the story does not end there! The Taxpayers’ Union has challenged the calculation, pointing to the Government’s own Regulatory Impact Statement, which estimates cumulative savings of $938 per rating unit over 7 years. Spread evenly across 7 years that is about $134 annually, although even that fairly crude calculation misses the point that rates compound.

The Taxpayers’ Union has produced its own, considerably more optimistic estimate. Using the roughly 6.5% average annual increase in rates over the past decade as the counterfactual, it reckons a 4% cap could save ratepayers about $2,736 over 7 years, or an average of $391 a year.

None of this shows LGNZ in a particularly good light. You can manufacture a remarkably unimpressive “average annual saving” if you flatten a compounding benefit across the period and present it in the least flattering way possible, but that is hardly an honest representation. And Simon Watts might want to develop a new media strategy involving taking a deep breath and thinking for 10 seconds before answering questions. He has managed to accidentally set off rumours that National is considering hiking GST and accept this absurd $34 figure at face value when the Government’s own paperwork told a different story. Ministers should actually know their own policies. Preferably before talking to media.

One genuinely excellent change for women

Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced that new clinical guidelines will support GPs to make clinical endometriosis diagnoses based on symptoms, family history, and examination, rather than women having to wait for laparoscopic surgery before receiving a confirmed diagnosis. This means that treatment can begin immediately. Diagnosis currently takes 8–12 years in New Zealand.

Endometriosis affects roughly one in ten women and includes living with debilitating pelvic pain, extremely painful periods, heavy bleeding, pain during sex and, for some, fertility problems. Until now it has also meant bouncing between GPs, specialists, surgeons, and emergency departments trying to establish what is actually wrong. Too many women have had their severe pain normalised or dismissed as simply part of being female.

Everybody please remain calm at Winton

Things are going to hell in a handbasket at property developer Winton. Its founder and majority shareholder Chris Meehan has been accused by former female employees of sexual harassment, including allegations of groping. Winton’s board commissioned 2 independent barristers to investigate workplace complaints and Meehan subsequently resigned as chair and chief executive, although he remains a director and, rather importantly, owns 55% of the company. He also does not appear to have gone far as he is seen frequently in the building.

And then everybody else started resigning. Former National finance minister Steven Joyce lasted just 7 weeks as chair before departing over what he described as a “fundamental misalignment of expectations” with Meehan. Director Guy Fergusson and CFO Jean McMahon left. James Kemp quit the nominations and remuneration committee. And executive director Julian Cook resigned after Newsroom published further allegations about Meehan.

At the centre of the drama is also an attempt by Winton’s independent directors to change the company’s constitution to give minority shareholders greater representation on the board and provide an avenue for independent advocacy. This was not an entirely academic concern given the person they were apparently seeking some independence from owns a controlling stake in the company. Meehan, with his 55%, blocked it.

The independent directors were then left in the slightly awkward position of apparently concluding they could not properly perform their duties as independent directors because the majority shareholder would not permit them sufficient independence. So they walked.

None of this is occurring against an otherwise sparkling corporate backdrop either. Winton listed at $3.87 in 2021 and its shares were trading at about $1.12 this week, taking its market capitalisation from roughly $1.15 billion at listing to around $332 million. Meanwhile, Auckland Council is challenging Winton’s enormous 3850-home Sunfield development through the courts.

I suspect we will be returning to Winton in future wrap ups.

When your expert is married to a Labour MP

ACT’s proposal for a dedicated national cancer centre (its “Starship for Cancer” idea) received a lot of positive feedback. However there was one fairly brutal negative review shared by media from University of Otago professor of cancer medicine Chris Jackson this week.

Jackson called the funding model “magical thinking”, argued centralising cancer care would drain resources from the regions, and said there were much better ways to spend the money, including lung cancer screening, and lowering the bowel screening age. These are substantive criticisms and he is obviously qualified to make them.

There was, however, one piece of context that some media outlets forgot to include…

Professor Jackson is married to Labour MP Rachel Brooking.

