The official advice from Immigration NZ is as of 1 July 2025, there were around 20,980 overstayers. They advise this is a “very small proportion of temporary migrants” given we see 3.6 million arrivals from non-NZ citizens each year - so 0.58%. This quote (and Trump policy🫠) should be challenged.

"The owner of the ferret, dragged about according to her mad mustelid’s whims, is in my view also an animal on a lead. I mean, we all are, in one way or another." Some of us (poets) more than others! I love both the poem and Erik's take on it:

ICE NZ????? I don't know if everyone has noticed quite how awful Erica Stanford is. "Often they're in a situation where they are looking for a particular person, they find that particular person, and...there are other people who are either fleeing or acting suspiciously," Erica Stanford told RNZ.

We know, and don’t forget this when you rock up to vote at election 2026 #nzpol #OneTermGovernment

So National propose $250 billion of road projects, but KiwiRail has a budget cut of $200 million and will most likely have to close lines, shifting more freight onto the roads. Seems Winston hasn’t been a very effective champion of railways. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Your cold / cough is likely to be Covid

"The timeline has exposed what one submitter referred to as an 'orchestrated subterfuge'." A huge scandal: how the wealthy & sorted Luxon/ Seymour/ Winston Class (with help from Willis, van Velden & Collins) pulled the rug out from under historically exploited workers newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/20/p...

One of MANY instances lately where it's obvious the American people are 1000% clearer than our "leaders" are on where current trends are taking us. "Politicians who choose to do the bidding of Big Tech at the expense of hardworking Americans will pay a huge political price.” (His lips, god's ears.)

You can completely uninstall/disable copilot on Windows. Your system and local search will run faster afterward. www.howtogeek.com/how-to-rip-o...

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland. And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

You can imagine how special this was for me to assemble - with thanks to the contributors: nzpoetryshelf.com/2026/02/18/p...

Fast asleep with one foot still in mid-air

Oh Volume Books I love you. They run an online book club, you can talk about Terrier, Worrier with other readers on 10 March! (And The Employees in April, I loved that strange, eerie, haunting book!) volume.nz/talkingbooks

Hope Hope is a grey warbler, that whistles down our street, the tune is thin and sweet, but always on repeat. (Harry Ricketts)

Too many people underestimate how evil Google is and how impactful its evil is. Yeah, the company that struck down its "don't be evil" maxim a while ago, because I guess it felt too constraining.

New episode of SERVED WITH RICE now available, guest starring the wonderful @chrisjtse.bsky.social 🥰 Check it out on your fave podcast platform here: servedwithricepoddy.com/watch

"Inevitable" that retirement age will rise to 72 or 73? No it isn't! "Inevitable" is one of those words that points to what they (here, private investment companies) don't want us to resist - a good place to start resisting! A flood of letters to MPs at the very least.

“I think refusing is actually the more hopeful expansive vision of the future than the one that is telling us that the future is already settled and decided. That’s my daring idea: just say no.”

Luxon is in the running for the dumbest National Party Think Big Project, with his LNG import terminal. He is competing with Muldoon's Motunui synthetic petrol plant which was obsolete before it was completed. But I reckon a $2.7 billion attempt to lock NZ into fossil fuels is in the running.

A reminder for $2.7b you could put solar and batteries into every home in Aotearoa with enough money left over to put solar and batteries into every factory in South Auckland. Now that is called an investment.

omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for gradient.horse

But is the poem the rock or the hole? johngeraets.com/ruby-cabinet...

Come and dance to Helen's poetry!

Toitū te tiriti! A list of books on te tiriti from Volume books: volume.nz/volumebooks/...

!!!

relatable

If you want to know what the good bookstores are, I walked into Schrödinger's Books in Petone and they were playing this song ✊

Often beauty is disguised by appearance just as music can be by sound, the dreaming wish by the waking wish until there's this terrible stress because a thing must finally reveal itself, break itself. - Dean Young, "The Unattainable"

While the world deals with #ClimateCrisis + #ExtremeWeatherEvents, #BitCoin miners spend more on energy than they get back in value. None of their tech wallets pay for flow on harms like floods. Bitcoin costs more to mine in NZ than it's worth as prices fall #NZpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

'Zoe, these are so beautiful, and that’s what we’re fighting for. We’re being angry and complaining because we have to, but where we want to go is back to beauty. If you let go of that, we don’t have anywhere to go.' — David Wojnarowicz to Zoe Leonard, after she showed him her photographs of clouds

Let's vote for health, the planet, justice, listening, repair not damage, compassion for the homeless & hungry, speaking te reo Māori. Well I'm listening to Tracy Chapman & I'm for love kindness protest. Talkin' Bout A Revolution youtu.be/Xv8FBjo1Y8I?... via @YouTube

However much contempt you have for these people, it's not enough.

I love this semi-dissolved ancient Akkadian poem of hungry desire, translated so beautifully by Samantha Reilly exchanges.uiowa.edu/ax-slippage-...

I think every single kiwi needs to know this… #nzpol #Election2026

I am reading War and Peace and it is echoing oddly with this strange compelling anti-epic Catullus wrote, number 64 of his poems, which I've called "History, as one betrayal after another" exchanges.uiowa.edu/ax-slippage-... #catullus

This poem, by Alice Miller! The plants are listening. berlinlit.com/everyones-he...

The thinkable is there to mask it. Cole Swensen again…

Renee Good, murdered by an ICE agent, was a poet. This thread links to her award-winning poem from 2020. What will it take to get a regime change over there, to get justice for Renee and everyone else murdered, incarcerated, "disappeared", expelled and concentration camped? poets.org/2020-on-lear...

So many books I want to read now, the LP Hartley & Denton Welch novels, poets new to me like Hedgie Choi, Emily Skillings & Luke Allan, and I always wanted to read Highsmith's The Price of Salt but now I am glad I read Elisa’s observations first because I will read it seeing more than I would have!

Buy REAL books by REAL authors and illustrators. Here's a couple of mine huia.co.nz/search?q=rox...

Just an idea… #nzpol

" i like the way a song touches me and leaves me alone at the same time. " Me too!

No child should be targeted for deportation just because they are disabled. actionnetwork.org/petitions/le...

I think this is horrible, all children should be supported here whose parents are living and working here. Petition to sign: c.org/fwvRnGSsB8

If you love poetry in one way and another, subscribe to @paulajoygreen.bsky.social NZ Poetry Shelf 💗👏🌸.

Such an important thread about the value of the Total Mobility scheme! We need to fight to get this properly funded - no cap on costs, easier to book, round trips made possible. This matters! Let's make it an election issue!

It’s time to party like it’s 1789

A Christmas poem from Joanna Cho (MA20) newsroom.co.nz/2025/12/14/x...