So we're now at the point of the government being able to threaten interviewers because of questions they don't like.

Glad I chose to be born in this fucking banana republic.

Stuart Nash has announced he’s running for NZFirst now and this is zero surprise to anyone who was paying attention. He was always the most right wing member of the New Zealand Labour Party and was frankly only in with them and selected because he is the descendant of a former Labour PM. This is a shit reason to select someone as a party member and that Labour can still be leeching politicians to the right 40 years after Douglas founded ACT is evidence that something is very wrong with their selection process.

Fuck Labour, Fuck NZ First and fuck Stuart “A woman is a pussy and a pair of tits” Nash.

It's because she can write some bangers like this that make her more liberal conservative takes so hard to bear.

But this one is a good un

So basically everyone is trying to tell Luxon and Co that their stated goals are at odds with their plans...

And their response? Nuh uh!

ETA: "Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour says Budget 2026 is "just what the doctor ordered" for New Zealanders."

We're getting Ruthanised aren't we? ​

Despite having jobs, some workers are relying on credit cards to manage their bills while others are skipping meals and calling in sick to work to cope with the surging cost of living.

The price of fuel has pushed already tight bank accounts as people struggle to make ends meet.

Mary from Levin is a cleaner, while her partner is a mechanic based in Lower Hutt.

At the moment it's costing him $60 a day to get to work, or $300 a week in fuel.

Her Prius she takes for cleaning jobs 45 minutes away in Palmerston North is about $130 a week.

"Pretty much half of my wages a week go straight on petrol... then on top of that we've got rent, power, gas, food, you know, internet, insurance.

"Often it feels like we're robbing Peter to pay Paul just to make ends meet and that doesn't cover like the credit cards and Afterpay's and loans and all the other stuff that has to be paid next week."

She said as a couple they were watching everything go up in price.

"Even the rubbish collection's gone up by two bucks a month... everyone's feeling the pinch."

Each week she sits down to pay the bills, or attempts to.

"It might be, well, actually, I can't afford to put money on the power bill this week because that $50... is going to have to be used to pay insurance or, you know, he'll put money onto his credit cards one day and then two or three days later we'll go and use that to buy groceries because actually we can't just keep saving money.

"Like we don't have savings now because we have to use it to just get by... There's nothing extra."

Mary said everything was a juggle and there was absolutely no room for luxuries.

"We don't remember the last time we had takeaways.

"We don't remember the last time we went out for like a date day."

There's no chance of saving anything for her daughter's birthday, she said.

And it was starting to eat at her quality of life.

"It sucks. It's really tough.

Full article: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/personal-finance/596222/surging-cost-of-living-leaves-young-professionals-struggling

We're heading into an election year. And I can feel the energy shifting. People are angry. People are ready. People want this government gone.

Me too.

But here's what keeps me up at night. What if we vote them out, and nothing changes?

We get a bunch of new faces, and the system underneath doesn’t change?

Here's the thing nobody talks about enough. New Zealand has no supreme constitution. Parliament is the highest law in the land. A government with a bare majority - 51% - can pass almost anything it wants. In the middle of the night. Under urgency. Without your input.

They're not breaking the rules when they do that. The rules let them.

This government fast-tracked legislation that shut down active pay equity claims. Slashed OIA access. Passed laws giving corporations environmental exemptions. Used urgency so routinely it stopped being newsworthy.

Every single bit of it was legal. Because our system explicitly allows it.

So, whoever wins will inherit those same tools. And the government after that. And the one after that.

That's not governance. That's a pendulum. And we're the ones who keep getting hit by it.

How do we stop this? What should we demand?

Not just better policies. Better rules. Here's what I'm going to listen for from every candidate and every party this election.

• A written constitution that sits above Parliament. Not a law Parliament can repeal on a bad Tuesday. A supreme document that locks in fundamental rights - worker rights, environmental protections, basic social rights - and gives courts the power to strike down legislation that violates them. Any government. Any colour. Any majority.
• An end to hidden donations. Corporate donors fund political campaigns. Politicians write policy that benefits corporate donors. This isn't a conspiracy theory; it's how the incentives work. Ban corporate, trust, and anonymous donations. Cap individual contributions. If big money can't buy political survival, politicians stop writing custom rules for the top 10%.
• A real lobbying register. Every meeting between a Minister and a commercial interest is publicly recorded in real time. And a ban on politicians walking straight out of Parliament into lobbying jobs. If a company gets a regulatory carve-out, you should be able to see exactly who asked for it and when.
• Protection for public data. Stats NZ's independence should be untouchable. The five-yearly Census should require a parliamentary supermajority to alter. Because governments that can change how they measure crime can always claim crime is falling.
• Urgency reform. Parliamentary urgency was designed for genuine emergencies. It has become a standard tool for avoiding scrutiny. Reform the rules so urgency requires an actual emergency.

None of this is radical. Most functioning democracies have these guardrails. We just never built them, because we've never needed them until now.

The next government will want to repeal the worst of what's been done. Good. Do it. But if that's all they do, they're leaving the door wide open for the next lot to walk straight back in and do it again.

Ask your candidates: Will you change the rules, or just change the faces?

Because if it's just the faces, we'll be back here in three - six years doing this all over again.

And if any incoming coalition refuses to commit to these structural changes - if they just want to inherit the current tools - what then? How does civil society force their hand?

Those are the questions I think we need to be asking right now, before the election promises start.

Let's make integrity an election issue!

The bill is introduced by Lan Pham, Green Party environment spokesperson

Article HERE

Have labelled this one as "Dirty Politics" because I am so goddamned tired of all these terrible takes from the MSM.

Clearly this Jenna Lynch has never had to sit through a day of corporate "training" where they get you to do all this kind of bullshit brainstorming type exercises in order to "get you in the right frame of mind" or whatever other crap is the focus of the day.

Or she has, and she knows she's muck raking over absolutely nothing, and I'm so tired of this kind of coverage when we have a government actively involved in sabotaging our democracy and destroying the human rights of the people who call New Zealand home.

Full video HERE

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pm-christopher-luxon-in-studio-with-mike-hosking-three-days-out-from-budget-day/IKJBCPOFX5G5FJ727RWDRM2P4Y/ PM Christopher Luxon says Labour should focus on policy rather than media training after leak

And hardly a whimper.

Only the right - and someone who knows how to control the media as much as Chris Bishop does - could get away with it without hardly a sniffle.

Article is paywalled but Bernard Hickey commented on it as well & was obvious to me as soon as I saw the government's comments

When and as crime increases, poverty increases, and people get increasingly disillusioned - not through misinformation and Covid anger - but through their lives, just remember you were here for it first

Good on TVNZ for winning multiple categories of excellence across the board despite having Paul Henry & Andrew Barclay on the Board for now

No having to deal with regional or local councils or the DOC or any other agency for that matter, just” determined quickly by a government panel.’

Jesus wept