Chris Jackson and Rachel Brooking (social media)

That does not make his argument wrong and experts are allowed to marry politicians. But, it does mean the relationship is very relevant information when a news outlet is presenting his assessment of an ACT Party’s election policy.

The Professor will also be thrilled to know that the current Government is already lowering the bowel screening age. It was 60, has been lowered to 58, and from 30 September 2026 the next staged reduction to 56 begins.

🇺🇸🇬🇧🇧🇪 The Arday scandal becomes an international incident

Plymouth Marjon University has reinstated the emeritus professorship of 78 year old David Harris, who had his title removed after publishing research critical of critical race theory. Internal correspondence described his work as “controversial” and that the “tone and content” of his communications did not meet its values. Harris also happens to be one of the academics who raised concerns about Jason Arday’s work well before the scandal finally exploded this year.

Nathan Cofnas, the American academic whose investigation of Arday’s work helped bring the plagiarism allegations into the mainstream was similarly punished. Belgium’s Ghent University suspended Cofnas last week and opened disciplinary proceedings over his public statements, thus managing the impressive feat of turning an already international academic scandal into a minor diplomatic incident.

US Ambassador to Belgium Bill White publicly condemned what he called Ghent’s “retaliation against an American scholar following his accurate whistleblower reporting on academic fraud” and announced that the United States was reviewing its relationships with the university. Given that the American government funds research, academic exchanges, and other relationships with foreign universities, this was a bit more consequential than another angry open letter from some academics.

Ambassador White has now announced that Ghent and Cofnas have reached an agreement under which his suspension will be lifted and he can complete his postdoctoral appointment. He thanked rector Petra De Sutter (don’t get me started on him) for listening to those calling for academic freedom.

The valedictories

Two departing MPs gave valedictory speeches this week: ACT’s Mark Cameron and National’s Dr Shane Reti.

Cameron is leaving Parliament after 6 years because of serious ill health. He has suffered kidney failure and acute heart failure, and has also endured the unimaginable loss of his son to suicide.

“We all have our sh*t, as we say in rural New Zealand, and I have certainly had my fill,” he told the House.

MPs' lives don't stop happening when they enter Parliament. It is easy to forget that the people sitting in the House are actual human beings whose marriages fail, parents die, children have typical struggles, and sometimes genuinely terrible things happen, all while cameras remain pointed at them and thousands of strangers who know almost nothing about them confidently condemn their character. Cameron has had an extraordinarily rough few years and I hope retirement gives him some peace and, particularly, some improvement in his health.

Dr Shane Reti also gave his final speech after nearly a decade in Parliament. His was understandably lighter, including jokes about the frankly ridiculous number of National Party leaders he has served under. Reti is an incredibly highly respected member of Parliament and a thoroughly nice man. His intellect and good intentions were not, however, accompanied by the mongrel and political savvy necessary to be a more effective political operative. He was, I think, simply too nice.

Politics is a strange career in which you can spend a decade climbing almost every rung of the ladder and then, one day, stand up, say your farewells, and simply walk out of the building.

Chris Penk, incidentally, has decided not to give a valedictory following his spectacularly abrupt departure from Cabinet and decision to leave politics. Probably for the best, but sad nonetheless.

🇺🇸 Goodbye, Dolly

Dolly Parton died this week and all my group chats went mental. People I did not expect to be Dolly fans were just as devastated as I felt. She was enormously talented, very funny, gloriously over-the-top, and never became insufferable despite having been famous for most of her life. She wrote Jolene and I Will Always Love You on the same day, gave away millions of books to children, and once lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest. An absolute original.

In short - other stuff that happened

• 🇳🇵A catastrophic flash flood and landslide has struck the Nepal-China border. At the time of writing, Nepalese police said 392 bodies had been recovered, with more than 1400 people missing. Five New Zealanders were among those unaccounted for, according to MFAT. Authorities believe a glacier collapse caused the disaster.

