Tim Dower: How will our actions be perceived?

Six Defence Force specialists are off to the hot zone in the Middle East.

Judith Collins has been at pains to stress they won't be in combat roles, and won't be going into Yemen itself, where the Houthis are launching their attacks on shipping from.

Tim Dower: Backing out of the Interislander deal was a no-brainer

I think the new Government's actually done at least one thing right this week.

Backing out of the Interislander funding deal was a no-brainer really, if you have any doubt about that, have a look at the piece on the Herald site under the title ‘How to blow $15b.’

That digs into the Auditor-General's report on some of the previous government's insane spending.

Tim Dower: Mitchell's letter wasn't meddling, it was managing

Now we've had a full day to digest Mark Mitchell's letter to the Police Commissioner, was he actually out of line to release that?

His Labour predecessor said on this show yesterday that Mark Mitchell was huffing and puffing, talking up a big game and chest beating.

Tim Dower: Would you pay for private schools?

$27-28,000 a year. That's about the going rate for private secondary education in New Zealand right now.

And you'd pay it gladly wouldn't you, if you could afford it.

I hope the kids whose parents are working or on their way at five in the morning to help pay for it recognise what a privilege it is.

Tim Dower: Te Pati Māori are shooting themselves in the foot

So, a Day of Action called by Te Pati Māori. Organisers promise they'll target busy roads and even try to jam the motorways.

They're talking about gridlock on roads into central Auckland, and gleefully suggesting this will cause millions in lost productivity.

Wow. What a useful and worthwhile objective that is.

Tim Dower: Are Our Borrowing Trends Getting Out Of Hand?

Couple of canaries going off in the coal mines over the past few days.

Ominous warnings actually, of how tight things are getting out there in the real world.

First off...the Centrix figures showing how many people are doing Christmas on credit this year. It is normal for people to borrow a bit here and there to...smooth out if you like...the household budget over the heavy spending period.

Tim Dower: Do we need more A&Es?

Really interested in this Medical Journal piece about emergency departments.

The impression we often get is they're horribly overcrowded, patients lying in corridors for hours in agony, constant panic stations.

Friday and Saturday nights are bedlam, we're told: drunks staggering around the place, people unleashing their stress and anger at the staff.

Tim Dower: These past few weeks were a demonstration

Special votes, as I'm sure you know, are usually good for the left and National has said it expects to lose one or two seats from the election night count.

If it was two, and even if the overhang goes, the maths is undeniable. It's a 120 seat Parliament, but that one-seat majority for the Nats and ACT is gone.

And we all know what that means.

Tim Dower: National's beneficiary sanctions are unlikely to work

I guess it had to come at some point in the campaign... National's traditional swipe at the beneficiaries.

I really don't know why they do this, sanctions of one kind or another have been tried and tried again, but the fact is they really don't work.

This time the formula includes mandatory community work experience, and of course benefit cuts or suspensions.

Tim Dower: We're now at the point where the election campaign is limping into a petty bidding war

You know you're getting down to the rats and mice when you've got a major political party promising to change speed limits, if only we'll vote for them.

Now I'm not saying National's wrong about a lot of those 30k zones especially, some of them are probably really daft but others might make sense.

I guess the point is we're down to fairly trivial stuff now and the election campaign is limping into a petty bidding war.

Tim Dower: There's a lot at stake

Really? New Zealand First... really?

I mean, I know it's a pretty desperate time... we're all a bit lost and confused and disappointed, frustrated and seriously peed off at the state of the country right now.

But to see a poll showing New Zealand First potentially over the five percent threshold? I guess it shows how desperate things are for a lot of people.

Tim Dower: Can't imagine people are excited about more toll roads

I can't imagine a lot of people are excited about the idea of more of New Zealand's roads being tolled.

You'll be aware the ACT Party sees this as the way to go if we want to get those big infrastructure projects we need so badly moving more quickly.

ACT would have road development and maintenance funded through a system of tolls.

Tim Dower: Is owning a gun a right or a privilege?

Hard to believe it's taken so long to get this new firearms register up and running.

Then again - it's a government IT project and we all know there's a well-established track record of these things going way past deadline and of course way over budget.

On top of that, it's likely to be clunky, overly complicated and not very well thought out so don't be at all surprised if it needs a multi-million dollar overhaul within the first couple of years.

Tim Dower: Until we see a real response, this Government will be seen as soft on crime

A detailed bit of work in the Herald today about a critical election issue, that being crime, law and order if you prefer, or the lack of it right now.

Among other things, the work has found the number of people charged and convicted actually fell faster under the last National Government, than the current Labour Government.

I think the idea there is to put a question mark into the air over which party, if it's either of them, is soft on crime.

Tim Dower: There's a reason ACT continue to trend upwards

You have to take the polls with a pinch of salt right now, although we're closing in on the election and neither of the two main blocs has a clear lead.

This time around the 1News Kantar poll puts National and ACT in the driving seat with 62 seats on these numbers - enough to govern alone.

Bear a couple of things in mind though. Number one; this is another small survey with only 1000 people over the course of two days.

Tim Dower: What kind of money compensates for the sacrifice of our Defence Force?

A pay rise for the Defence Force, which has lost about about 10 percent of its personnel over the past year.

That works out to around 800 people leaving.

What would be really interesting to know and hopefully the Defence Force does know this - is where they're going and why they're going.

Tim Dower: I can't see anything good in this deal for us

The Aussies, and come to that our own prime minister, have gone overboard telling us what a great deal they’ve done for New Zealanders living in Australia.

And on the face of it, yes. It’s a great deal for our people already living across the ditch.

Six, maybe seven-hundred thousand of them.

Tim Dower: Andrew Coster needs to take responsibility for the mistakes made at Parliament

The Police Commissioner was a little slippery in his response to the report on the Parliament Grounds riots yesterday.

Andrew Coster's statement was gushing in its praise of the frontline officers, as it should have been.

They ended up facing a raw and violent confrontation which was completely avoidable if police top brass had done their job.

There's a glaring contradiction in the Commissioner's statement.

Tim Dower: Are we at the point where NCEA has lost its credibility?

NCEA; what a cluster.

Changes to both the curriculum and the assessment process that is testing to you and me - are being slowed down.

The Minister says this will help lift performance, and tackle those awful numbers showing about half our kids are leaving school barely capable of basic reading and writing.

What I read into that is that the Minister knows if we moved into the new regime now, the results would be as bad, or even worse, than last time.

Tim Dower: I thought I had a chance to compliment some govt policy, maybe next time

When I first heard what the Transport Minister is doing in the driving licence area yesterday my heart soared.

At last, something I can hand on heart say is a good thing - sensible policy - an incentive for everyone to get fully licensed.

Surely, that has to be good, when you think we've got at least 40,000 unlicensed and untested drivers out there every day of the week.