I am also very nervous, but I actually think this is a decent place to be 6 months out. Economic conditions are very likely to be terrible by election time, and Luxon is the worst possible PM for the moment. It's hard to see the government support increasing, and the bottom could easily fall out

"It’s closed out. It's finished. We voted it down yesterday, and it's over, and we're moving forward." - Luxon “Cremated and buried”. - Potaka They lied. Despite over 90% of submitters opposed and massive divisions caused. National Govt continues to roll it out. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...

NZ First, ACT & National Government quietly repeal more Treaty of Waitangi clauses, but still withholds info on impacts, laws and details #nzpol #kiwi

The media is pretty clearly biased against the left, but they DO still cover the Greens (and Labour) when they do real things. The left parties need to do more stuff like this and less point-to-a-press-release-from-years-ago. Also this is great policy...

Option B is for bikes.

📣 Have your say! 📣 The WCC Annual Plan proposes to reduce the budget to the emerging Pāneke Pōneke Bike Network (again!). Safe space for affordable #cycling is a must have. Option B is for #bikes. Please make a submission. www.cyclewellington.org.nz/annual_plan_...

For most Americans, Trump was the guy who gave them monthly $2000 checks, and Biden was the guy who took them away. The nostalgia for Trump's economy and the hatred for Biden's is as simple as that.

New Substack post entitled "The Vladeck Tragedy" Written from a pained place for admiration and sadness.

Of course Stuff / The Post's Tracy Watkins is going to be a business lobbyist - explains everything doesn't it?

A big part of why conservatives have achieved total victory within the judiciary is because they're actually willing to aggressively advocate for their beliefs (however abhorrent). Liberal judges and law profs, meanwhile, are more interested in comity than fighting for their ostenible beliefs

An important factor here is the absolute lack of standards in American legal academia. The journals are not serious enterprises - they're literally run by 2nd and 3rd year law students. There is no peer review. It's farcical to be honest. It is... not like that in other countries!

Important to note that this is entirely driven by the Labour Party. Labour councilors spent the election campaign promising to fund climate initiatives. Once elected, they slashed the climate fund and are moving to cut cycleway funding.

In a fuel crisis, why is Wellington back pedalling on bike lanes? Take action on Monday to save our bike lanes. @cyclewgtn.bsky.social

Let's force the next administration to cut the military budget in half and use the money to fund things that actually keep people and communities safe.

This fucking guy.

the Harris point is one worth re-emphasizing - you cannot, in politics, ask your voters to compromise and back you despite your misgivings and -lose-

Despicable fucking government.

This post from old mate Henry is the NZ mainstream media in a nutshell. They'll selectively show us the small gathering of cooker protesters, but not the absolutely massive line of people waiting to see Ardern. Those protesters represent a pathetically small and toxic minority of the population.

Looks like we're going backwards. Unlike many others #nzpol

The US defense budget should be slashed by enough that it's no longer feasible for the US to murder random fishermen in boats all over the world This (along with abetting Israeli genocide, killing schoolgirls, etc) is what American hegemony looks like in actual practice, and it's obscene

Hang this up in the "why people don't trust or like Democrats" museum...

We have spent my entire life claiming our military was being used to "Defend democracy" while instead all it actually did was kill Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Syrians, Libyans, Somalis, Iranians and also defend Israel while they killed Palestinians and Lebanese. I'm fucking sick of this shit!!!

It is wild to look at a defense budget greater than the next 5 countries combined and say "that's not enough, we need to increase it actually" Also wild to look at the last 25 years of US foreign policy and think that more American force projection abroad will make things better

Golriz Ghahraman was denied a discharge without conviction for shoplifting, but this horse trainer gets one. Double standards much? www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

David Seymour: put me in charge and *everybody* dies!

The testimony here about sexual violence by Israel against Palestinian prisoners is so beyond the pale everyone must see it. It is so bad I can’t in good conscience share a quote other than the headline, which somehow manages to understate the horror within. www.middleeasteye.net/news/i-wishe...

