> ## 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. # Your Daily Ten@10 - 2026/181 - URL: https://goodoil.news/your-daily-ten-10-2026-181/ - Published: 2026-09-30T21:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-30T20:59:59.000Z - Description: 10 News Stories They Chose Not to Tell You - Author: Cam Slater - Tags: Ten@10, NZ Politics, Election 2026, Lobbying, Strategic Voting, Treaty, Waitangi Tribunal, Cost of Living, Religion, AUS Politics, UK Politics, Antisemitism, Iran, USA Politics **This is edition 2026/181 of the *Ten@10* newsletter.** Hi all, This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media. Enjoy! --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wY4-!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffa09655e-b2ba-4c6c-8c0d-7728544477c0_1472x1032.png) ## 1\. Democracy Briefing: Lobbying reform finally has leverage *Bryce Edwards - The Democracy Project* - πŸ—³οΈ For the first time, lobbying regulation has become a condition for forming a government in New Zealand, after the Opportunity Party named it among five non-negotiable policies any governing partner must accept. - πŸ—£οΈ Leader Qiulae Wong said New Zealanders deserve to know who is trying to influence their government, and that no one should be able to buy disproportionate political influence, adding: 'We will require real reform of lobbying and political donations.' - πŸ“‹ The announcement follows a fortnight in which the Greens published a lobbying policy and draft legislation, Victoria University researchers released a major report, and the Public Health Communication Centre surveyed the parties. - πŸ“Š Opportunity is on 6% in the latest 1News-Verian poll, or seven MPs. Under both 1News seat scenarios, neither the governing bloc nor Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori reaches a majority without it, so lobbying reform now has bargaining power. - ⚠️ Edwards warns lobbying reform may be one of the easiest bottom lines for a major party to concede in name while changing little in practice, given low fiscal cost and prior bipartisan talk of registers and codes. - πŸ“„ Opportunity's full Clean Up Politics policy promises a one-year cooling-off period, a mandatory searchable register and a statutory code with deregistration and fines, but its bottom-line document only expressly requires a mandatory register and code of conduct plus donation rules. - πŸ•°οΈ In 2023 Chris Hipkins backed a voluntary code and longer-term work. In opposition Nicola Willis supported a public register and a 12-month ministerial stand-down, but once National took office Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith parked the project among competing portfolio demands. - 🀷 A Public Health Communication Centre survey found only Opportunity and the Greens fully committed to lobbying reform. Labour's reply on a searchable register was labelled 'Unclear', talking about avoiding the 'impression' of unfair advantage rather than saying yes. National and Act did not respond. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: Edwards says a coalition-agreement clause is harder to bury than a manifesto promise, but only if the commitment is precise enough that another review or voluntary code cannot be sold as delivery. [Read More](https://www.democracyproject.org.nz/p/democracy-briefing-lobbying-reform?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qJoj!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0997d675-24e0-4c25-ad32-4a5806b2c560_2048x1152.png) ## 2\. Should the centre-right split their vote? *Ani O'Brien - Thought Crimes* - πŸ—³οΈ O'Brien backs vote splitting despite John Key telling National's launch that considering the overhang was 'not clever' and that 'Two Ticks Blue' is the only path to a strong National-led government. - πŸ“‰ National and Labour are deadlocked on 28% in the latest poll. With Opportunity regularly above 5%, she says the left bloc's path to a majority looks more likely unless the centre-right uses its overhang lifeline. - βž• Under MMP, if a party wins more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to, it keeps them and Parliament expands. That is how this term has 123 MPs after Te Pati Maori's overhang. - πŸ”’ National holds 44 electorates while polling at 28%. If it won them all on 28%, it would get about 44 seats against an entitlement of around 34, an overhang of about ten seats. Estimates she has seen put National on 36 to 42 electorates. - πŸ“ˆ Modelling 40 National electorates, she says National needs about 34 to 35% of the party vote before even one list MP arrives. That is a gain of at least six points to save