Election 2026
Hager Should’ve Called His Book ‘A Swing and a Miss’
Hundreds packed Unity for Hager’s Dirty Work. Election-week damp squib. The poll charts still say noise, and the day-after receipts say fiction – plus their best unpaid fundraiser.
Quick Hit: Two Hundred And One Billion
Taxpayers’ Union Bribe-O-Meter puts Opportunity at $201 billion over four years. Another $407m Industry Energy Resilience this week. Hope has an invoice. $201 billion. Still other people’s money.
The Scapegoats Are Now at the Checkout
What the political rush to punish supermarkets reveals about modern campaigning.
Three Years Of Landlord Tax Cuts. Now He Keeps Them.
Hipkins spent three years calling interest deductibility a tax cut for landlords. Now he keeps it and sells a capital gains tax instead. The slogan was the policy. The policy just left the room.
Quick Hit: Make NZ Healthy
NZ First Make NZ Healthy: prevention over medicines that manage decline and sell another Pharmac cheque. Nutrition curriculum, metabolic health, written consent, GP autonomy, Medsafe/Pharmac barriers, Vit D and IV C trials are selling a different destination.
National Is the ‘Party of Business’
National doesn’t need complex market interventions for a political resurgence – it needs clear, foundational principles. The party could trigger an immediate surge in the polls by drawing a permanent line under race-based funding.
Most Popular. Melting Numbers.
Hipkins still says he is the most popular politician in the country. Ani has the clip. Cam already cut the line. Stats NZ has GDP up 0.2 per cent and construction up 2.7 percent. Popularity is a feeling. The ledger is a receipt.
The Options Are Shrinking
What’s it going to be? A tilt towards extremism or a self-sacrificial Grand Coalition?
Quick Hit: Labour Breaks Both. Nat Breaks One. ACT Breaks Nothing.
Labour would force Woolworths and Foodstuffs to split retail from wholesale. National still hedges Foodstuffs behind ComCom. Seymour brings the scissors. Breakup season. Same aisle. Three scripts. Labour breaks both. Nat breaks one (maybe). ACT breaks nothing.
Wet Gallery. Dry History.
Hager drops a mystery book Tuesday. Gallery sells destiny. The poll charts from 2002 to 2020 say noise. Agitprop in a journalist costume.
Quick Hit: Breach Of Trust. Then The SFO.
Van Velden has lost confidence in FENZ CE Kerry Gregory after a seriously significant file was withheld for a year. SFO sits on a historical levy matter FENZ says is proactive and not Gregory personally. Accountability needs the file. Breach of trust. Then the SFO.
Coalition of Chaos, Meet the Real Thing
Debbie drops the c-word. Willie fights the ruling. The Serjeant has to come. Chippy needs these people for a coalition. They called this lot chaos. Wait until you see theirs.
Quick Hit: Ten Point Eight Million. And The Veto.
Greens still sell KiwiMart at $10.8m a store with the library costing locked. Same week Seymour brings the aisle veto and National leaves ComCom out. Soft communism with a locked drawer. Campaign promise with coalition scissors.
Giant Douche. Turd Sandwich. Take Your Pick.
Every leader underwater. Luxon worst at 54/25. Hipkins ahead on seven of eight. Ardern still the only net favourable figure. South Park already named the ballot.