Owen Jennings: TOP in Hypocrisy

Questions for Voters:

Opportunity (TOP), helped by a fawning media, are posing as kingmakers in this election.  Given that this critical role would determine our future for a decade or more should we not know more about them?

Steve Gaskell: Opportunity - Five Unnegotiable Demands, One Big Headache!

Opportunity's price of admission to forming the next government.

The Opportunity Party (TOP) has arrived at the coalition negotiating table with five non-negotiable demands. Nothing quite like laying down the conditions before the negotiations have even started.

Steve Gaskell: TOP - A Fresh Political Brand, Treaty Politics and a Tax on Your Backyard.

The Opportunity Party wants to sell itself as something different from the usual crowd in Wellington. Fair enough. But have a look at its first 12 candidates and some interesting backgrounds start to emerge. Climate activism, Māori economic development, environmental restoration and Treaty issues feature in the experience of several candidates. Kayla Kingdon-Bebb was among the contributors to He Puapua, the report looking at how New Zealand could implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Bob Edlin: Effective altruism.....

........a philosophy shunned by the Trump team but embraced by The Opportunity Party

I might have been busy thinking about mowing the lawns next day, or some such, on September 19 because I missed the chance to attend a conference on “effective altruism”.

The one-day conference, organised by an outfit called Effective Altruism Aotearoa New Zealand, was held at the National Library of New Zealand (not too far from my home).

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I wouldn't be surprised if TOP peaks at 8 percent

So, I think some of the shine might be coming off the Opportunity Party. Helen Clark has taken to social media and described the leader's interview on Q+A on TVNZ as a "train wreck".

She said: "Simplistic responses trying to defend land tax, higher income tax, job cuts in the public sector. Fantasy posing as policy."

Perspective with Andrew Dickens: Will TOP ever be more than a sideshow?

Everybody's talking about the Opportunity Party and I'm not quite sure I believe they're anything more than a bit of a sideshow. They haven't cracked 5 percent yet but anyway, there we go.

Sir Ian Taylor wrote an opinion piece that was published by Stuff. In it, he said that throughout his life he's been a centre-left voter. That's been his political home. But during the whole Covid period, with the Labour Party's response to Covid and the way it wasted its supermajority when it had, you know, all the power in the House, he became disillusioned.

John Denton: TOP Pensioner Attack

Amid the current MSM hoopla about TOP, momentarily muted as the press pack rushed off to dig the dirt on Paul Henry and Stuart Nash, the one key TOP policy winning voter attention is seldom mentioned.

What’s driving TOP in the polls has nothing to do with them being ‘centrists’, offering a measured alternative to Labour or National and claiming to be willing to work with either of them, it is simply that TOP are offering free money, and who can resist that?

Andrew Dickens: Was Luxon right to rule out TOP?

So, Christopher Luxon has ruled out working with TOP.

There's some speculation that the decision was made on the fly and might not have been fully thought out.

He didn't seem so certain about himself as he walked away from the press cameras.

Bob Edlin: Media shun the Conservative Party.....

Media shun the Conservative Party (and shut off the oxygen of publicity) while TOP support is growing

The Conservative Party can’t complain they get a bad press. Rather, they get no press – or, at least, precious little.

We spotted a fresh policy statement from the almost-forgotten party on the Scoop website yesterday and became curious about how mainstream media had treated the information.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Opportunity Party could be the dark horse of the election

I'm not one to get excited at election time about the outside chance that small parties like Opportunity make it into Parliament.

But I reckon this year is different. If Opportunity plays this right, they might just do it.

Yesterday’s Roy Morgan poll had them at 6%.