Mike's Minute: Some political operators want to undermine your future

Perhaps the Labour Party's small target election year strategy has started to unravel as one of their MPs, Helen White, told us all of her desire for house prices to fall.

She wants them to come down.

David Farrar: Does Labour want a navy without combat ships?

Labour managed to remove any combat ability from the Royal NZ Airforce in 2000. Now it seems they want to do the same with the navy!

The Post reports:

The Labour Party is open to the idea of a frigate-less Defence Force, saying it’s yet to take a position on replacing the ageing Anzac-class fleet.

Hannah Bunting: Andy Burnham becomes prime minister.......

Andy Burnham becomes prime minister after Keir Starmer leaves Downing Street for the last time

After being named leader of the Labour party, Andy Burnham has officially become prime minister of the UK. That many people considered this day an inevitability doesn’t make it any less momentous.

Mike's Minute: Labour don't prep for power

You may remember that Morgan McSweeney was one of Keir Starmer's fall guys in the Mandelson scandal.

He ran the Labour Party's 2024 campaign that saw Labour land a comparatively small amount of the vote (37%) in exactly the right places to give them a stonking great majority and end 14 years of Tory rule.

Ryan Bridge: Labour takes huge election gamble

So let's talk about that weird interview yesterday.

No not the one with Winston Peters, the one with Hipkins.

He has planted Labour in an almost impossible-to-justify position on NZ Super.

Mike's Minute: Labour have no idea

For those of you who were super keen to hear from the Labour Party in an election year as to what they might have in mind for policy, my question to you is: now that they have started handing out the ideas, does the size of the cock-up make you wish they hadn’t?

Or can you believe the incompetence of past years hasn’t been addressed?

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Labour's reset is off to a very shaky start

Now, I can’t imagine Labour’s woken up feeling awesome this morning about how that reset is going. What do you think?

This is a reset – you do realise that. After months of saying nothing, having no new policy and generating headlines for Ayesha Verrall singing weird songs about ducks, they started this week with a classic reset move.

Perspective with Andrew Dickens: Why is there no trace of policy out of Labour?

Something has finally emerged from the silent, yawning abyss that is the Labour Party. Unfortunately, it’s not policy - it’s their list.

Seventy-two names, 30 new candidates. Party president Jill Day and leader Chris Hipkins say the lineup reflects modern New Zealand. They’ve got candidates from business, farming, the public service, unions, and community services - Rhodes scholars, Fulbright scholars and Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

David Farrar: Is this the proof Winston is planning to go with Labour

One of the most common questions I get asked by audiences is whether NZ First will go with National or Labour after the election. My response is that there is no reason to not take Winston at his word when he says he has ruled out Labour.

But now a speech by Winston has given extreme doubt over his pledge not to go with Labour. In terms of how he will pay for his Marxist plan to nationalise the BNZ, he says:

David Farrar: Winston rules out Labour

This is significant, with Peters ruling out Labour, not just Hipkins. It reinforces the only route to power for Labour is with Te Pati Maori.

Ryan Bridge: Labour shouldn't automatically back the Unions

Last week ended with a bizarre situation where Labour effectively came out against a pay rise for teachers.

They did this because that’s what the unions wanted. And what the unions want, the unions usually get.

Union strategy 101 is getting everyone who’s not a member to become one.

Mike Butler: Waitangi heckles and what’s ahead

The squabbles and heckles at Waitangi on Thursday and Friday can be rooted to fear of losing preferential treatment, according to my chosen research assistant. However, there is a qualifier.

Maori reactions were framed in terms of losing what they say is treaty guaranteed status, tino rangatiratanga (chiefly authority), and partnership obligations.

David Farrar: Labour’s policy will cause huge delays in being able to see a GP

Labour’s policy to have taxpayers fund three GP visits a year to every NZer aged 15+ will be costly and will also make it much harder for people to see a GP.

The policy is not targeted towards low and middle income NZers. It will apply to everyone regardless of income or wealth. So every Labour MP will get taxpayer funded GP visits despite earning around $200,000 a year or more.

Chris Trotter: Hard Choices.

If she is serious about balancing the books, and restoring Pay Equity, Labour’s finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, cannot avoid imposing austerity on her party’s own voters.

LABOUR COULD WIN IN 2026, but the fiscal and monetary conservatism of its finance spokesperson makes victory increasingly unlikely. Barbara Edmonds promise to “balance the books” hasn’t just handed over Labour’s hopes of electoral victory to Fortune as hostages, it’s sold them into slavery.

Matua Kahurangi: Serious allegations against Willie Jackson and MUMA raise alarming questions

Explosive allegations have emerged from veteran political figure Matthew McCarten, raising deeply troubling questions about Labour MP Willie Jackson and the Manukau Urban Maori Authority (MUMA). If McCarten’s account is accurate, Jackson has used his political influence to interfere in an employment dispute involving his own wife, Tania Rangiheuea, the CEO of MUMA. The allegations go far beyond poor judgement. They cut right to the heart of political integrity and proper governance.

JC: Labour and Left Media Have High Hopes

Last weekend the Labour Party held their annual conference: their tax talkfest where they chew the fat and think about how many new taxes they can get away with imposing on us, the poor sods who are obliged to pay up. They believe the way to grow the economy is to tax the hell out of everyone, particularly the ‘rich pricks’ that rank as enemy number one. The irony is it is an illusion: the negative effects on the economy outweigh the positives.

David Farrar: Labour winning all the Māori seats would be good for NZ

Radio NZ reports:

“I think Te Pāti Māori has got themselves into a world of difficulty. They’re not in any fit shape to play a constructive role in the current Parliament, much less a future government,” he told RNZ head of Labour’s annual meeting in Auckland on Friday night.

Ani O'Brien: Dirty Politics 2.0 - Labour’s covert influencer says what Chris Hipkins can’t

Jordan Rivers has failed to disclose his employment in the Labour leader's office

When Nicky Hager published Dirty Politics a decade ago, he exposed a political ecosystem in which government insiders supposedly used independent bloggers to wage smear campaigns, break stories, and launder political attacks through channels that looked organic. Hager argued that politicians fed attack lines to bloggers like Cameron Slater. Slater published the hit jobs and ministers kept their hands clean.

Kerre Woodham: Labour makes big promises, but can they deliver?

Hundreds of the Labour Party faithful gathered over the weekend in Auckland to begin the march back to Parliament's government benches. Council of Trade Unions head Sandra Gray was preaching to the converted when she told the crowd that New Zealand's Pavlova paradise has been eaten up by the rich. She said Labour needed to give workers a reason to vote for them and to deliver fundamental and systemic change. Yay! Cue loud rapturous applause.

Ryan Bridge: Can we rule out a NZ First/Labour coalition?

Can you trust Winston Peters not go with Labour next year?

No you can’t. He hasn’t ruled it out.

Despite National scoring a higher party vote in 2017, he went with Jacinda.