Seventeen days out and the week was all polls, overhangs and gangs. The left still needs Opportunity to get to 61. The right is one seat short. Here is what we ran from Friday 16 to Thursday 22 October.
Cam's columns
- Both Chrises Earned Their 20s, and Luxon Is Following Bill English Out the Door (Paid). Labour and National on 28 apiece, and a PM who got the minimum wage wrong on live telly. Luxon is following Bill English out the door.
- Charge Tamaki’s Threats or Charge No One, Because Section 131 Is Blasphemy By the Back Door (Paid). Police used a race law with a ridicule test on a religion row. One standard for all, or the Crimes Act for real threats.
- The Gallery’s Overhang Fix Is the Stitch-Up MMP Was Built to Stop (Paid). The Herald and the Post want the big two to kill the overhang by simple majority. That's the stitch-up MMP was built to stop.
- The Voter Suppression Cry Is an Excuse for Losing, Written Three Weeks Early (Paid). Election-day enrolment is two elections old and the date was named in January. Enrol by Sunday 25 October.
- The Left’s Only Road to 61 Runs Through a 5.4 Per Cent Party. Party Vote NZ First or ACT. (Paid). Labour 28.7, National 27.6, and the left only gets to 61 on the back of Opportunity's 5.4.
- The Right Is One Seat Short. Party Vote NZ First or ACT.. National up four, Labour at its lowest since 2023, and the right is still one seat short. Free to read, so share it.
Quick Hits
- Quick Hit: Stuff Checked Labour’s $6,000 Bill and Found the Credits Missing (VIP). Stuff went through Labour's "Cost of Luxon" line by line. It counts every cost and leaves out the tax cuts.
- Quick Hit: Labour Wants Google to Pay for News Kiwis Don’t Trust (VIP). Labour wants tech giants to fund media only 37 per cent of Kiwis trust most of the time.
- Quick Hit: The Only Hand Not Raised (VIP). Four leaders raised their hands for diversity. Winston didn't. RNZ's own expert ends up conceding his point.
- Quick Hit: Silence Is Not a Right (VIP). National would jail silence over a child's killing for up to 10 years. Labour still won't say which silence it's protecting.
- Quick Hit: He Was Chairing It (VIP). Hipkins isn't sure the Mob's $2.75m went to cabinet. His own cabinet turned down a plan to stop gang contracts.
- Quick Hit: An Overhang Is Not Cheating (VIP). Luxon and Hipkins call an engineered overhang cheating. The Electoral Commission says it's how MMP works.
Real Good Oil
- “So Much for Libertarianism” Swarbrick (Paid). Stephen Berry on Swarbrick's plan to take an average of $119,316 off every household.
- Chippy Don’t Lose That Number (Paid). Chris Trotter reckons Qiulae Wong has Labour's number. And Chris Bishop may have given her his.
- A Climate BOM Drops, but Will There Be Any Reckoning? (Paid). A private forensic audit exposes massive climate data fraud. Will anyone pay for it?
- ACT and NZ First: The Other Grand Alliance (Paid). John Black makes the case for uniting ACT and NZ First for a genuine conservative government.
- You Don’t Need To Defend Frivolous Speech (Paid). Nathan Smith on why frivolous speech doesn't need defending, and what good writers could do instead.
The election, the polls and MMP
- A System for and by Politicians. Lushington Brady on MMP. Calling it rather unusual is being kind.
- Make Your Vote Count. Maurice Williamson on why 2026 is different to every election before it.
- It Is Bizarre, or Is It?. Win two extra electorates and two list places go. Guess whose: Willis and Bishop.
- You Don’t Even Have to Like Them. Thinking of sitting this one out? Think again.
- Two Votes, One Brain. National doesn't want to be an electorate-only party. Until it finds its principles, that's what it deserves.
- What Can We Read Into the TVNZ Poll?. Economic optimism doesn't decide elections, but it matters. Has National timed its run right?
- Good Luck Chippie, You’ll Need It. Even if Hipkins wins, the other parties will push him around. Possibly the shortest premiership we've had.
- The Cultural Capture of New Zealand. Muriel Newman calls on ACT and NZ First to pledge to strip race from law if they win.
- If Welfarism Matters, the Choice Is Clear. Lindsay Mitchell on the left wanting the state to provide work, and how that hampers the private sector.
- I Asked AI to Find Chris Hipkins’s Worldview. Luxon keeps his values private. Swarbrick says hers out loud. Hipkins just legislates his.
- Why Māori Stand to Gain the Controlling Role. Labour's co-governance agenda for 2040 came with a Māori veto. Read what that means.
- My Gut is Telling Me the Coalition Will Be Returned. MountainsideFM's gut says the coalition gets back in.
Gangs, Greens and Te Pāti Māori
- Leftist Attempts to Redeem a Monster. (D)Evil Tamihere, and the left trying to redeem him.
- From the Sensible Sentencing Trust. The Greens and Te Pāti Māori cosy up to gang bosses, and law-abiding Kiwis pay the price.
- Thumbs up for the Mob. A thumbs up for the Mob and a middle finger to its victims.
- On Gangs and Politics. Outrage most of the country and you can still be kingmaker. The gangs can make that happen. Do the maths.
- The Preaching That Will Empty Our Wallets. Policies written by people who've never met a wage bill, paid for by people who have.
- Is This the Real Story Behind the Greens’ $6 Billion Job Gamble?. The Greens' $6 billion job plan is a bet that politicians spend your money better than business does.
- Shared Benefits and Personal Risk. The Greens' business policy doesn't know the difference between shared benefits and personal risk.
