Quick Hit — Political Intelligence — Labour — Chris Hipkins — Student Loans — Shanan Halbert — Simeon Brown — Taxpayers' Union — Election 2026 — NZ Politics
Quick Hit: Tradies Pay the Lawyers’ Loans
Labour will take 10 per cent off eligible student loans and wipe balances of $2000 or less entirely, at $583.4 million over five years. The debt moves to taxpayers and a doctor gets nearly four times what a teacher does.
Related
Quick Hit: TPM’s Overhang Belongs in the Same Review
National and TPM both benefit from overhangs. The evidence about how they got there differs, but a serious review must examine both.
Quick Hit: The Fiscal Update in Numbers and Who Paid for the Better Books
The deficit is $3 billion for the quarter, $1.4 billion better than Treasury forecast. Treasury’s own pre-election update says part of the improvement comes from inflation lifting the tax take.
Quick Hit: Unemployment Hits 5.7% and Winston Saw It Coming
Unemployment is at 5.7%, 174,000 people are out of work and long-term joblessness is the highest since 1994. Winston Peters says he told National and ACT to delay their tax cuts.
Quick Hit: Where National’s 2023 Voters Went
RNZ-Reid Research shows only 56.9 per cent of National’s 2023 voters still back the party. ACT and NZ First now hold 18.4 per cent of them.
Latest
Quick Hit: TPM’s Overhang Belongs in the Same Review
National and TPM both benefit from overhangs. The evidence about how they got there differs, but a serious review must examine both.
The Left’s Horror Story Has Run Into the Voters
The coalition has the better starting position, National has serious damage to explain and the final arithmetic needs more care than the victory speeches.
Good Oil General Debate
Please read our rules before you start commenting on The Good Oil to avoid a temporary or permanent ban.