Incredibly, the coalition are still using Govt debt increases during Cvid as an attack line - despite piling into debt at more or less exactly the same rate. The fact that this is going unchecked is incredible really. [5/n]

they really said "they should have sent a poet"

NZ Govt should call out out the unhinged and lawless behaviour of the Trump Administration. Yes Luxon/Seymour/Peters are right wing allies of Trump. But NZ needs to stand up for international law and ethics.

But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with him?

Mrs Glegg emitted a long sort of gutteral sound with closed lips that smiled in mingled pity and scorn.

Dani Yourukova's brilliant review of Helen Rickerby's My Bourgeois Apocalypse: "trying to uncover its secrets is a bit like cracking open a disco ball: enormously pleasing, unlikely to work, and not entirely the point" www.takahe.org.nz/my-bourgeois...

The Ōtaki-Levin highway was killing a lot of people at 100kmh. After Ardern Govt cut speed to 80kmh, the dying stopped. Then Luxon Govt increased the speed limit on the highway for culture war reasons. And people starting dying again. www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/sto...

This Be The Plan (after Larkin) They fuck you up, do Nic and Chris. They always mean to, so they do. They take an awful lot of piss And add some extra, but not for you. #nzpol

Here we go again. Lest we forget actual facts: ✅NZ pension costs are sustainable. ✅Our spending on pensions are low. ✅Lots of older people want to work and will work if they get the chance... and their pensions give them some security to move in and out of the workforce as opportunities arise….

Simon Upton out there demolishing the Govt’s arguments for it’s LNG terminal, using its own official’s advice and basic logic. newsroom.co.nz/2026/03/25/l...

The alternative to pay equity legislation: unions go to court, get a judge to determine a fair pay rate, and award that plus five years of backpay plus BORA damages for govt sexism.

So what's happened here is Tiaki Wai, Moa Point owners, know they need to invest more in their networks Now. The only way to do that is borrow more, charge more. This is the model Simon Watts and the Government set up as Local Water Done Well. Simon Watts is concerned about his own policies.

Seems pertinent to mention today that one of the main reasons for people missing medical appointments is the cost and convenience of transport.

‘OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, has admitted (based on its own study) there’s no way to stop false information being presented as truth due to the way generative AI works.’

Remember, the democratically elected Mossadegh Govt was overthrown by UK/US coup in 1953 on behalf of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company- known today as BP. Oil fuels wars and authoritarianism.

At 2pm this Sunday afternoon I'm part of a free reading with some other fine poets at Katherine Mansfield House and Garden - in the garden if the weather holds. More info here: www.katherinemansfield.com/event/poetry...

My little book got to no.1 on the bestseller list that counts! (In Wellington.) 🥳

When we go into this election, this has to be front and centre for women in NZ. They hate us #nzpol

The current NZ Govt parties have opposed all efforts to reduce NZ's dependence on fossil fuels. All three coalition parties have received large donations from at least one oil company. They are making the climate crisis worse and the cost of living crisis worse.

favourite things, I have a few nzpoetryshelf.com/2026/03/13/p...

What you waiting for? My April 2026 list of "Books I really want to read" includes poetry by Ariana Tikao & Helen Rickerby, biographies by Pax Assadi & Charlotte Glennie, + Fungi + Zines😍📚❤️‍🔥 Check out my 21 titles of interest: christchurch.bibliocommons.com/v2/list/disp... #booksky #pukapuka #ReadNZ

And remember, that $8.5 billion only pays 9% tax. If the 311 richest families paid - say - 29% tax instead, like just about everyone reading this thread, then ran addiitonal $1.7 billion a year would arrive in government coffers to help pay for things like dialysis

In other words, a mere 311 families have net assets that are about half the size of the entire NZ government. That's a lot. And on the income from those assets they pay around 9% in tax. No-one reading this thread only pays 9% tax

IT IS NOT THE JOB OF A PUBLIC BROADCASTER IN A DEMOCRACY TO REPORT THE NEWS IN A WAY THE GOVERNMENT LIKES. IT IS ESPECIALLY NOT OKAY FOR MINISTERS AND POLITICALLY-APPOINTED BOARD MEMBERS TO DICATE INDIVIDUAL EDITORIAL DECISIONS. THIS SHOULD BE FUCKING OBVIOUS.

and this extraordinary book nzpoetryshelf.com/2026/03/02/p...

