The polls are arriving almost daily and depending which you prefer National is either out in front or doing worse than we were when I worked for Judith Collins as leader (they were challenging times). On Tuesday 1News-Verian had National on 29% and Labour on 27%, but on Thursday RNZ-Reid Research had National on 24.8% and Labour on 30.6%. Two very different pictures. There wasn’t quite such a dramatic difference for the smaller parties with the Greens getting 15% and 14.5% respectively, ACT 12% and 10.1%, New Zealand First 10% and 9.9%, and Opportunity 6% and 7.2%. And let’s just round Te Pāti Māori down to zero.
Opinions on these polls were predictable. Nicola Willis called the RNZ one “completely out of whack,” whereas naturally Kieran McAnulty claimed that it was similar to Labour’s internal polling. What we can deduce from every single poll this year and every single opinion about those polls, is that it is anyone’s game and none of us have a clue where things will end up.
Election 2026: Policy promises from Labour
Labour released their 101 page manifesto this week. Pretty sure back in the day they were a double-sided A4 on copy paper left in the letterbox. The mammoth document contains a cheesy Chippy on the front and focuses on the familiar policies of three “free” GP visits (that may be a phone call or with a nurse), free prescriptions, $20 weekly public transport fare cap, and jobs for graduate nurses. However, as seems to be the norm with Labour’s policies, Hipkins clarified that his big promise of guaranteed nursing jobs doesn’t mean a nursing job in your local hospital, or even your town. Graduates may need to move.
Labour has also confirmed that they will retain the Gang Patch Ban that they opposed and then said wouldn’t work. It is amazing how often atrocious Coalition policies and law changes (practically hate crimes) have turned into sensible policies to retain this term.
They say they will retain Investment Boost too, but will be making changes to downsize it. On fast track projects they are unclear and it seems some are safe and some aren’t. Chris Bishop says that the 37 already approved projects are expected to support around 70,000 jobs so if Labour cans the projects they will be lost too.
Election 2026: In case of emergency, break out Key & Clark
Yesterday morning, National deployed John Key. Then, in the afternoon, Helen Clark had been launched by Labour also. Videos were posted to both parties’ social media accounts and the political giants laid down the law about how party supporters should vote. It says a lot about the weakness in support for the parties’ current leaders that they have to rely on past leaders to be the authoritative voice.
Luxon has also broken with his usual reluctance to discuss polls to warn New Zealanders against sleepwalking into a change of government. He is vehemently opposed to vote splitting and repeating “Two Ticks Blue” like a madman, but the maths ain’t on his side.
Shane Jones caused a small emergency during the Kaupapa Māori debate and by emergency I mean he triggered thousands of eye rolls and outrage in the media class. He guessed that a basket of two loaves of bread, a kilogram of mince, milk, and eggs would cost $35. Using September’s Stats NZ figures, it actually came to $48.20. Asked whether he was out of touch, Jones replied that he had “daughters, wives, and other people” to do the shopping. Hardly a case of foaming at the mouth misogyny, but on the nose enough to get a chuckle out of his voters and steam coming out of the ears of the perpetually offended.
A scandalous outbreak of people using MMP within the rules
Businessman (and father of the Mowbray siblings) Harry Mowbray has caused a spot of bother also. His Split Your Vote campaign has attracted the attention of the Electoral Commission and the website has been taken down. Harry is in the middle of quite an extraordinary storm. His objective is to get the Coalition voted back in and having played with the idea of overhangs in previous elections, he has gone all in trying to get Kiwis to electorate vote National and party vote ACT or New Zealand First. However, as I mentioned, National are stubbornly ploughing on with the two tick strategy that does not make mathematical sense. So despite the campaign being intended to help National, it emerged yesterday that it was them who made the complaint about Harry to the Electoral Commission.
On the other hand, Reality Check Radio placed full page newspaper ads promoting the same idea and both ACT and New Zealand First have confirmed they signed off on the ads. This is necessary because electoral law says third party promoters cannot urge people to vote for a party or candidate without permission. The cost of the adverts will also be applied to the parties’ spending limits.