• 🇺🇸 The Lindsay Clancy murder trial has gone to the jury, which must decide whether she was criminally responsible when she killed her 3 young children. Her defence says she was psychotic, disastrously overmedicated, and failed by her medical care. Prosecutors accept she was mentally ill but argue she still knew right from wrong.

• 🇦🇺 A 16 year old Sydney girl has died after a suspected choking act during sex, a grim reminder of how sexual strangulation has become normalised among young people. A 2024 Australian study found 57% of 18–35-year-olds surveyed had been strangled during sex at least once.

• A Waikato woman has received a discharge without conviction for incest with her father. She was in her late teens, had only recently met him, and was found to have an intellectual disability and significantly below-age functioning. Her father, who is in his 70s, faces his own charge and remains in custody awaiting mental health reports.

• Our Fruit Box director Riiria Jade Tatana, who declared “God is my boss, not MPI” while continuing to sell unpasteurised juice despite a Food Safety direction to stop, has been found guilty of 3 Food Act charges. Sentencing is in October and hopefully God can provide a character reference.

• 🇨🇰 Former Cook Islands rugby league international Tangiia Tongia has been sentenced to 8 years and 3 months for raping and sexually violating a woman in her Christchurch home. Tongia had admitted the offending when first interviewed by police before later denying it at trial, which Judge Tom Gilbert described as “pig-headed denial in the face of overwhelming evidence”. He received no credit for remorse or good character. Good.

• 🇧🇷 A Brazilian trans-identifying male adult content creator had his NZeTA cancelled before flying to Auckland after Immigration NZ said he declined to provide evidence of sufficient funds, gave inadequate details of his travel plans and raised concerns about the accuracy of his employment information. The story inevitably became about him being transgender, when on the facts available it appears he was denied entry for the same boring immigration reasons anyone else might be.

• Fringe religious leader Kaixiao Liu has been sentenced to 10 years and 5 months for the manslaughter and kidnapping of 70 year old Shulai Wang, whose body was found wrapped in rubbish bags at Gulf Harbour in 2024. His wife, Lanyue Xiao, received 7 years and 11 months. Wang had been restrained and denied food and water, and Justice Mathew Downs described Liu’s treatment of her as showing “callous indifference”.

• 🇺🇸 The WNBA’s dildo-throwing problem is back. A green one landed on court during the Dream v Sparks game in Los Angeles. The alleged thrower was arrested and indefinitely banned from WNBA, NBA and other league-affiliated events. The following night, at least three more were thrown during a Chicago Sky game.

• 🇺🇸 Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins has resigned after editors refused to publish his column defending women and girls who oppose males competing in female sport, saying he no longer felt he could do his job properly.

• 🇬🇧 Tim Curry, the endlessly versatile British actor best known for his role as Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, has died aged 80. Curry, who also gave us Pennywise in It, Clue, Home Alone 2 and Muppet Treasure Island, died peacefully at his Los Angeles home after years of ill health following a serious stroke in 2012.

• 🇺🇸 Donald Trump has renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America”, because apparently the Gulf of Mexico was not enough cartographic trolling for one presidency. Trump justified dropping “Ontario” by saying there was no point naming it after the Canadian province because US-Canada trade would soon dry up.

• Dunedin Hospital’s new $440 million outpatient building has officially opened, with clinical services beginning from October. Once fully operational, it is expected to provide around 1700 additional day surgeries and 13,300 additional imaging appointments each year.

• 🇺🇸 A male player now called Lily Hamilton was allowed to compete on a women’s Aussie Rules Football team in California despite being a registered sex offender who had been convicted by a US military court in 2006 of raping a child under 12 and forcibly sodomising 2 other children. Hamilton was sentenced to 41 years in military prison, reduced to 25 under a pretrial agreement, and reportedly served around 15 years. He was quietly removed from the team, but a subsequent complaint alleged his female teammates were never formally told why, despite having shared hotel rooms, social events, and spaces involving children with him.

Stuff you might find interesting this week

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A small personal note before I go: thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to our Givealittle for fertility treatment so far. I have been genuinely overwhelmed by people’s generosity and kindness.

Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.