Quick Hit: Pharmac Said No in May
National wants $604m more for medicines, paid for mostly by a 10 per cent aid cut with the Pacific protected. In May its own budget turned down Pharmac’s request of about $800m and gave it $54m.
Election 2026
Luxon Is Finished, So Split Your Vote And Save The Coalition
National 25.9 per cent, its worst since 2020. Neither bloc gets to 61. Luxon survived two recent confidence votes and the party is paying for it. Vote National in the electorate, party vote ACT or NZ First.
Election 2026: I Feel Your Pain
Australians have been shafted plenty, at the last few elections.
Quick Hit: Quarter-Trillion and No Books
Taxpayers’ Union puts Green promises at $236.7b, or $114,239 a household, after the passenger rail add. Swarbrick wants Finance. Full books still weeks away.
Welfare Is Missing From the Campaign
Dragging eyes away from aimless, spirit-sapping, benefit-dependence towards resented superannuitants might play well politically, but it won’t address the disaster that welfarism is. Who is going to talk about it?
If the Plan Matches National’s, the Bill Is What Labour Is Hiding
Labour kept Willis’s $2.4b allowance, hit surplus in the same year, costed one pay equity claim, and parked the rest in $10.5b of “headroom”. Luxon v Hipkins is Tuesday. Ask who signed the IOU.
If You Interview Chlöe
The Greens can opt for materialism or irrationalism, but they can’t forever attempt to accommodate both.
Quick Hit: The Number Chippy Won’t Name
Greens put about $1.1 billion a year, roughly $4.48 billion over four years, on care-worker pay equity. Hipkins called the 2025 change the most reprehensible thing he has seen and still will not cost the reverse. Moral fury without a price tag is not a budget.
Desperation Is a Stinky Cologne
Key says it will be tight getting Willis, Bishop, Goldsmith and Brownlee home. About 125,000 extra party votes for just one list MP, only if National holds 39 electorates. When the scare is Laws and Henry, panic is a confession.
Quick Hit: Own It, Both Of You
National pledges a digital trans-Tasman trial before the 2028 T20 World Cup. Hipkins says he and Albanese agreed it in 2023. Luxon says you need National to get things done. The row is about credit, not caution. Own it, both of you.
Hipkins the Hypocrite
Hipkins called Harry Mowbray’s split-vote campaign an absolute rort by wealthy entrenched interests. Under MMP an overhang is a feature, not a loophole. Chippy only hates it when his mates aren’t running it. If it is absolute fraud, rule Te Pāti Māori out. He will not.
From Major to Middling
Economic credibility is hard to earn. Once lost, it is even harder to regain. Compare the PREFU with what was promised and it is easy to see why 44 per cent of us no longer have confidence in either of the two middling parties.
The PREFU and Strategic Voting Message
Without an overhang, we are still facing a hung-parliament but, with the overhang, the centre-right has a pathway to hold on to power so perhaps the strategic voting message is getting through.