Strangely, although Harry and RCR are being portrayed by the media as villainous and loopy in equal measure, there is no equivalent horror at the overhang strategy being advanced by Te Pāti Māori. As far as I’m concerned both sides are entitled to operate within the rules however they like. And splitting your vote is hardly new. When I was in my pre-critical thinking days I voted Labour electorate and Green party vote. It was common for us Greens supporters to give Labour the electorate vote because back then Greens had no viable electorate seats.
I have written two Substacks on vote splitting. You can read them here and here. You can also read a disclosure about my own involvement with the movement in the early days.
There has been another outbreak this week… well, Trevor Mallard breaking back out into the X/Twitter town square appearing to plant the seeds for protesting the outcome of the election should the left lose. The former Speaker had kittens on Monday when his preferred advance voting location was shut. Rather than seeing it as an understandable consequence of Labour Day being a public holiday, Mallard went full conspiracist and alleged Trump-style “voter suppression”. He and others on the left have got stuck into the policy to end same day enrolment portraying it as though it would disenfranchise every young person. Provisional enrolment is at 93.6%, down from 94.7% in 2023.
His outspokenness and presence at Chris Hipkins’ side on the campaign trail has caused some surprise. Labour has been careful to hide from the parts of their recent history that bring back bad memories for voters and Trevor Mallard’s role in exacerbating tensions during the anti-mandate protest at Parliament is not a bright spot. The guy who doused the protestors in water and played Barry Manilow calling anyone an “authoritarian” invites accusations of hypocrisy.
Staff at election booths, meanwhile, have reportedly been told that any persistent or angry unenrolled people should be issued a special ballot to de-escalate the argument, even though their vote won’t actually be counted… Two people have already been referred to police after claiming on social media that they voted multiple times. Police stress that the claims have not been verified yet.
Do the Greens actually know what they are doing?
Marama Davidson thinks the Government borrows at “1-2% ish”. She volunteered this during an online Stuff Q&A session to explain why the Greens’ plans to take on more debt was totally fine and nothing to worry about. When journalists later asked her about it at a media stand up, she gave them the same answer, but with a lot less certainty. Over her shoulder Chloe “I want to be Finance Minister” Swarbrick was nodding and mouthing “2%” too.
Davidson rapidly read the room and picked up that something was afoot which prompted her to ask one of the journalists if they knew what the percentage was. When someone informed her that the 10 year government bond yield was about 4.9% (benchmark for the cost of new longer term borrowing) Davidson claimed she had been “partly” correct.
Chloe Swarbrick then jumped to her defence arguing that most politicians would be caught off guard by that question. Which, if true, is concerning. Actually, one would hope the leaders of all parties in Parliament would know the basic facts surrounding our national debt. Davidson later pointed to a lower one year borrowing rate and to Kiwi Bonds but neither rescues her “1-2%” claim. Existing stock includes borrowing undertaken at different times and recent financial statements put annual core Crown finance costs at just over $9 billion against gross debt of $227.4 billion.
This is not a trivial matter and the Greens look even worse by trying to make excuses. It brings into question their knowledge and capability, but also all of the costings, assumptions, and policies that make up their election promises. For example, if say, they wanted to increase our debt by $27 billion to pay for a bespoke rehabilitation centre for non-binary kākāpō suffering from ADHD, 2% interest means $540 million per year in interest. At 4.9%, it is about $1.32 billion. $783 million difference in one year.
The Reserve Bank supplies its own plot twist
The nerds were caught by surprise this week when the Reserve Bank held the OCR at 2.75%. The Monetary Policy Committee were split four votes to three with Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman in the hold camp, while chief economist Paul Conway and assistant governor Karen Silk were among those wanting a 25 basis point increase. There was broad agreement that tightening would be needed but diverged on the matter of when. Breman has said there is a high chance of an increase in December.
Inflation dropped to 3.7% in the September quarter, down from 4.1% in June. While above the 1-3% target range, it is fantastic to see the number 3 again. However, it may be short lived with the RBNZ are warning that it is likely to bounce back up due to fuel prices and international conflict.
