national

Categories under national

The Big Mo

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, October 8th, 2023 - 48 comments

Recent polls suggest that National and Act is going backward while Labour has stabilised. A win for the left is possible but this last week will be all important.

Like two cats in a sack

Written By: - Date published: 1:38 pm, October 6th, 2023 - 15 comments

The minor leader’s debate last night confirmed the fact that David Seymour and Winston Peters hate each other.

National’s credibility problem

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, October 6th, 2023 - 31 comments

National has suffered further damage to its credibility with its promise of a $250 tax cut per fortnight for an average family only being realised if that family spent at least $300 per week on childcare and was a two income family with each adult earning between $53,500 and $66,000.

Managing Expectations – the NZ Housing crisis and Labour’s response.

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, October 6th, 2023 - 42 comments

Watching the 2023 election campaign in New Zealand, one of Labour’s challenges appears to be that it has failed to manage voters’ expectations over the last six years. Recalling the election campaign in 2017, Jacinda Ardern gave people hope that politics could be different. However government is about handling problems – like building at scale and pandemics.

Why can’t National answer straight forward questions about the Council of Trade Union’s critique of their tax policy?

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, October 5th, 2023 - 40 comments

National’s tax policy doesn’t add up, and they’re trashing election and media conventions to avoid accountability. UPDATED.

National set to renege on Paris Agreement

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, October 5th, 2023 - 16 comments

National says it is not interested in meeting its financial obligations under the international Paris Agreement on climate change, signed by the previous National government. Reneging on the accord will have huge trade, diplomatic and reputational damage implications.

Even Capitalists think that too much Capitalism is a bad thing

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, October 5th, 2023 - 9 comments

In recent times Goldman Sax has warned National that its policies will hurt the economy. And S&P has praised Labour’s handling of the economy and expressed a high assessment of various factors relating to the country.

The weird and wacky 2023 election campaign

Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, October 4th, 2023 - 30 comments

In a week of weird events National’s decision not to debate Labour in the Press’s leader’s debate has been a massive own goal because the country will be able to see how toxic David Seymour’s and Winston Peters’ relationship is.

Should you be more worried about co-governance or the top 1%?

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, October 3rd, 2023 - 52 comments

To the those voting ACT or NZF or National this year because you are worried about co-governance. I have a secret for you. You have been co-governed by the richest 1% for decades.

Skyfall comes to Wellington

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, October 1st, 2023 - 5 comments

Skyfall was 10 years ago but it has a message for all public servants local or central as you choose your vote.

What really matters this election – poverty

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, September 30th, 2023 - 38 comments

National has shown its real priorities with proposals to cut benefits that will pay for increased tax concessions for landlords and increasing prison resources in anticipation of the crime wave the increased poverty will cause.

Hipkins goes on the offensive

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, September 29th, 2023 - 39 comments

Chris Hipkins has upped the ante in the election campaign by directly calling out the right’s use of dog whistle racism.

Winston adds to National’s tax cut credibility problem

Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, September 27th, 2023 - 26 comments

National’s failure to adequately explain how its new revenue policies will work has seen its support sag. And its problem is that if it depends on Winston Peters for confidence and supply he has expressed major reservations about these policies and there is no guarantee he will support them. And a significant majority of New Zealanders understand this.

Even Mike Hosking thinks that a National-Act-NZ First coalition would be an absolute disaster

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, September 26th, 2023 - 63 comments

As the polls show a further slump in support for the right and as Winston Peters emerges as a kingmaker there is growing concern about the possibility of a real coalition of chaos being elected.

National’s back of the envelope $715 million tax calculation

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, September 25th, 2023 - 39 comments

Nicola Willis has essentially confirmed that the design of National’s foreign purchase of land tax was and remains sufficient to be done on the back of an envelope.

National really, really needs New Zealand to be in a recession

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, September 24th, 2023 - 22 comments

After Stats NZ shot down National’s claim that the country is in recession National pirouetted by claiming that New Zealand WILL be in recession in the near future and that the Reserve Bank has predicted this. But according to the Reserve Bank this may not be true …

NZ Election: National’s tax policy

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, September 21st, 2023 - 7 comments

A year ago this month, the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng mini-budget destroyed once and for all the myth that the Tories are better at managing the economy. The New Zealand National Party could not even wait until they were in government to prove the same applies to them.

Understanding the New Zealand General Election 2023: Historical trends and perspectives.

Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, September 20th, 2023 - 15 comments

From the outside, the New Zealand 2023 General Election seems both lacklustre and slightly strange. The Labour Government, having won a huge majority in 2020 is now fighting for its political life. Yet National, the main centre-right opposition party is still on average polling significantly worse now than they were when it lost power in 2017.

Where are National’s costings?

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, September 16th, 2023 - 19 comments

Despite repeated analysis that its policies do not add up National is refusing to release the costings behind its policies.

National’s enormous tax hole problem

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, September 14th, 2023 - 115 comments

Independent economists have calculated that there is a half a billion dollar hole in National’s foreigner land purchase tax policy.

National is devastated as PREFU is better than expected

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, September 13th, 2023 - 26 comments

National has reached new levels of excessive hyperbole in response to the PREFU release which was better than expected.

The silver lining of last night’s poll

Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, September 12th, 2023 - 31 comments

The silver lining to last night’s Reid Research poll is that Act’s support is slumping and if there is a change in Government it may not be as extreme as it could have been.

Why does National not trust teachers to teach?

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, September 10th, 2023 - 34 comments

National has proposed to direct teachers how and what they should teach to improve literacy standards.

Can’t we have more charging stations AND the clean car discount?

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, September 7th, 2023 - 18 comments

National’s proposal to increase the number of electric car charging stations is something that should be considered but not at the expense of the extraordinarily successful clean car discount.

National does a big sook

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, September 5th, 2023 - 51 comments

National, which perfected the art of dirty politics, and which has spent the past couple of years being relentlessly negative and which has had its sock puppets attack individual Labour MPs mercilessly is deeply, deeply, deeply upset that the CTU has pointed out to the public what a Christopher Luxon led Government would actually mean.

This Election we need to talk About China

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, September 4th, 2023 - 70 comments

Yes we could do the next five weeks on teeth and taxes, but actually China is pulling us down and our political parties need to make it an election issue.

National’s credibility is on the line

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, September 2nd, 2023 - 40 comments

When the history of the 2023 New Zealand Aotearoa general election is written and if Labour gets up to win historians will point to the events of this week as the turning point in what has already been a dramatic year in politics. Because I cannot believe how bad National’s tax cut policy release has been researched and structured and how bad its release is going.

Four new taxes and a climate funeral

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, September 1st, 2023 - 30 comments

National’s announcement of four new taxes to fund tax cuts rely on herculean assumptions that will never be met. And their proposal for climate change will undermine the slow but steady progress the country has been making to meeting its emission reduction goals.

Hipkins rules out coalition with Peters

Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, August 28th, 2023 - 27 comments

Yesterday was a good day for Labour.  Leader Chris Hipkins started talking about what the party stood for and what its values are while also ruling out a coalition with NZ First.

Be afraid be very afraid – the next Government could be really strange

Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, August 27th, 2023 - 55 comments

If there was a change of Government the next Government could potentially be full of fundamentalist Christians, anti vaxers and all sorts of people whose view of Aotearoa is not conventional or reality based.

National’s very bad week

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, August 26th, 2023 - 13 comments

National MP Tim Van Der Molen has been found to have been in contempt of Parliament for aggressive, hostile and threatening behaviour towards Labour MP Shannan Halbert during a select committee hearing.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.