The Week at The Good Oil, 6 to 12 Nov

The left wanted a hiding for the coalition. The voters didn't hand them one. National took the hit on the party vote, the split voters kept the right in the hunt, and now the establishment wants to rewrite MMP. Here is what we ran from Friday 6 November to Thursday 12 November.

Cam's columns

• The Left’s Horror Story Has Run Into the Voters (Paid). The left wanted a repudiation. The voters didn't deliver one. National took a hiding on the party vote, but the coalition starts the specials with more seats than everyone else combined.
• There’s No Vacancy. Just Two Losses. (Paid). Hipkins says there's no vacancy and the election isn't over. His caucus may wait until 27 November. It won't wait forever.
• He Only Calls It Manipulation When It Doesn’t Help Him (Paid). Hipkins says National manipulated the electoral system. Te Pāti Māori ran an overhang strategy too, and he needs those seats.
• The Centre Wants the Minors Shut Out (Paid). Guy Haddleton wants National and Labour to combine forces and review MMP. Voters just grew the smaller parties. The establishment answer is to lock them out.
• National Sinks, Winston Holds and a Te Pāti Māori MP Ticks Green (Paid). Roy Morgan's final poll had National on 26.5 per cent while NZ First and ACT held firm. And a Te Pāti Māori MP was party voting Green.
• My Own State of Play. Election day, so no politics. Instead, where the site, the AI desk, the bots and I actually stand, and why the podcasts stopped.

Quick Hits

• Quick Hit: The Fiscal Update in Numbers and Who Paid for the Better Books (VIP). A $3.0 billion quarterly deficit, $1.4 billion better than forecast. Treasury's own update says inflation lifting the tax take did part of the work.
• Quick Hit: TPM’s Overhang Belongs in the Same Review (VIP). Eleven overhang seats: seven National, four Te Pāti Māori. If Helen Clark wants a review, it has to look at both.
• Quick Hit: NZ First Is No Side Character (VIP). The Spinoff called Winston a side character. Strip out NZ First's 12 seats and the coalition falls from 67 to 55.
• Quick Hit: A Finance Job With No Obvious National Name (VIP). Seymour says National keeping Finance is no longer tenable. Luxon says it's not negotiable. The obvious National names are already out of Parliament.
• Quick Hit: The Briefing Was Promising. The Department Wants Easier Weekends. (VIP). A September briefing said none of the second military-style academy cohort had reoffended. Now officials want less intense weekends because staff got tired.

Real Good Oil

• The Final Polls (Paid). Stephen Berry's last Poll of Polls: National deserved to lose for its plodding, but a loss would be catastrophic for New Zealand.
• A New ‘Now’ (Paid). Chris Trotter on the US midterms. There's something very old about the new America, and it isn't a win for wokeness.
• My Two Cents, Whether You Want It or Not (Paid). Lushington Brady's two bob on the elections. NZ 2026 looks eerily like Australia 2019. The trick is not making 2029 look like 2022.
• Election 2026, An Expert Explains (Paid). John Black consults a bona fide expert on his $100,000 taxpayer-funded salary, and asks what the hell happened.
• We Are Swimming In Electoral Fraud (Paid). Nathan Smith says forget ballot stuffing. The real fraud is a country full of people with no incentive to care about its future.