Four seats worth paying attention to
In Tāmaki, National’s Mahesh Muralidhar has had another couple of bouts of foot in mouth disease. First, he was a little too enthusiastic in praising Labour policy and “heart” during a debate. He seems to buy into the left’s idea of what compassion and empathy is and the misguided idea that they have a monopoly on it. Taking no prisoners, Labour’s Max Harris pounced on this and used it to talk to the audience about how “heartless” National and the Coalition are. ACT’s James Christmas was baffled by his National opponent’s comments and declared himself the only actual centre-right candidate in the race.
That sentiment was only made more plausible by Muralidhar appearing to boast on a podcast called Sixteen & Speaking that a “gang leader” told him “I need you to get in” . He has since clarified that he did not know the gang member and was simply approached at a street corner meeting and denied it was an actual endorsement of his campaign.
Tāmaki is my electorate, and I have been open about the fact that I will be voting for James Christmas. This week has made me more confident about that. A lot of people are freaking out about the overhang strategy, but my view is that Epsom and Tāmaki are incumbent ACT seats and I do not want to mess about trying to turn them only for someone like Labour’s Max Harris to come through the middle and win. Focus on the marginal seats. I know this opinion will be a divisive one.
Mt Roskill is a more straightforward re-match between National’s Carlos Cheung and Labour’s Michael Wood. Cheung won in 2023 by about 1600 votes, but Michael Wood has basically been campaigning since then to take it back. A RoboPoll has Wood ahead 47% to 29.9% which looks substantial, but those polls just aren’t reliable enough. It is a do or die seat for both men as Wood is not on the Labour list and Cheung is at 34 so will not make it if he does not get the seat. On the one hand, Cheung seems to be an MP with potential, he makes hilarious socials content, and would add a seat to the centre-right tally. But on the other hand, the mischievous Ani kinda thinks popcorn would be required if Wood won because his hatred for the Labour leader is well-known, as are his own leadership ambitions, so it would be a matter of when, not if, he stirs the pot.
In Auckland Central, Chloe Swarbrick is defending a majority of nearly 4000 with boundary changes bringing in more of Grey Lynn and Western Springs. She is up against a formidable candidate in National’s Candace Kinser though who brings significant business and governance experience. ACT’s candidate Antonia Modkova has been clear she is campaigning for the party vote and that people should give their electorate vote to Kinser. And to complicate things, Labour’s Naisi Chen is not rolling over and handing the votes to Swarbrick. She is in it to win it.
A recent poll had Swarbrick at 36% and Kinser at 32%, but Modkova is on 4% so if they shift over it is even.
Then there is Hutt South which I already wrote about this week - READ HERE. In yet another packed hall this week, Winston Peters broke from convention and shocked everyone by endorsing National candidate Chris Bishop for the electorate. Peters called him a “cut above the regular MP” which is high praise indeed from the New Zealand First leader. The New Zealand First candidate in Hutt South Alastair Boyce is campaigning hard for the party vote, but directing the candidate votes to Bishop. Peters did make it very clear, however, that his endorsement was for Chris Bishop, not National.
Labour’s Hutt South candidate Ginny Andersen suggested that the endorsement would hurt rather than help Bishop, but she knows as well as anyone that if the race is as tight as it looks and even 500 votes go to Bishop instead of Boyce, that could make all the difference.
Netball scores an own goal
Netball New Zealand has abandoned negotiations for a private domestic league backed by Anna Mowbray (yes, she is Harry’s daughter) and Ali Williams, 8 weeks after signing a non-binding term sheet. The proposed competition was supposed to provide a way forward for players who were looking at a very uncertain future after the collapse of the existing competition.
Mowbray and Williams say they were told by email, without a reason or a phone call. Players’ association boss Pippa Moore says the players were blindsided too and says they are now scrambling for financial and mental health support. Netball New Zealand says considerable efforts were made but an agreement could not be reached and those communications are confidential.
The state can’t employ everyone
We might be in election mode, but the public service rolls on under the existing government. Public service chiefs have been asked to model a 15% reduction in staff in accordance with the Coalition’s target of 55,000 full time equivalent positions by June 2029. In June 2026 it was 63,912. Because new spending decisions would also add jobs, official advice suggests more than 11,000 existing roles may have to disappear to reach the net reduction. Of course, these plans will be ripped up and fed to the office goldfish if Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori, and Opportunity get in.
