> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Left Are Out to Lunch - URL: https://goodoil.news/the-left-are-out-to-lunch/ - Published: 2026-10-06T20:00:55.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-06T20:00:54.000Z - Description: How can Barbara Edmonds possibly manage to balance the books with ‘treats’ for just about everyone. It can’t be done, which is the message Nicola Willis is running with. - Author: JC - Tags: NZ Politics, Election 2026 I don’t mean having left the building to buy lunch, rather they are exhibiting a state of confusion and are largely out of touch with reality. The left treat every election like one huge child’s birthday party. The treats, in the form of giveaways are handed out and, in many cases, are free or have no prices attached. These ‘treats’ are nothing more than bribes designed to hoodwink the less aware in society to vote for them. The greatest drawback for the left is their single focus. Their entire agenda is built around tax. It’s basic to everything they come up with and finance is not their strong point. It would be no surprise if even AI found their financial calculations difficult to understand. Their figures for the ‘treats’ never add up, hence some policies, or parts thereof, are presented with no price tags, because there is a shortfall in funding. It is misleading to promise something you don’t have the money to pay for. Nicola Willis has so far tallied up about $18 billion dollars of uncosted policies. That is believable because Labour does this every election. Nothing ever adds up. Free this and that is a complete aberration. I don’t necessarily blame Barbara Edmonds. Her mistake was joining the Labour Party, to whose policy designs she is now wedded. Edmonds accused National and Willis of “making up lies to distract the public. She should put the calculator down and stop picking numbers out of thin air.” Hang on Barbara, if she’s got a calculator in her hand, then, she’s not plucking numbers out of thin air. Edmonds went on: “The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again.” Take a look in the mirror, Barbara. Labour’s target of ‘maintaining’ spending and revenue at 33 per cent of GDP has now changed to a ‘ceiling’. I’m told if you go to the website to check the change of language an ‘error’ page comes up. I bet it does. The Greens are equally ‘off the rails’. They’re not exactly *On the Buses* either (anyone remember that British comedy?), although they would like everyone else to be. They want the diesel contraption that runs empty trains between Auckland and Hamilton extended to Tauranga, an overnight sleeper service from Auckland to Wellington, and to bring back the Southerner service from Christchurch to Dunedin. Apart from the cost the Greens want carbon emissions belching out all over the country. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch will receive mass transit systems. Public transport will be improved everywhere, in smaller cities and towns as well as major metropolitan areas, by funding local councils any shortfall they might need. Even more. Public transport will be free for children and the vulnerable (we’re all vulnerable, fiscally, with this sort of nonsense) and adult fares will be capped at two dollars. Paying for it all is but a minor detail to the Greens. This is nothing more than a list of ‘nice to haves’. These dreams of the left are but nightmares to the right when it comes to paying for them. This is a far cry from Edmond’s commitment to balance the books by 2028/9\. If you add up the cost of just those policies, more borrowing will be required. Start with Labour and the Greens and then add in the Māori Party and Opportunity...and there is no other answer. The Māori Party want an indigenous takeover of the country but specifically want to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share (a little research would tell them that is already happening and then some). They would spend that money on housing, health, education and whānau support. I suggest most would be spent on ‘whānau’ ‘support’. The Opportunity Party want to ‘Bring Prices Down’, ‘Clean Up Politics’, ‘Fix the Health System, ‘Revive Ocean Health’ and ‘Restore Climate Credibility’. And ‘Honouring the Treaty’. If that means returning it to its original meaning and purpose, then I’m all for it. But I doubt that’s the case. David Farrar on *Kiwiblog* outlined how much extra spending the individual parties on the left would incur: LABOUR – $50.5 billion OPPORTUNTY – $219.4 billion GREENS – $236.7 billion MAORI PARTY – INCALCULABLE So overall you can see the left are very much ‘out to lunch’. It’s no small lunch either, more like a costly smorgasbord buffet. How can Edmonds possibly manage to balance the books with ‘treats’ for just about everyone. It can’t be done, which is the message Nicola Willis is running with. It is a message that cannot be stated too clearly or too often.