The election and the fallout

• Labour and National Have Already Lost. Simon O'Connor on the eve of the vote: both majors polling under 30 per cent and living off their core supporters.
• My Gut Feeling Says ‘Bugger the Polls’. JC trusts his gut over the polls. Split your vote and hopefully save the day.
• Napier, National, Nimon Be Beware. Katie Nimon won Napier by 8,909 votes in 2023. JD says history shows the overhang strategy can't take it for granted.
• Seat by Seat. Peter Williams says the biggest Parliament in our history goes to the side with the biggest overhang.
• Will We Rather Like Having No Government?. Prebble on four-party coalitions. The Dutch took 225, 299 and 223 days to form theirs. We aren't ready for that.
• This Is the Ultimate Political Irony. Pee Kay on He Puapua and parties dressed up as centrist. A leopard doesn't change its spots.
• How Did She Do It? And Could It Happen Again?. A former member of the cult reflects on Jacindamania and whether it could happen again.
• Live Election Results. Our election night discussion post, with a results dashboard Cam built to refresh as the count came in.
• Just (Un)Wanted. John McLean on Luxon joining the media pile-on against Michael Laws in the final days.
• A Win Is a Win. JC: the split vote saved the day, and nobody in National's leadership will admit anything went wrong.
• Well, Somebody Has to Lose. Ani O'Brien on an ugly campaign and a close result. Can we win and lose gracefully?
• The Two Christophers. Prebble on the two Christophers. Labour paid for not replacing Hipkins. National's failure is even more extraordinary.
• Just a Small Reminder. Pee Kay's small reminder of what a Labour victory would bring. KiwiBuild, division and lockdowns.
• The End of the Two-Party Era. Simon O'Connor: no clear victor, the smaller parties rewarded, and the Greens with their biggest result ever.
• Give Thanks Where It Is Due. JC says National nearly handed the centre right a loss and won't admit split voting rescued it.
• The Two Boring Chrises... And Qiulae. Two boring Chrises and Qiulae. Luxon spent months as a one-man wrecking ball to his own base.
• Looking Forward With Tactics or Strategies. JD crunches the split. In 2023 about nine per cent of National supporters split. This time it looks like as many as 29 per cent.
• A Landslide. Under First Past the Post, National's 42 of 71 electorates would have been a landslide. Under MMP, Hipkins can still be PM.
• It Is So Glorious. Rodney Hide on voters giving the media-government-lobby complex the two-vote salute, and Henry Cooke's wasted vote maths.
• Why Is Luxon Courting Opportunity?. Lindsay Mitchell asks why Luxon is courting Opportunity, the Monkees of New Zealand politics.
• The Wash up From the 2026 Election. JC's baker's dozen from the election. If Luxon gets rolled, the chair is staring him in the face.
• The Votes That Were Wasted. Rodney Hide counts 210,914 wasted electorate votes for ACT and NZ First. Wairarapa is on 139 votes.
• What a Weekend. Don Brash says the preliminary count shows a clearer path for the centre right, but nothing is final until 27 November.
• This Is What Is Wrong with National. Vanessa Weenink says National swung too far right. Lushington Brady asks if she's noticed why she's outgoing.
• A Open Letter to Christopher Luxon. Ashley Church writes to Luxon. Please do the right thing for New Zealand.
• Be Careful What You Wish For. LilBaP reminds the FPP crowd that the most radical government since 1996 was a Labour one with an absolute majority.
• A Grand Coalition?. Ani O'Brien on a grand coalition. Stabiliser or suicide? It gives her the heebie jeebies.
• Is Bottom Trawling Worth Another Election?. Qiulae Wong won't budge on bottom trawling. Just 1.7 per cent of our sea was trawled last year. Another election over that?

Around New Zealand

• Whatever Happened to Teaching Our Kids?. A mum who pulled her son from primary school because he didn't know what subtraction meant.
• Work Ethic First and the Basics Next. Reading, writing and maths are the tools. A work ethic decides whether they get used.
• Incentivise Work and Stop Lecturing Us. Fix the benefit trap. The gap between those who work and those who don't has to stay wide enough to matter.
• A Pilgrimage to the Deep South. Karl du Fresne drives to Invercargill and finds a country a lot cheerier than the Wellington media lets on.
• RNZ Faces More Job Cuts After Loss. RNZ lost $11.8 million, ran up a $5 million overdraft without ministerial approval, and is cutting almost 60 jobs.
• Doesn’t It Make You Want to Scream?. A farmer stalled ten months on an effluent consent while iwi demanded a palm kernel ban and karakia.
• Nothing to See Here, Just Collateral Damage. Tom Hunter on a bus stop he drives past, and a victim the state would rather call collateral damage.