- ‘Right to Silence’ Call Heard. Right to silence in child killings. The child's right to justice is the big loser.
- NZ Cop Steals Police-Issued Firearm. A cop took $5,000 the night a police Glock went walkabout. He says he didn't know.
Our Top Three Videos
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Around New Zealand
- The Hell Rider. Auckland has invented train travel. Even the Herald noticed it's a horror show.
- A Bad Case of Amnesia. What NZNO's own numbers say about the health system.
- Teacher Registration Has Been Fraught Since It Was Introduced. Teacher registration and the Teaching Council disgrace.
- More on the Bias of Newspaper Editors. Newspaper editors and their selective prejudice.
- Told You So. Labour's online policy. We told you so.
- The Capitalist and the Lecture. We still need the minerals, apparently just not the gold.
- How Government Works. A short analogy that explains exactly how government works.
- Friends Remember Broadcaster Danny Watson. Friends remember Danny Watson, from children's telly to Antarctica.
- Georgia Waddington on Preparing for Miss Universe. Georgia Waddington heads to Miss Universe, 43 years after Lorraine Downes won it.
- Reigning Cats and Dogs. Pets don't criticise you first thing in the morning.
- Tesla Unveils the Flying Roadster. Satire. The Kiwi WOF inspector asks it to land first.
Across the Tasman
- Haines Attack: What We Know So Far. The attacker is named, and the political class rushes to use it for censorship.
- PM Shipped Dirt Sheet on Haines. Don't be fooled by the crocodile tears.
- Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Left. You can't cheer violence, then thunder against it when it hits one of your own.
- ‘Basic Economics’ Is a Closed Book to Our Dear Leader. When everything's free, nothing has value. Least of all your tax dollars.
- You Need Government to Stuff up Like This. A solid-gold monument to incompetence and hubris.
- We’re Being Had. Australians paying millions for healthcare for elderly foreigners.
- Heracles Didn’t Have This Much Horse-Do to Deal With. Half-measures won't fix the university sector.
- Vic Libs Can’t Afford to Play Coy. Playing hard to get with One Nation on preferences is delusional.
- The Green Sludge Stinks up Again. The great moral posturers exposed again.
- School Takes the ‘Christmas’ Out of Holidays. A school drops Christmas and the ABC spins it.
- ‘World’s Oldest Living Culture’ Acts Exactly Like It. Captains of Aboriginal industry brawling in the boardroom.
- Better Late than Never. Abbott finds the spine he put aside as PM.
- If That’s Not ‘Conversion Practices’, What Is?. Telling kids they're fine as they are is now the crime.
- France-Style Riots Could Be Coming to Australia. France-style riots could be heading across the Tasman.
- Australia Catches up With What We Were Told to Ignore. Raw climate data that isn't raw.
Britain, Europe and the world
- The Civil War Has Already Begun. Britain isn't drifting toward civil war. It's already started.
- This Is What Is Happening in Britain. Britain's rulers only need to defend the old order until it destroys itself.
- 2066 and All That. A dispatch from Britain in 2066. Remember we didn't all consent.
- This Shouldn’t Be Normal. Illegal immigration, dear energy, speech policing, and now economic crashes. None of it should be normal.
- France Is a Glimpse of Our Future. The more multicultural we get, the worse it gets.
- The Left Set France on Fire. Rioters who can't say what they want. File under don't let this happen to you.
- Was Bertie Ahern right?. Are second and third generation migrants causing chaos across Europe?
- Coming to a Town Near You. Hunger can start riots. That's not what's starting these ones.
- What Do They Have to Do?. No crime is heinous enough to get a migrant deported.
- You Don’t Hate the Media Enough. Fake news to run cover for migrant dregs.
- Just Who Is Bolsonaro the Younger?. Brazil's likely next president.
- What Did Her Dad Do in the Genocide?. Why Ilhan Omar's home was raided.
- She Isn’t Above the Law, Either. They probably got the goods on her.
- ‘I Do Not Cry for Enemies’. Warm and cuddly efforts that meant nothing to the Gazans themselves.
- Remember the Suffering and the Dead. Remember the Covid vaccine injured, because officialdom won't.
- Thinking About Race and IQ. Decades of the equality thesis haven't closed the gaps.
- Learned Helplessness: How Many Shocks Can We Take?. How many shocks can we take?
- Steps to Avoid New Banking and Financial Industry Oppression. Steps to keep the banks from policing your life.
- Advice From an Campaigner on the Frontline. The fight for sanity will take longer than you think.
- Keeping GOG Bedford Happy. A little light relief from Britain.
Science and tech
- AI Finds Its First Major Victim. One of the world's biggest stock photo companies is done.
- AI and the Knowledge Problem. Information isn't expertise.
- Are Passkeys a Good Idea?. Big tech loves them. That should be a red flag.
- Why You Shouldn’t Wait for the Sun to Make the First Move. One solar blast would ruin life as we know it.
- How Natural Selection Made You... You. Recent landmarks in human evolution, there to see in many of us.
- Evolution Is Far from Done with Us. Natural selection never goes away.
Ten@10 and the cartoons
- Ten@10, the ten stories they chose not to tell you, every weekday: 2026/192, 2026/193, 2026/194, 2026/195, 2026/196.
- Cartoons of the day (Paid): Reap What You Sow, Pongi, The Public Service, Too Much Liberté?, Delusional.
Half the best stuff is behind the paywall, and the VIP Quick Hits are where the numbers live. Upgrade and read the lot.