Nicola Willis alone, with election day 7 November about 39 days away when she wrote. - πŸ“Š In 1News-Verian polls National fell from 34% in February to 30, 29, 29 and 28 now, with no upward move in that series in 2026\. September's Taxpayers' Union-Curia had it at 29%, and Roy Morgan at 31% in August. - βœ‚οΈ Her prescription: electorate vote for the National candidate (except Epsom and Tamaki, where Act holds the seats) and party vote for NZ First or Act, so National banks electorates while the smaller parties harvest list seats. - ⚠️ She warns it can go wrong if voters do not split in volume, or if a collapsing National party vote also sinks its electorate vote, which is why Act and NZ First voters must also candidate-vote National outside Epsom and Tamaki. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: O'Brien says National is likely to lose Willis, Bishop, Goldsmith and Brownlee anyway, and that sending voters on a fool's errand of two ticks blue all but guarantees the coalition ends up in Opposition. [Read More](https://aniobrien.substack.com/p/should-the-centre-right-split-their-vote) --- ![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7b14b8_2947fe4ce58848a681ec1a27681251da~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_217,h_286,al_c,lg_1,q_85/7b14b8_2947fe4ce58848a681ec1a27681251da~mv2.png) ## 3\. DON BRASH: 2 out of 3 parties are with us. Now we need National. *Don Brash - Brash & Mitchell* - πŸ“œ Writing as a Hobson's Pledge trustee, Brash says the group long called for an end to division, a firm deadline on historical Treaty settlements and eventual closing of the Waitangi Tribunal, when commentators said it could not be done. - βœ… He says two of the three governing parties are now aligned with that vision: Act and New Zealand First. - βš–οΈ Act has proposed completing remaining historical Treaty claims, ending the Tribunal's contemporary jurisdiction, and disestablishing it once historical work is finished, announced by David Seymour at the start of September. - πŸ›οΈ Over the weekend Winston Peters said NZ First will campaign on immediately abolishing the Tribunal and, in its first 100 days, tabling legislation to replace it with a final Treaty of Waitangi Completion Commission, plus a clear end date for all pre-2008 claims. - πŸ—£οΈ Peters called the Tribunal a 'make-work organisation' that interferes with democratic law-making, language Brash says Hobson's Pledge has used for years. - βœ‰οΈ Brash wrote to Peters on 14 September 2026 asking whether NZ First backs full and final historical settlements and disestablishment of the Tribunal once claims are resolved, and urging Act-style policy in any future coalition agreement. - ⏸️ That leaves National as the one governing party holding back. Brash wrote to Christopher Luxon too, but had received no reply when he published. - πŸ“’ He argues Luxon can no longer sit on the fence, and that National will move only under unrelenting pressure from New Zealanders who want equal citizenship and a single law for all. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: Brash calls this the best chance in a generation to close the Tribunal, saying public pressure has already brought Act and NZ First on board and must now bring National over the line. [Read More](https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/don-brash-2-out-of-3-parties-are-with-us-now-we-need-national?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7b14b8_6a8b6e67a31b4feb8b1c60d8cae0a2b6~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_416,h_237,al_c,lg_1,q_80/7b14b8_6a8b6e67a31b4feb8b1c60d8cae0a2b6~mv2.jpg) ## 4\. RICHARD PREBBLE: Who won the election campaign opening? *Richard Prebble - Brash & Mitchell* - 🏟️ As a former campaign manager, Prebble recalls measuring success by crowd size at open public meetings in the Auckland Town Hall (1,529 seats), including packed Norman Kirk and Holyoake nights in 1966. - πŸ“Ί Today's openings, he writes, are ticket-only events for party members, with the audience cast as extras in a made-for-TV spectacle. - πŸ“ In 2023 National opened in the 3,000-seat Sir Woolf Fisher Arena at Due Drop Events Centre in South Auckland, drawing about 1,200\. Labour used the 2,139-seat Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre and drew about 1,000. - 🎭 Both disguised thin houses, National with huge banners and Labour by blocking stalls and circle. Prebble calls it a slight win to National. - πŸ”» This year Labour hired the small Four Winds Theatre at Due Drop, capacity just 690\. National used half of Te Paepae Theatre at the new NZ International Convention Centre, 1,235 seats. - πŸͺ‘ National had around 1,000 supporters and hundreds of empty seats, which Prebble says is what the TV audience will remember. As a TV spectacle, Labour with the smaller, fuller room won. - 😴 When National cannot fill 1,235 seats for the Prime Minister and Labour will not risk Hipkins before more than 690, he sees a lack of enthusiasm in both parties. - ⚑ Labour needs high-energy excitement to turn out its base, while a low-energy opening suits National, so National's campaign will be the happier. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: Prebble says it is a loss for democracy that neither party would even consider hiring the Auckland Town Hall. [Read More](https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/richard-prebble-who-won-the-election-campaign-opening?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7b14b8_b26712f747c349e1a792147d0601a135~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_420,h_420,al_c,lg_1,q_85/7b14b8_b26712f747c349e1a792147d0601a135~mv2.png) ## 5\. PAUL MELVILLE: Tackling the cost-of-living crisis through comparative analysis *Paul Melville - Brash & Mitchell* - πŸ›’ Melville says the cost of living is the standout election issue in focus groups: petrol, food, insurance, electricity and rates. - πŸ“… Looking back to 1990, everything was cheaper, so 'something has clearly gone wrong', and the party that can do most to bring down the price of life should win on 7 November. - 🏦 He lists the pitch: NZ First would buy back the BNZ and break up the gentailers; National wants more supermarket competition; the Greens want a government-owned supermarket and free university fees; Labour offers free GP visits, capped public transport fares and bans on big firms charging too much. - 🌍 Ask which country has done most to tackle costly life, he writes, and by some measures the answer is Nigeria, where a haircut can cost NZ$3, a night's stay NZ$20 and lunch NZ$2. - πŸͺ Nigeria has privately owned supermarkets, banks and hairdressers, so public ownership may not be the secret, and GP visits are not yet free there either. - πŸ“‰ What Nigeria does have is a minimum wage of about 50 New Zealand cents an hour, far weaker employment protections, and environmental and housing rules a far cry from New Zealand's RMA. - ⚠️ One awkward data point: more than 40% of Nigerians live below the World Bank extreme-poverty line, and New Zealand's GDP per person is about 45 times Nigeria's. - πŸ’‡ A NZ$3 haircut is not cheap if you earn 50 cents an hour. Affordability also rises if people become more productive and earn more. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: Melville notes the 'productivity crisis' has not yet shown up in the focus groups, so for now the debate goes back to the supermarkets. [Read More](https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/paul-melville-tackling-the-cost-of-living-crisis-through-comparative-analysis?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7b14b8_07df6a2a3fc548959704ead275957d4e~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_210,h_210,al_c,lg_1,q_80/7b14b8_07df6a2a3fc548959704ead275957d4e~mv2.jpg) ## 6\. RODNEY HIDE: We stopped believing. The rulebook got religion *Rodney Hide - Brash & Mitchell* - πŸ“Š Hide opens with the 2023 census: for the first time more than half of New Zealanders, 51.6%, said they had no religion, while Christians fell to 32.3% from 36.5% five years earlier. - πŸ›οΈ Just as the majority stopped believing, he argues, the state started believing on our behalf, starting with land-use planning that was once 'gloriously, usefully dull'. - 🌱 The Town and Country Planning Act 1977 added, late in passage after New Zealand Maori Council submissions, a national-importance clause on Maori relationships with ancestral land. By 1987 the High Court held 'ancestral land' included land Maori no longer owned. - πŸ“œ The Resource Management Act 1991 required recognition of relationships with ancestral lands, water, sites, wahi tapu and taonga, particular regard to kaitiakitanga, and assessment of effects on resources of 'spiritual' value in every consent. - 🌊 The Te Urewera Act 2014 made a forest a legal entity, and the Te Awa Tupua Act 2017 made the Whanganui River a legal person incorporating 'all its physical and metaphysical elements'. - 🚽 A 2025 Taumata Arowai report records that mixing waters can damage mauri and that, as a general rule, Maori do not support discharging even treated wastewater to water, steering schemes such as Rotoiti-Rotoma onto land at ratepayer cost. - βš–οΈ In 2002 the Environment Court refused to adjudicate a taniwha claim at Ngawha as not justiciable in a secular state, yet Transit New Zealand still spent an extra $15,000 to $20,000 steepening an embankment at Meremere over another taniwha claim without a court order. - πŸ‘¨β€βš–οΈ By 2023 the Environment Court said it need not stick to Western science on whether Te Waikoropupu Springs were in their 'natural state', and the Court of Appeal told Christian farmers opposing a wahi taonga listing that courts weigh the existence and significance of spiritual beliefs, not their correctness, with no physical trace required. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: Hide says he does not blame iwi for using the law Parliament wrote. He wants the state to stop believing in gods, noting the coalition's RMA replacement laws still list protecting sites of significance to Maori, including wahi tapu, among their goals. [Read More](https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/rodney-hide-we-stopped-believing-the-rulebook-got-religion?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/GettyImages-954493470.jpg) ## 7\. Marx and Engels made a deal, Mephistopheles giggled *Scott Heathwood - The Spectator Australia* - 🎭 Heathwood imagines Marx waking in Marrickville and finding his dream of hunting, fishing and criticising without specialised labour now packaged as a career with a title, a lanyard or a grant. - πŸ“œ His conceit is a Soho bargain in the 1850s: Mephistopheles offers Marx and Engels universal literacy, suffrage, medicine, state pensions, an eight-hour day, paid holidays and a property-owning working class, lasting only while beneficiaries remember how the good times arrived. - πŸ“– He ties the warning to Deuteronomy 8: remember who delivered the land of plenty, and do not say your own hand got you this wealth. - 🏭 The industrial West's proletariat never rose even in 1929 to 1933, when a quarter of the workforce was idle. Heathwood follows Max Weber: bureaucracy delivered the bargain through clerks, not revolution. - πŸ’° Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek warned that credit expansion misdirects wealth and that the correction is the result, not an accident. - 🎹 Keynes's 1936 answer, in Heathwood's phrase an 'economic piano accordion', was to spend into the slump and withdraw in the boom, but the expansion was taken, the contraction forgotten, and every crisis ratcheted the state further out. - 🏠 A decade of the cheapest money in recorded history, he writes, revalued everything older owners already held while pricing the young out of ownership and family formation, the Cronos clause falling due. - πŸ‘Ά Demographics now run the wrong way. Citing Bernard Salt's cohort, he says howling at climate gods is pastime; rent, unreachable mortgages, algorithm-threatened jobs and unaffordable children are not. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: Peak Marxism, in his telling, looks like a good deal gone bad. The alienated young are not marching for Hayek; their grievance is 'not this', and fixing it means unglamorous supply, energy, housing and productivity rather than another bargain with Mephistopheles. [Read More](https://www.spectator.com.au/2026/09/marx-and-engels-made-a-deal-mephistopheles-giggled/?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://www.spiked-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/british-pub-with-dog-1536x864.jpg) ## 8\. Are country pubs, warm ale and labradors a 'far-right fantasy'? *Gawain Towler - spiked* - 😴 Towler says UK nature minister and Suffolk Coastal MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter told a Labour conference fringe in Liverpool that rural bus cuts and dying village shops are not what keep her awake. Her own voters are. - 🍺 She fears a 'very far-right nostalgic vision of Britain' of 'warm ale, a black labrador by your feet in a pub that doesn't exist', calling it a 'far-right fantasy' that must be opposed. - πŸ—ΊοΈ Towler maps pubs in her own seat: Adnams in Southwold, the 600-year-old Bell at Walberswick that lets dogs in, the Cross Keys at Aldeburgh since 1540, and the 15th-century Crown in Snape. - πŸ“š The warm-ale line echoes John Major's 1993 speech quoting George Orwell on old maids biking to Holy Communion. Orwell, a socialist, spent years at his parents' house in Southwold, in her constituency. - πŸ—£οΈ Her giveaway phrase, Towler says, is that Labour must make the case for 'what we believe rural communities look like', correcting the countryside rather than listening to it. - 🧾 She won Suffolk Coastal in 2024 by 1,070 votes. In May's council elections Labour won no seats across East Suffolk while Reform took 16, including Martlesham where she grew up, and Reform won 41 of 70 Suffolk County Council seats to Labour's three. - πŸ“‰ A YouGov model suggested Labour could lose 79 of its 139 rural seats in an immediate election, with Suffolk Coastal likely among them, after farm taxes and moves against hunting. - πŸ• The labrador was Britain's most registered breed last year, with nearly 30,000 new Royal Kennel Club entries, and Towler predicts one will still sleep under a table at the Bell after she has gone back to London. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway: Towler, a Reform UK board member, says a rural minister who carries Whitehall's sneer back to the countryside cannot be trusted to defend it when the next solar farm or trail-hunting ban arrives. [Read More](https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/09/29/are-country-pubs-warm-ale-and-labradors-a-far-right-fantasy/?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!922G!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F01d0fd6a-219a-4eef-b292-3e634d4a1a0c_1604x782.jpeg) ## 9\. Mamdani Says He'll Fight Antisemitism. His Plan Says Otherwise. *Moshe Davis - The Free Press* - πŸ—½ On Tuesday, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani released his administration's US$7.4 million 'Strategy to Combat Antisemitism'. - πŸ“± In an Instagram video, Mamdani called it 'a road map for how our administration will confront the scourge of antisemitism now and in the future.' - πŸ“„ The strategy document is published as a PDF on the NYC government site. - πŸŽ‰ Davis says the report has plenty to say about celebrating Jewish New Yorkers. - 🚫 The problem, he writes in the free preview, is that it has almost nothing to say about combating, or even identifying, the movement that has made them afraid. - πŸ‘€ Davis was the inaugural executive director of the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism under Mayor Eric Adams. - πŸ›οΈ He is founder of the Leonine Project and leads the ProtectingWorship.org Coalition. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway (free preview only): Davis's charge is that Mamdani's plan celebrates Jews while saying next to nothing about the movement driving their fear. [Read More](https://www.thefp.com/p/mamdani-says-hell-fight-antisemitism-his-plan-says-otherwise?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-caL!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F33310a9a-4ad2-439d-8391-d869ef14d77f_6144x4096.jpeg) ## 10\. The Strait of Hormuz Is Open *Aaron MacLean - The Free Press* - βš”οΈ MacLean writes that time is not on Iran's side, and that the Trump administration's Iran strategy has given it the upper hand over Tehran. - 🧱 He lists three parts of that strategy: the blockade of Iranian ports, expanded sanctions, and escort operations in the Strait of Hormuz. - βœ… Imposing the blockade in April was, in his view, President Trump's best decision of the war. - πŸ“„ Trump briefly lifted the blockade as part of a memorandum of understanding, a mistake MacLean says allowed Iran a significant cash influx, but the blockade again appears completely effective. - πŸ›’οΈ Iran used to export about two million barrels of oil per day through the Strait of Hormuz. Today that number is zero, along with other seaborne commodities. - 🚚 Blockade workarounds such as trucking oil likely amount to only tens of thousands of barrels a day, a meager fraction. - 🚒 Iranian oil still for sale aboard ships outside the blockade, under CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper, is dwindling fast and will hit zero in the coming weeks, cutting another cash source. - πŸ’‘ Takeaway (free preview only): MacLean's opening case is that the blockade-sanctions-escort mix has Iran on the back foot, even as the wider article (paywalled) asks whether that can become lasting victory. [Read More](https://www.thefp.com/p/the-strait-of-hormuz-is-open?ref=goodoil.news) --- ## What our members are saying about Ten@10 **Elizabeth** These articles are compulsory reading for me and the perfect addition to the usual list of Goodoil items! **Lynne** Absolutely brilliant to receive these current and thought provoking articles. **Jonathan** Just wanted to let you know that I’m loving this new 10@10\. Much appreciated from someone who chooses to read/watch almost NO mainstream media. **Murray** Cam, relish your output as the newspaper in Christchurch is so intent on non news. Thankyou **Fred** Thanks for Ten @ Ten, really enjoy reading it.Keep it up. All the best, keep healthy. **Jocko** Wonderful info not otherwise available in NZ. More power to your elbow! Thanks.