All western politics is condensing into a coalition of the past versus a coalition of the future

If only we had a populace not obsessed with utes as status symbols and hating on efforts to switch to more efficinet vehicles www.thepress.co.nz/business/360...

There is literally no one I have less sympathy for than people who bought a gas-guzzling ute. Especially since most of them probably bought it precisely because it was a culture war symbol.

I did not believe this until I became a parent and started listening to what other parents say about gender

Now, the kicker: $200m not spent domestically means we are gonna lose about that much demand from the economy soon. Friends, $200m / week is about 130,000 jobs worth. This is serious. Any media folk want to ask for an unemployment forecast, and, errrm, whether we have a frickin plan? [Ends]

File under 'Industry that is only 5.1% of the economy but thinks it's 95% has destroyed our environment with impunity because successive Labour & National govts don't give a fuck' www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Heath Fledger (left), Nora the Explorer (right), very awake and investigating and looking almost like real parrots

Unsurprising that motorcyclists are being whiny babies when confronted with the fact that their mode of transportation is incredibly unsafe. And even with the increased levy, they still only pay 28 percent of what they should based on risk -- if anything, motorcycle levies should be 4x higher!

Americans could have told you Ford makes unreliable clunkers. Honestly can't understand why anyone here in NZ would want to buy one

Even if the strait reopened, which it hasn't, there's a backlog of 1000+ ships, major damage to energy infrastructure, and a supply chain disruption that will take months to unravel. Today's big "market rally" combined hopium, poor reading comprehension, and shorts covering. Won't last the week.

“A whole civilization will die tonight” is the most vile thing a US president has ever said, certainly during the post-1945 era when they’ve had the power to kill civilizations with the dropping of a bomb. I’m staring into the darkness. May this not be one of the most fateful days in human history.

This is explicitly genocidal

Would love for NZ gallery journalists to ask Luxon why he condemned Russia for "callous disregard for life" in Ukraine but leaves it up to the US to investigate its own actions here.

Reminiscing about my time living in DC. If you've lived in DC or spent time there, especially in the Cap Hill area, let's look at some of the places you could be killed for being in range of the blast radius of a Mk 84 2000lb bomb dropped by the USAF or Israeli Air Force on a legitimate target

Neither Hipkins or Luxon appear to offer anything other than marginal settings adjustments to how things work in a country where things aren't working for a lot of people. No change, just managerialism. This leaves a yawning gap for the mantle of Doing Something that only NZF seems to have realised.

I understand that, in theory, MP salaries should be high and set independently. But when those same MPs are consistently offering nurses, teachers, doctors, public servants, etc pay cuts, they can get stuffed.

When the US admits that they killed any “military-aged men” who walked within 3km of a downed pilot they mean any boy lanky enough to be a teenager and any middle-aged man able to walk unaided with a cane got shot in the head for the crime of walking.

Honestly, all greater political considerations aside, it’s just really fucking obnoxious how many Americans seem to think it’s cheating for the other side to shoot back in a war. I mean look, I’m no fan of the Iranian regime, but buy the ticket, take the ride.

Surely farmers can't have an issue with the fact that they have to pay global market prices for fuel?

This is a monstrous, Epstein-type crime. The more I think about it, the more I get incandescently angry about it. There are so many societal issues laid bare here: child poverty, child rape, name suppression for wealthy white guys, media executives lining up to vouch for child rapists, etc

the Democrats need to announce that anyone who drops a bomb on Iranian civilian infrastructure will die in prison

I was asked twice to write a support letter for (the same) sexual predator. It was v easy not to 🤷🏻‍♀️

All of the *men* writing in support of him are like "he was going through shit, relax" and like, I could accept that if he stole a couple hundred bucks while being desperate. It doesn't really work when the crime is PAYING A CHILD TO BE RAPED.