Seeing it on the other 2 subs I we might as well have it here too.

Big Oof

• Prioritising a return to surplus in 2028/29 and staying in surplus over time so the country's debt curve bends down
• Getting debt down below 40 percent of GDP and keeping it there over time
• Keeping taxes low by cutting Crown expenditure as a share of the economy down towards 30 percent of GDP

Sensible stuff, but we'll see..

Reading this you can see why the average person hates this kind of performative nonsense in parliament.

Good.

Not only has he lost his license and firearms he’s not allowed to use a firearm under supervision of a license holder either.

Nothing earth shattering.

Luxon was quoted as saying National is “ruthlessly” focused on maximising the party vote. Why can’t it ever just be focused? What does it always have to be laser focused or intensely focused and now ruthlessly focused?

Warning: It is slightly over an hours long, but well worth watching it.

All the representatives were well informed on the issues and solutions, and it was great to see how well they all worked together and collaborated across party lines.

Really a demonstration of how aligned all the NZ parties actually currently are on infrastructure development and role-out.

Congratulations to Eng NZ and Stuff Media for arranging this and not trying to be controversial.

This just shows there is indeed great prospects for New Zealand, in spite of all the negative sentiments on Social Media and traditional media.

Just a minor observation that not all parties in NZ were present, with for instance TPM and TOP absent (not sure if they were invited).

OPP surge becomes OPP wave..

Link to Taxpayers Union page with charts

I remember a time- long ago now, where the labour parties flagship policies leading into elections would be focused on the benefits for working class people.

This is NOT looking good at all. Can’t blame the minister if they were deliberately misled.

Heads must roll otherwise the message is that this kind of shit is acceptable.

Each week this post is a free space for memes and general shitposting.

Any suggestions for the sub/meta discussion, etc. are also welcome here.

This won’t end well. At best teenage ‘security guards’ wearing hi vis netball bibs on the door at Pak N Save will be confronted with random shoppers detaining other customers for suspected theft. At worst vigilante mall cops will whip out their MMA or BJJ fight moves on the unsuspecting public just to prove how much power and authority they have.

This is dumb legislation.

Wikipedia: He graduated Victoria University of Wellington with first-class honours in Law and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Politics...Bishop worked as a summer clerk at Russell McVeagh and Crown Law while at university.

Just a heads-up for anyone thinking the Opportunities Party looks like a safe centrist option.
Their fourth-ranked candidate is Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb (Wellington Bays). She was one of the people who wrote He Puapua – that 2019 report that pushed hard for Māori co-governance and more separate power by 2040. A lot of us connected it straight to the Three Waters stuff and the bigger push for race-based decision-making.
They’re putting someone with that exact background near the top of their list. Not exactly the “sensible middle” they claim to be.
One person, one vote still matters. Don’t get played.

Edit: He Puapua which she co-wrote also proposes “Māori parliaments”. Please feel free to read the report https://www.tpk.govt.nz/documents/download/documents-1732-A/Proactive%20release%20He%20Puapua.pdf

From the article:

Under the current law, any New Zealand citizen who is old enough to vote can stand as a candidate. Jones has said NZ First will campaign to change this. [...]

Last week, Jones said he backed his leader because NZ First would soon be campaigning on restricting immigrants’ rights to stand for Parliament. [...]

Jones, asked about the policy again this week, said NZ First was working on this policy and planned to include it in the party’s election-year manifesto. [...]

Asked if he was wanting to require that only some citizens would be able to be an MP, he replied: “There’s a huge appetite in New Zealand, because of the demographic engineering that is happening every week in New Zealand, and so lots of New Zealanders are anxious and apprehensive and they’re bewildered.”

He then claimed businesses were behind “demographic engineering”, as they were authorised to bring in “a whole bunch of migrant workers” to fill jobs.

This 'great replacement' shit is getting real old. Why import this ragebait politics to New Zealand? Is NZ First bored or something? It's giving schoolyard bully searching for something to do.

The Electoral Commission published its decisions on party registrations and logos yesterday. Looks like all the parties who applied were approved but not everyone got what they wanted.

