Michael Bassett: The 2023 election in retrospect

Our finally completed election results need to be viewed on several levels. On the surface, the change of government was caused because Jacinda Ardern’s and Chris Hipkins’ Labour ministries were weak in personnel and unable to extract even respectable performance from the current feeble bureaucracy when dealing with bread and butter issues.

Kate Hawkesby: Taxpayers deserve better than this wasteful spending

You’ve got to think there’s something very rotten in the state of the public service in this country that they’re carrying on —in some quarters where they know full well they’re getting cancelled— that they’re carrying on hiring people, working on projects, spending money, commissioning work.  

Why? They’re not going anywhere. Three Waters, light rail, Let’s get Wellington Moving... why are people on these projects persevering when they must know it’s over? They’re gone, surely the spending stops. It’s reckless and wasteful, and smacks of a deluded sense of entitlement that they can carry on in the false belief —or maybe just arrogance— that wasting taxpayers' money on contracts and outlay trumps the reality, which is they’re toast.

Kate Hawkesby: Are we having to wait too long to form a government?

Peter Dunne is someone I really respect because he’s emerged from a life inside politics to remain an engaged and informed observer on the outside. 

He makes a lot of sense, which is why I love having him on this show. He recently gave an interview where he talked about the fact we shouldn’t have to wait this long for election results. 

I agree.

Ross Meurant: Political Perspicacity - after the event

Five Lessons stand out.

Lesson One.

United we stand: Divided we fall.

“If all the minnows had put aside their arrogance aka ignorance and come together under one roof, they would not have split the 10% undecided vote and united they would have succeeded.”

Penn Raine: In the eye of the beholder

Since Saturday, the usual suspects have, among their cries of surprise at Labour’s slap-down, been suggesting that their slide into ignominy could have been avoided if only they had not incinerated so many of their contentious policies.

This amusing anti-logic has us scratching our heads. Are these journos suggesting that if the secretive Three Waters proposals had been enshrined in law along with the widely criticised social insurance policy and the RNZ/TVNZ merger then the public thumbs-down would have miraculously turned to cheers? Do they hold the view that the proposed hate speech laws would have become cherished in familiarity by those for whom they were designed to muzzle?

NZCPR Newsletter: New Zealanders Vote for Change

After six years of the Labour’s lies, bullying and deceit, New Zealanders have overwhelmingly voted for change.

Labour’s party vote has been slashed from 50.1 percent in 2020 to 26.8 percent on the provisional figures. The party was decimated in the electorates losing 28 of their 45 seats. With 17  constituencies and 17 list seats, they now have only 34 seats in Parliament down from 65 in 2020.

Kate Hawkesby: Coalition chaos

"Jacinda was prepared to sell her grandmother”.. read the headline yesterday.  

A statement made by Ron Mark when interviewed about how coalition negotiations have gone in the past with NZ First. Unfortunately, he went on to say in the article that not only was she ready to sell her grandmother, but she did.  

Ouch. 

Cam Slater: A Vote Against Woke and For Change

The three parties campaigning to change the Government, National, ACT and NZ First, secured over 54 per cent of the vote, while the three pro-Government parties received 40 per cent. In terms of seats, it’s 69 (with NZ First) to 52, indicating a shift to the putative conservative right (note I use small letters), gaining 26 seats, and the left and hard left losing 25.