For context, the public service workforce grew from 47,250 FTEs in 2017 to a peak of 65,700 in 2023. Frontline service delivery roles increased by 18%, while other public service roles grew by 46%. That is an enormous expansion in just six years and I suggest you would struggle to find many Kiwis who would say services have improved in that time.
Collective bargaining for a Labour government
The unions have dropped all pretences and been actively campaigning to “change the government”. The Public Service Association in particular has campaigned harder and more aggressively than Chris Hipkins has. They have held strikes and protests, put up political flyers in our hospitals, and fed the media story after story of unhappy healthcare workers who just happen to also be hardcore unionists and members of Labour or the Greens. They are relentless.
And this week, E tū members at TVNZ decided to walk off the job in their first strike in 20 years. About 150 TVNZ journalists and staff took part, rejecting a 2.5% offer and seeking 5%. TVNZ says their demands are simply not sustainable. Coincidentally, E tū’s election manifesto calls for a Labour-led government.
The doctor who failed his ideological examination
Dr David Smylie’s account of why he left New Zealand is thoroughly depressing. The former senior partner at Cambridge Medical Centre replied privately to a sales representative’s invitation after she opened it with “Ate Marie” instead of “Ata mārie” (good morning). He made a joke about having eaten Marie, complained about the use of a language he did not understand, took a swipe at preferred pronouns, and asked to leave the mailing list. It was an irritable and unnecessary reply, but one that normal adults used to be able to quickly move on from. He regrets sending it, however, he says his attempts to have an apology passed on to the sales rep were frustrated. He was eventually able to apologise directly and it was accepted.
The matter nonetheless became the basis for a Medical Council complaint and forced reeducation. The Medical Council found his comments “objectively racist” and imposed a year long educational programme, including monthly supervision and essays reflecting on the email and structural racism in healthcare. This on top of his busy job as a GP. The Medical Council also expected him to fund the compulsory supervision himself. Dr Smylie completed his supervision, but refused to write the essays and left New Zealand to go practice overseas. He says he was told that he “might be allowed to work in New Zealand again if I write [the essays].”
We have a GP shortage. It is being called a crisis. For goodness sake.
You can watch/hear Dr Smylie talk about his experience with Dane Giraud on the Free To Speak Podcast: YouTube | Spotify | Apple | Buzzsprout | Rova
🇩🇪 Berlin’s far left is scared of its Islamist allies
Elif Eralp, whose far left Die Linke party topped Berlin’s September election, has ambitions to become mayor. However, unfortunately for her, private comments accidentally shared with magazine Der Spiegel via a shared document after they interviewed her, have revealed that she is scared of some of the people associated with her party. Asked about antisemitism and the presence of Islamist activist Ibrahim Ibrahim at a party election celebration, she originally answered the question, but then requested to have that part of the interview removed.
In internal document comments between Eralp and her own team, including a press secretary, she referred to previous police advice about naming people linked to organised crime, adding that this time it concerned people with connections to Hamas. She wrote that she could not put herself and her family in danger for the magazine.
Ibrahim denies supporting terrorism or antisemitism and says he is not a Die Linke member. But some local reports have claimed that Hamas controls the party.
The irony is that the far left in Berlin, like the rest of the West, have an unholy alliance with Islamists. They spend a great deal of time pretending that their far left politics is compatible with religious zealots who hate almost everything they stand for. Eralp’s party also advocates for reducing police numbers, while she has obviously had to seek their protection. The incident has resulted in coalition partners SPD and the Greens questioning her capability to confront the problem. This is the reality of how these kinds of alliances play out. Just ask the leftists who sided with the Ayatollah in the Iranian Revolution. Oh wait, a large number of them are dead.
The exit package that keeps on giving
Former Financial Markets Authority chief executive Samantha Barrass resigned in September amid employment and workplace culture investigations. She had previously instigated the investigations into FMA Chair (and now New Zealand First candidate) Craig Stobo that saw him leave the Authority despite meagre findings. Barrass received a payout equivalent to her remaining salary through to January and the Herald estimates that at about $270,000. The FMA also agreed to cover £18,500, about $44,000, for a UK governance course she had planned to attend plus her legal costs the amount that came to they will not disclose. Another golden handshake at our expense.
