Not to use money as a reason for something that should be a moral call, but while we have a public health system that treats anyone who show's up for free, it is unreservedly cheaper to just house everyone.

i’m not averse to some of these policies, but as my guest notes in the healthcare episode i’ll upload today - almost all Labour policy of this sort so far is direct wealth transfer to private business we desperately need structural changes and public service/infra investment to solve this

$430m in supermarket excess profit. State Insurance sold in 1990, premiums up 500%. Kiwibank at 7%, big four can ignore it, government wants to sell that too. Power: $2.41 in dividends per $1 in new generation. We sold the public option. Prices went up. Every time. #nzpol

The medical sector is an area I care very deeply about. The fact it exists at all, as a concept, is a testament to the kindness within us as a people. That it's been allowed to be cut and gutted and hammered until breaking should be an equal condemnation.

You can cancel a streaming service. You can't cancel food, rent, or a bank account. When you can't walk away, the seller stops competing and starts calculating the maximum you can pay before you break. That's inelastic demand. That's why the cost of living never comes down. #nzpol

@victorbillot.bsky.social with the Moana Chief at Lyttelton yesterday. The last NZ-flagged, NZ-crewed container ship on our coast. Swire pulls it from service in months. After that, a country this remote moves nothing on its own coastline without a foreign ship and a foreign crew. #nzpol

UK Labour is chasing Reform and ignoring the left that built them. NZ Labour has the same blind spot. The Alliance exists in the ground they walked away from. They could take it back any time but they won't. #nzpol

We have sold so much of what we built together, nationally and locally. That bleeding of public assets into private hands can't just be slowed. It has to be reversed. We protect what's left and we build more, or we keep paying private owners forever for things we used to own outright. #nzpol

It's not that any one of these bills is unbeatable. It's that there's always another one behind it. By the time you've read one, three more have dropped. The exhaustion isn't a by-product of the pace, it's the point of it. #nzpol

In 1908 a Blackball coal miner refused to stop eating his pie when the manager told him his 15 minutes were up. He was fired. The mine walked out. The miners held out for three months and won. Every right you have at work was fought for. #nzpol #unions

Telecom: sold for $4.25b, paid out $5.5b in dividends within a decade, 80% offshore. Rail: sold for $328m, stripped for $370m profit, government had to buy it back. Power: $2.41 in dividends for every $1 invested in new generation. The pattern never changes. #nzpol

Labour wants to cap public transport fares at $20 a week. National won't even do that. But neither asks what we'd build if we decided public transport was worth building. A cheaper fare is no help if there's no bus to catch. Cheaper and useless is still useless. #nzpol

Simeon Brown declined to keep the Medical Council's chair and deputy. Both were eligible to stay. The council wanted them kept. His reason was that he disliked the questions their consultation documents asked. A politician deciding who regulates our doctors. #nzpol

If the polls are accurate, I'm not surprised. One word keeps coming up in my conversations. Disenfranchised. If people feel they have no voice in the major parties, the shift to ACT makes sense. ACT sells individual effort as the fix. The Alliance offers collective change, looking out for each other

I had a great time at the Lyttelton Market yesterday. We set up just outside with our signs. Got to talk to many good people with interesting and diverse views. The promise of secure work is an attractive one, as people feel the insecurity of this government's economic policies first hand. #nzpol

163,000 unemployed. Benefits getting cut. ACT's answer? A visa that locks migrant workers to the farm sector with no way out. That's not a labour shortage, that's a conditions problem.

Stanmore Book and Post farewell BBQ today. Good turnout. Credit to Te Whare Roimata for putting it together. Another service gone from the east, and it'll be the people who can least afford to travel who feel it most.

I get asked why I'm doing this. Standing for a party most haven't heard of in a seat I'm unlikely to win. Honestly, it's hope. I want a NZ that believes it can do things. Look after each other. allianceparty.nz. Membership is a dollar.