Stephen Berry is compiling this guide on the Auckland Local Body elections as an independent commentator. His recommendations are based on his own research and are not on behalf of any organisation. P
Willis is desperately clueless. If she cannot predict the effect of the Reserve Bank freezing OCR while dumping tens of billions of dollars into the economy, without holding a review, then she doesn’t deserve a second term as finance minister.
It is encouraging to witness the decline of two-party duopolies throughout Western democracies as voters have a greater opportunity to successfully support reformative movements outside those of centrist seat-warmers.
Passing new laws every time a terrorist act occurs does not make us safer: it merely emboldens a different, stronger entity to inflict its own tools of terror – our own government.
For 2025, buoyed by confidence in my abilities as a prognosticator, I decided to go for 15 predictions for the year which should probably result in a metaphorical faceplant. Let’s see how I went.
Willis’ career is approaching election year with a stumble and a yawn. By election day, it may well have died in its sleep.
While fireworks face being banned to keep them out of the hands of the stupid, at each election ballot papers are thrust into those same hands with potentially worse consequences.
The success of La Libertad Avanza has delivered Javier Milei a firm mandate to accelerate the pace of his libertarian reforms.
The comparison of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to Margaret Thatcher is largely inaccurate, confusing Takaichi’s uniquely Japanese nationalism with Thatcher’s British patriotism.
Given the choice between the mad cow throwing around my money and the opposition leader promising you’ll be searched for walking down the street, I’ll probably vote Libertarian.
I think the best response to activists that publish private addresses for this purpose is to publicise that person and their actions and publicly shame them. We don’t need another bloody law!
The prospects for La Libertad Avanza growing its representation in both houses is promising and this will ensure he can accelerate his libertarian reform programme over the next two years.
The National Party looks fragile as we near an election in about one year’s time and there appears to be nobody willing to make some tough calls to jolt the economy into shape in time to win.
Competition regulation doesn’t ensure better market outcomes, because it requires that businesses act against their own interests in the hope they won’t be the next arbitrary victim of socialist technocratic thugs.
Whatever political games and back-office hi-jinks are being employed by politicians now, it is a relief that at least some of them recognise the potential for political gain by breaking with the ‘settled’ science that has dominated environmental politics this century.
I will rank each Auckland mayoral candidate from $ for radical leftists to $$$$$ for small-government dynamos. For some candidates, the 🤡 to 🤡 🤡 🤡 🤡 🤡 scale may be more appropriate.