Hey instead of making NZ more dependent on fossil fuels extracted from a war zone where the US and Israel routinely start bombing people, let’s embrace renewable energy. #SayNoToLNG

I’d just like to remind everyone that this action is illegal, is done without UN backing (hell, without even seeking UN backing) and yet our government is supporting such. I know the international rules based order hadn’t been adhered to for some time now, but … I just don’t even have words.

I’ve been wondering about the recently visible support of Iranian diaspora via Reza Pahlavi that we’ve seen from RW stunters like Seymour. Learned (Haaretz report) Pahlavi was recently boosted by an Israeli-driven influence campaign. Ah. monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/b000...

The truth is not the average of a fact and a lie.

Great to see a substantial essay on @pipadam.bsky.social's work, "Audition" (her latest) in particular. "Her work is now beginning to reach the US audience it deserves..."

I don’t know if this is really poetry or just how the mind works...

If NZ First can learn from Northern Hemisphere counterparts to carry on their decades-long grift for electoral success, the least our media could do is learn how not play into the grifters’ hands like their Northern Hemisphere counterparts

So just to be clear Luxon wants Kiwi families to pay a new tax on their power bills to build an LNG terminal that we don’t need & that will cook the climate, so that Methanex, a company contributing 0 dollars in tax themselves, can keep sending their profits offshore. newsroom.co.nz/2025/04/30/m...

#nzpol The Employment Relations Amendment Bill has passed. This is a dark day for working New Zealanders. Our Government has let Uber and the ACT Party set the agenda for employment law in this country. They need to grow a backbone and stand up for the interests of New Zealand workers.

#nzpol The Employment Relations Amendment Bill is a wishlist for bad employers. It makes it cheaper to hire people on insecure contracts, to fire workers for no reason, and to discourage union membership. The Bill had its third reading last week. Read more about what it will mean for workers:

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

NZ building a fossil gas import terminal in the #climatecrisis could be Luxon’s most STUPID idea yet. Why not spend that BILLION dollars on household solar and battery installation? Would be safer, more resilient, provide cheaper power and climate-friendly. #nzpol

In related news, “1999” by Prince was written in 1982. If written today it would be called “2043”

"I watched ... academics and sector experts be removed from writing teams in favour of corporate resource creators, and saw curriculum documents change radically over a matter of hours in response to the latest red-pen notes from ministers."

Evergreen reminder that this was something she came up with, not something she was advised to do. In fact she was pretty specifically advised it was a terrible idea (it was) but she went ahead with it anyway because something something Not Real Science

good riddance to Minister Judith Collins, who orchestrated the present gutting of New Zealand's science funding establishment I've not seen or heard any coverage today that mentions this tiny detail, affecting 100s of millions of public dollars and endangering NZ's entire intellectual community

I do remember when Judith Collins leaked the name and details of a public servant to the right wing attack blogger Cameron Slater and then the public servant received personal attacks and death threats. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Since it’s an election year I hope we can talk about how this government is responsible for deliberate withholding of healthcare to make some numbers on a piece of paper look good for their donors

A climate emergency fund would be useful right about now. Oh, that's right, Luxon canned it so he could funnel more money to landlords.

#nzpol National keeps promising opportunities for New Zealanders but they’re only delivering for the wealthy. It's time the Government stopped leaving workers behind:

A key election date people don’t talk about enough is Writ Day (which for this election will be 4 October). If you’re enrolled at your current address by Writ Day you’ll be on the printed roll at voting places in your electorate, will be sent an EasyVote card, and can cast an ordinary vote.

I have realised that part of what I feel about this present time is embarrassment about how it will be looked on by people in the future, students of history and such (as I was, studying WW2 in high school). Yes, we will have to admit, it really was that stupid, and yet it happened. And was awful.

The next government should give Beck and Rocket Lab a simple choice: abandon your military contracts or lose your license to launch rockets from Aotearoa.

I’d just like to remind everyone that the first iRex ferry would have just entered service had the coalition not cancelled them purely out of spite for the opposition, Wellington and the South Island.