🇬🇧 Russell Brand takes the stand
Russell Brand gave evidence at his rape and sexual assault trial in London this week. He denies the allegations from six different women who are not known to each other and made complaints to police independently. The alleged incidents occurred between 1999 and 2009 and the charges are three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of attempted indecent assault. The final charge was downgraded mid-trial from indecent assault by the judge.
The evidence against him has principally come from the six women, supported by testimony from people they told about the incidents at the time and since. Additionally, Brand’s former friend and flatmate Mark Pinheiro described him appearing flustered and wanting to leave Bournemouth the morning after the earliest rape is alleged to have happened, and alleged that in a later conversation Brand said things “may have gone a little bit too far”. The prosecution also read a statement from his former personal assistant.
Aside from giving evidence himself, Brand’s wife Laura also testified and statements from two former girlfriends described his promiscuity and repeated infidelity, with one saying he nonetheless respected her refusals. Brand told the court that no one else was willing to give evidence for him as the documentaries and media coverage about him had scared them off essentially.
The judge anticipates that following closing statements the jury will go to deliberate next Tuesday. If found guilty of the charges he could face a substantial prison sentence of potentially decades. The maximum for rape in England and Wales is life imprisonment, but the sentencing guideline generally spans four to nineteen years for an individual offence.
This week in the Greens’ vulnerable communities
While the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori have been explaining why campaigning at a Mongrel Mob pad is an important part of engaging with vulnerable communities, the courts have supplied a reminder of who the actual victims are. Both parties want reduction of police and their powers and Te Pāti Māori advocates for abolition of prisons. Note: not all of these relate to gangs.
At the Common Room bar in Hastings, senior Mongrel Mob member Winitana Lucky Dellow assaulted 8 people in about 5 minutes. He punched one woman until she lost consciousness, hauled her back up by the dress, and uppercut her in the face. Other gang members and associates joined in. A touching account of camaraderie and belonging. He received just 31 months in prison and his 4 co-defendants received home or community detention.
Rodney Fallowfield has admitted to murdering Glen Tukaki and Nigel Robinson in Christchurch and wounding 2 others. He had already strangled his wife to death on their honeymoon and was convicted of her manslaughter (!?) in 2021. He was described at his 2022 (!?) Parole Board hearing as genuinely remorseful and released in 2023 (!?) after being assessed as not posing undue risk. I have many questions.
Similar questions crop up in the case of Tailasa Pongia who has been jailed for 18 years after admitting the murder of 19 year old Greig Temarama-Abela and the wounding of another man. Hours before the killing, Pongia had been arrested following a home invasion and released on bail.
Meanwhile, the trial over the killing of American PhD student Kyle Whorrall has been hearing closing arguments. He was returning from the supermarket and sat down at a bus stop when a group of youths drove past him several times before stopping and attacking him with a machete. One teenager has pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated robbery, the four others deny their charges.
At Myer’s Park, a little girl was critically injured and is recovering from surgery after being attacked by a 20 year old man who was not known to her and who now faces an attempted murder charge. He could not attend the 27 October hearing as he too was hospitalised with self-inflicted wounds.
A 39 year old man has been charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after an incident on an Auckland train. In a separate incident four people were taken into custody after threatening behaviour on a bus in Albany.
In Christchurch, a 60 year old man has been charged with manslaughter over the death of 21 year old father Braydon Hepworth whose body was found beneath a shed. A second man faces charges relating to concealment of a body. In another Canterbury case, suppression orders have expired for Lyndon Jack Seyb King who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his 90 year old grandmother and assaulting his mother and sister.
In the case of the Dunedin killing of Douglas Alexander Senior the court found the act proven but the accused man not criminally responsible on the grounds of insanity. He has a long history of schizophrenia and before the killing, Senior had reported the man to police and described him as a “time bomb waiting to explode”.