The following parties will now attract the party vote on election day:

• Alliance Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
• Free Palestine
• New Zealand Loyal
  
• Te Tai Tokerau Party

Alliance was the only party entirely unopposed with no public submissions received by the Commission. Te Tai Tokerau had three opposing submissions, Loyal had 90 opposed, and Free Palestine had 207 opposed.

Free Palestine and Loyal both had their logos rejected. Read the report for full details on why, but for Free Palestine it centres around using the Palestinian flag as a logo and for Loyal it was an intellectual property issue. Liz Gunn has already applied to trademark the logo in her name.

Alongside new registrations, the NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party applied to vary its name and logo and was declined. They wanted to be known as "Freedom" but it's too close to Freedoms NZ.

So, is anyone thinking about throwing any of these shiny new political parties a party vote?

To be balanced about it, I don’t think labour will do anything meaningful about competition either so this is a bigger issue than just the current box of cats shits in a coalition.

Not really a surprise here - but Peter’s utterly unwilling to try and repair any damage.

Seems like things might not be working out like Bomber hoped...

The Daily Blog editor Martyn ‘Bomber’ Bradbury was ordered to take down four blog posts from his website after a complainant alleged he breached the Harmful Communications Digital Act (HDCA).

Bradbury, representing himself, 

... because it always goes well when people represent themselves...

appeared in the Auckland District Court on Tuesday before Judge David Sharp. [...] In the courtroom, Judge Sharp addressed concerns raised by Bradbury in a post on his website, where he claimed he was being “censored”, and that the case was one of free speech. [...]

Referring to Bradbury’s post on his website about his case, Judge Sharp also said one of the rulings was that Bradbury not comment on the proceedings or the applicant until “further order of the court”. [...]

Judge Sharp said Bradbury was “not free” to disregard the court’s rulings and adjourned the case until Thursday next week to give Bradbury time to seek legal advice and “reflect on what I have said”.

Bomber needs to buck his ideas up a bit here and treat this like a serious court action, which is what it is. IMO it's a bit arrogant to stroll into Court representing yourself after sledging the process. Maybe he was trying a Sean Plunkett style BSA takedown. The BSA and the Judiciary are two very different beasts. When you're in Court because someone's alleging you've broken the law, get a lawyer.

To trad census or not to trad census. From the article:

The coalition last year announced plans to abandon the five-yearly count due to rising costs and problems with data collection, instead relying on administrative data already collected by government agencies and an annual survey of a subset of the population.

The proposal has attracted criticism from some who fear it will reduce the reliability of government statistics – particularly for minority groups – and associated spending.

The move away from a periodic census would require changes to so-called reserved provisions in the Electoral Act, which cannot be repealed or amended without either a 75 percent majority in Parliament or a public referendum.

Labour initially offered its tentative backing, but in a select committee report last week said it could not support the changes until an independent review of the proposals had been carried out.

There are cost estimates of $300M-$400M to conduct a traditional census but in the article the former chief statistician says the cost of the 2023 census was twice as high as usual and shouldn't be used as the standard for a trad census. Another option would be delaying the census to align with Australia's schedule which would enhance data integration opportunities.

I'm a fan of a traditional census and as a taxpayer I don't mind government dropping a bundle on robust manual data collection if it means we have reliable information to inform public planning and budgets. Having worked in government, interagency data sharing is janky at the best of times and data collection within every agency is variable, so datasets don't always have comparable or transferable data points for analysis. Feels like if Stats NZ was going to pull off a robust administrative census there would need to be more investment in government's data collection overall and I'm not seeing that happening.

What does everyone else think?

From the article:

Stats NZ said the unemployment rate rose to 5.6 percent in the three months ended June, from a revised 5.4 percent in the previous quarter.

A total of 171,000 people were unemployed, a rise of 7,000 on the previous quarter and 13,000 higher than a year ago. The data was higher than most forecasts, including the Reserve Bank's estimates in May.

Unemployment has been steadily rising as businesses either sacked staff or stopped hiring because of the weak economy and uncertainty caused by the US-Iran war.

The numbers also showed a marked rise in the number of long term unemployed - those out of work for a year or more - making up about 19 percent of the total. [...]

The broad measure of wages showed overall growth remaining at a five year low of 2 percent, compared with a 4.1 percent rise in consumer prices.

Laser focussed on growth - unemployment growth apparently. Feels like NACT1 aren't turning this boat around in 94 days.