Across the Tasman

• Why Is Ardern Joining the School of Public Health?. Jacinda Ardern lands an academic job in Sydney. James Allan asks if a conservative ex-PM would get the same.
• They Really Think We’re That Stupid. The Australian Human Rights Commission reckons Joe Rogan fans are a bigger threat than Islamic terror.
• They Really Think We’re That Stupid Pt 2. Part two. Police want us to believe a One Nation volunteer was bashed for no real reason.
• Boom Times for the Smug Reapers. WA's assisted dying board recorded 541 deaths in 2025 to 26. Boom times for the smug reapers.
• Hanson Stands up for Free Speech. The High Court takes Pauline Hanson's challenge to Section 18C. A cry-bully and a very bad law.
• Albanese’s Australia Is Not a Happy One. The Scanlon survey says Australians are fed up with mass immigration, and the left has flocked to antisemitism.
• $43M Promise to Expand Indian Languages in Victorian Schools. Victorian Labor promises the Indian community $43 million to teach more foreign languages in schools.
• A Free Market Win. Albanese wants to ban unfair non-compete clauses. Credit where it's due, if they actually pass it.
• Judge Goes Soft on Wannabe Bomber. A would-be Sydney Marathon bomber gets cold feet and a pat on the head from the judge.
• It Ain’t Gonna Be Easy. Albanese thinks voters are angry now. Wait until the energy bills land.
• Why Would Anyone Be Afraid to Speak?. Young Australian men are scared to speak. A One Nation volunteer bashed outside his home might explain why.
• She Survived the Holocaust. Eva Geller survived the Holocaust. She died in Sydney on 5 November, almost 11 months after being shot at Bondi.
• Islam Claims One More Australian Life. Two of the Bondi victims remembered: a Holocaust survivor and a girl who would have turned 11.
• Vic Libs Almost Come to Their Senses. The Victorian Liberals know they can't win without One Nation. They just won't admit it.
• Are the Knives Out for Sunny Jim?. When Labor ministers say Jim Chalmers is absolutely safe, start looking for the knives.
• The Lord Works in Satisfying Ways. A trans-identifying paedophile dies shortly before parole. The Lord works in satisfying ways.
• Our Bill Shock Has Only Started. Australian power bills have doubled in 20 years. They're projected to double again in two.

Britain, Europe, America and the world

• EU Doesn’t Act at All like a Dictatorship. Sovereignty is sole, supreme and indivisible. The question of the EU is settled, and Europe's nations lost.
• The John Lewis Ad Isn’t Wrong. The John Lewis Christmas ad paints dysfunctional families and bratty kids. Lee Taylor says it isn't wrong.
• Democrats Got Their Blue Wave. Democrats flipped the House and the Senate and took most governorships for the first time in 16 years.
• The Labour Government’s Draft Conversion Practices Bill. Britain's draft conversion practices bill: five years in prison for parents who protect their own kids. Pure lunacy.
• Off the Rails. Sixty-nine killed in a Spanish train crash a month before the election. Sánchez has had almost a decade to fix the rail.
• This Is the West’s Shame Too. Forced conscription, extortion and torture near Kyiv, and Western backers looking the other way.
• The Hypocrisy Reeks. Andy Burnham's sudden zeal for rape conviction rates treats the number of convictions as the goal.
• Welcome to the Age of Yookay Hieroglyphics. Kids holding hours-long conversations without a single letter. Welcome to Yookay hieroglyphics.
• It Was Good to Have Known You. Frederica mourns the Britain she grew up in. RIP Great Britain.
• There Is Something Rotten in the State of the EU. Strikes, protests and riots across the EU, and the British establishment still wants back in.
• Putting Justice on Death Row. Gavin Newsom commutes all 548 death sentences in California. John Lott says the innocence claims lack strong evidence.
• The Promise, the Presidency and the Disappointment. MountainsideFM backed Trump's second term. The disappointment is setting in.
• A Living Hell, the Series Bundle. A former Venezuelan oil board member on life under socialism, for Americans flirting with it.
• When Surveillance Creates the Insecurity It Claims to Solve. More surveillance doesn't mean knowing what happened. The paradox of digital security.
• The Potential Security Risks From Pilots. After the FlyDubai attack, what if the terrorist is already in the cockpit?

Science, history and culture

• Humans Have Survived Faster Climate Change Before. Paleolithic Americans lived through climate change that dwarfs ours. Humans survived it.
• Dogs and the Stories We Tell About Them. Lushington Brady on red kelpies and the 20,000-year bond between dogs and us.
• Will Gerwig’s “Narnia” Survive Its First Battles?. Industry gossip says Gerwig's edgy Narnia is already doomed.
• Panspermia Gets Flogged like a Dolphin. The cometary seeding of life has a glaring problem: the cometary impacts.
• The Left Really Are on Another Planet. The left will save the planet before they help the people nearest them.
• What Do Babies Know, Anyway?. Babies' brains file memories away from the start. They just forget where they put them.
• Why the Narrative Is Wrong. The Central England Temperature series runs back to 1659, and it fails the CO2-as-main-driver test.
• Enjoy a Steak for the Planet. A former CSIRO scientist says eat real food and don't be afraid of red meat.

Ten@10 and the cartoons

• Ten@10, the stories they chose not to tell you: 2026/206, 2026/207 (VIP), 2026/208 (VIP), 2026/209 (VIP), 2026/210 (VIP).
• Cartoons of the day (Paid): Two Ticks, A Bridge Too Far, More Seats, Election Engineering.

The columns, Real Good Oil and the cartoons are paid. The Quick Hits and most of the Ten@10s are VIP. That's where the numbers live. Upgrade and read the lot.