JC: What Are We Looking For

I refer to the types of parties’ policies we, as right-wing conservative voters, would like to see at the forthcoming election. Anything from the left will not sit comfortably so we must look to the three parties on the right. We must start from the base that there is no one party that is going to address everything we may want. Therefore each party has to be looked at individually in each policy area.

Geoff Parker: One Law For All Does Not Ignore History — It Recognises Who Makes The Law

Deborah Coddington (NZ Herald 23/9/26) is right about one thing: New Zealand's common law has developed through judicial decisions for centuries. But that historical fact does not answer the constitutional question ACT's “One Law for All” policy is addressing.

Her Donoghue v Stevenson example illustrates the point. The courts developed the modern law of negligence because Parliament had not comprehensively legislated in that field. But that does not mean judges possess an unlimited licence to create new legal duties whenever they consider them desirable.[1]

There is a crucial distinction between developing established common-law principles and creating new obligations in areas where Parliament has legislated — or deliberately chosen not to legislate.

Geoff Parker: One Law For All Is Not An Attack On Maori

A response to Sir Douglas Graham

Sir Douglas Graham warns that ACT’s “one law for all” agenda is foolish and likely to provoke protest.

But there is a rather revealing assumption behind his argument: that seeking equality before the law is somehow an attack on Māori.

It isn't.

The real question is whether New Zealand should continue developing a legal and political framework in which some rights, powers and forms of political participation depend on ancestry — or whether citizenship should ultimately mean equal rights and responsibilities under one law.

Mike Butler: The treaty principles crossroads again

The Waitangi Tribunal’s declaration that the review of treaty principle clauses breaches treaty principles is both predictable and shines a light on the constitutional crossroads that 50 years of treaty policy have brought us to.

AI told me that evaluating whether the review is the "correct" course of action involves navigating one of the most significant, complex, and deeply polarizing constitutional debates in modern New Zealand history.

Mike Butler: The long march to tribal control

NZCPR has published a number of articles on New Zealand’s “the long march through the institutions", the non-violent path to achieve Marxist revolution. This article, which is a bit of a long read, looks at the nuts and bolts of how the strategy has been applied here and gives an evaluation of where we are at.

The long march is a political strategy that seeks to create radical social change by infiltrating and subverting the core organizations of a society rather than using violent revolution. The strategy is accomplished by:

Is The Nats’ Strategy To Condemn Its Coalition Partners Madness?

On The Platform, Michael Laws asks "Is the Nats’ strategy to condemn its coalition partners just desperate madness"?

Click to view

Graham Adams: Media talks up Winston Peters’ rise

The path to election glory has traps.

NZ First’s prospects at the election after a run of good polling are being talked up by increasingly enthusiastic commentators. But if a week is a long time in politics, more than six months is an eternity. And there are traps aplenty for the party to navigate before November 7.

Listening to the media, however, you might think the continuing rise of Winston Peters and NZ First is unstoppable.

Bob Edlin: How Jones passed the ball to ACT on co-governance.....

How Jones passed the ball to ACT on co-governance – and watched them score – by trying to nobble a Far North councillor

New Zealand First’s Shane Jones was desperately striving to recover lost ground when he despatched an email to team supporters and the media late in the week.

The email landed in PoO’s office while we were digesting the publicity Jones had won when he stumbled and put the ball into his own goal while – it seems – trying to score political points in two separate constituencies.

Sean Plunket: James Christmas’ First Media Interview As New ACT Candidate

PLATFORM INTERVIEW:

Click to view

The Platform's Sean Plunket interviews barrister James Christmas - ACT's new candidate for the Tamaki electorate.

Former National Party candidate James Christmas, who was tipped as a potential minister and Attorney-General, will contest this year’s election as a candidate for the ACT Party. He is one of eight people vying to become ACT’s candidate in Auckland’s Tāmaki electorate.

Centrist: After years attacking ACT as ‘colonisers.....