Then we have the sex offenders! In Hamilton, Sipeli Ian Peterson received 3 months community detention and 9 months supervision (!?) after sending explicit material to who he believed was a 14 year old girl, but was actually a police officer. A 53 year old Mount Maunganui teacher has pleaded guilty to 21 charges after covertly recording women in the staff toilet of an early childhood centre. In Auckland, the trial is underway for a retired music teacher who denies 14 sexual offence charges involving 3 teenage girls including rape and sexual violation.
Then there is the super wealthy offender whose permanent name suppression has been upheld this week after he was jailed for possessing and importing child sexual exploitation material. More than 11,000 files were found. The Crown argued that other wealthy men had been wrongly identified as the offender and that he should be named. The judge disagreed.
This is a selection of cases being dealt with this week. Victimisation has reduced significantly in this term of government and yet the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are eager to go softer on these criminals.
In short — other stuff that happened
- 🇬🇧 Sir Patrick Stewart has died aged 86 after a brief battle with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia. The British stage and screen actor was best known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek.
- 🇬🇧 Former BBC Oscar-winning documentary executive Lucie Kon received about £400,000 in redundancy back pay and a personal injury settlement after colleagues called Zionists “evil”, suggested she could not be impartial as she was Jewish, and refused to promote her Emmy-winning documentary about the Nova festival massacre.
- 🇬🇧 Pauline Parker, who later lived as Hilary Nathan, has died aged 88 on the Orkney island of South Ronaldsay. Parker and Juliet Hulme were convicted of murdering Parker’s mother in Christchurch in 1954, served 5 and a half years in prison, and subsequently moved to Britain under new identities. Their case inspired Peter Jackson’s movie Heavenly Creatures.
- 🇺🇸 Barack Obama has called the investigation into Ilhan Omar’s sham marriage to her brother as “appalling”, but it turns out investigations started while he was POTUS. In 2016, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security uncovered evidence that Omar’s marriage was fraudulent.
- Actor Cliff Curtis has pleaded guilty over the 23 September drink driving crash in Wynyard Quarter that seriously injured taxi driver Gagan Deep Singh. Curtis had 122mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood and Singh suffered 8 broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a hip fracture, and hand injuries.
- 🇦🇺 An Australian appeals court has removed Erin Patterson’s prospect of parole and dismissed her appeal over the death-cap mushroom poisonings. She will never be eligible for release.
- An as yet unnamed New Zealand musician has been charged with 2 counts of common assault and one of using threatening language after being arrested at an undisclosed New Zealand airport on Thursday.
- 🇦🇺 Dr Beth Upton, who was the trans-identifying male in nurse Sandie Peggie’s Scottish employment case, moved to Australia and changed his name to Lis. He has already become involved in a dispute at Port Macquarie Base Hospital after a female patient requested a female doctor and Upton insisted he was female.
- Business journalist Madison Malone (nee Reidy) has announced that she has taken a job at Rocket Lab.
- 🇬🇧 Lubna Speitan who helped lead the “Zionism is racism” motion adopted by the UK Greens is now calling for the Terrorism Act to be repealed arguing it villifies resistance and opponents of oppression.
- 🇬🇧 In England, a 14 year old boy who stabbed a girl at least 10 times after she rejected him and injured a shopkeeper who tried to intervene, has received a 12 month referral order and 3 year restraining order. The judge referred to him as a “bright lad”.
- 🇬🇧 Also in England, Anthony Williams (33) denies 14 attempted murder charges arising from alleged attacks on a Doncaster to London train that stopped at Huntingdon in November last year. His trial heard that he stabbed the passengers and staff but he denies that he intended to kill them.
- Canadian Amanda Jette Knox gained fame for her husband identifying as a “transwoman” as well as her son initially identifying as a “transgirl” before deciding he was non-binary. Knox herself was pansexual, but then began identifying as a lesbian when her husband declared his identity. She then came out as non-binary before coming out as a “transman” 2 years later in 2023 and changing her name to Rowan. The next year she and her trans husband came out as polyamorous and moved another couple into the home they already shared with their 4 children. This year, Knox added disability identities to her list including AuDHD. And finally (for now), earlier this year she announced that her father who she did not grow up with was Ojibwe (Indigenous) and she was exploring her ancestry. Last month she came out as two-spirit. Oh and Knox divorced her husband and paired off with one half of the other couple while the husband took the other half.
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