After years attacking ACT as ‘colonisers,’ ex-TPM MPs’ chaotic vote flip triggers allegations Parliament misled

After years of denouncing ACT and its bills as racist and colonial, newly independent MPs Takuta Ferris and Mariameno Kapa Kingi have suddenly reversed their votes to back ACT’s Medicines Amendment Bill in the House.

Lindsay Mitchell: What's up with ACT?

I won't even use the C word in Scrabble. It just represents a vulgar low standard never to be stooped to. But I have heard my grown-up kids use it so I guess I am just out-of-touch.

Nevertheless, to hear it used in parliament is in keeping with the tone the Maori Party has set. Except it came from ACT. Which disappoints me.

Mike's Minute: ACC and their race-based policy

It is being reported as a scrap, which I'm not sure is accurate.

But if it is, it is a shame and probably a lesson for the combatants, who are both supposed to be on the same side.

But under MMP, is anyone on the same side?

Karl du Fresne: Why shouldn't ACT have a go? The Left's been at it for decades

David Seymour’s announcement that ACT may stand candidates in council elections triggered a discussion on Nick Mills’ talkback show on Newstalk ZB this morning about whether political parties should get involved in local government. But that mischievous genie escaped from the bottle a very long time ago.

The Labour Party has long regarded local politics as fertile ground, both at district and regional levels, and always fields a slate of Wellington City Council candidates with the party’s formidable organisational resources behind them.

Tim Wikiriwhi: Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill - submission

Public Submission.
To the committee.

Hello.

My name is Tim Wikiriwhi.
I am a father, grandfather, a Christian Libertarian, and a Kiwi of both Maori and Pakeha descent.
Te Arawa is my Iwi.

Peter Dunne: End of year political parties observations

As a turbulent political year draws to a close some observations can be made about the state of the various parties and some of their personnel.

Within the National Party, this year has seen the emergence of Chris Bishop as not just one of the government’s key Ministers, with a range of new initiatives across his various portfolios, but also the go-to person when things do not go to plan. In that regard, he looks set to reprise the role of Minister of Everything, pioneered by Sir Bill Birch during the Bolger government, and developed to the ultimate degree by Steven Joyce in the last National-led government.

NZCPR Weekly: Coalition Deals

We are witnessing a remarkable turnaround in New Zealand politics.

The Coalition agreement entered into by National, ACT and New Zealand First reflects the first three-party coalition deal in our country’s history.

Democracy can be seen to have prevailed, with MMP delivering what a majority of New Zealanders want.

Kerre Woodham: David Seymour is nothing if not pragmatic

David Seymour and ACT are nothing if not pragmatists.

After taking in the impact of the PREFU, the pre-election fiscal and economic update provided by the Government, Seymour has made some changes to ACT’s alternative budget, principally softening tax cuts to account for economic conditions.

Ross Meurant: ACT’s Pathway to Power

Many amongst the masses will have missed the subliminal message of ACT offering National a “confidence & supply” only, coalition partnership.

In my view, David Seymour is right on the mark with this proposal.

Any Party entering into a collation agreement with another Party which holds the majority of seats, essentially relegates itself to a “poodle partner”.

Kerre Woodham: Act's welfare policy is the kind of hardline stuff many of us want

According to Act, drug addicts will face the prospect of losing their benefit if they refuse treatment or don't make more effort to find work. Act also wants to reduce the current number of 4000 people who receive the supported living payment because of stress.

70 percent of them have been receiving that payment for more than five years. ACT argues stress is a condition that can be treated over time, not a permanent incapacity.

Mike Hosking: The dream run for Act is over

For a party that has been as clean as a whistle in terms of candidates, it all came unstuck yesterday.

This past term saw an increase in numbers and as history shows, in parties like New Zealand First, the United Party, and to some degree the Greens, when you expand you run the risk of having a talent pool issue.

The star of that show is New Zealand first and the arrival of the Tight Five - Tau Henare, Tuku Morgan and all that particular cluster that eventually imploded.