The key thing about a joke - perhaps its most important defining element - is that it’s funny. We'll leave it up to you to decide if a candidate joking about te reo Māori is funny and what doing so instead of answering an easy question says about them. localaotearoa.substack.com/p/act-candid...

I mean, if even King Charles III can use Aotearoa to refer to our country… 🤷‍♂️ localaotearoa.substack.com/p/act-counci...

Candidate from the purported party of free speech weirdly triggered by me exercising my free speech to call my blog Local Aotearoa.

Four of the "We love Kapiti" candidates don't actually live in the district/ward they're standing in. Their mayoral candidate doesn't live in Kāpiti and their Ōtaki, Waikanae, and Paraparaumu candidates don't live in those wards. Must be more of a long-distance relationship with Kāpiti. 🤣

Having previously warned that a financial crisis was looming for councils, I’m not the slightest bit surprised that the Chatham Islands Council looks like it is in serious trouble. 📈🚨 newsroom.co.nz/2025/09/17/s...

Another day, another dumb campaign policy to call out. localaotearoa.substack.com/p/candidates...

Despite early setbacks, Wayne Brown has used the profile, powers, and resources of Auckland's mayoralty in a way that his predecessors were unwilling to embrace. He now looks set to win an even bigger electoral landslide than he achieved in 2022. localaotearoa.substack.com/p/from-flood...

Would’ve been Dad’s 80th birthday today. 💔

As we've been saying...

If teachers (primary, secondary, area), principals, education support staff, and nurses all strike together, would that be one of the biggest strikes in recent history?

Those headlines claiming Nash lining up with NZ First was a blow for Labour have aged very badly in just a few days. www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360...

Part 4 of the Local Electoral Act 2001 suddenly looks pretty important (this is the law allowing for a D Ct judge led inquiry into any poll to see whether the result should be voided because of errors in the election process)

Staggering hypocrisy from Luxon… August 2024: Local government needs to stop wasting money. August 2025: Luxon spends $44k to eat pavlova on a mountain 🤦‍♂️

The govt wants to increase teachers’ overall work days by roughly 4% through nearly doubling callback days in school holidays while simultaneously removing allowances for those days, all while only offering pay increases at below the rate of inflation. Work more for less pay? No way! ✊

Do you think the screenwriters of Idiocracy realised they were penning one of the most eerily prophetic movies of all time?

After ‘revealing’ a $7.5b Amazon deal that was confirmed four years ago, what else could the prime minister dust off from the past? thespinoff.co.nz/politics/02-...

"This is one of the clumsiest and most embarrassing attempts to evade answering a question I’ve seen from any business leader, for a long time." is what you get with expert reporting commentary that is not just repeating press releases.

The reality is rates capping is a choice between investing now or leaving our kids and grandkids to pick up the tab for our short-sightedness. It's almost as if we've learnt nothing from the decades of under-investment in three waters infrastructure. 🤦‍♂️ localaotearoa.substack.com/p/rates-capp...

Incredible race with Kiwi Ruth Croft taking out UTMB! Off the top of my head I *think* she’s the first Kiwi (woman or man) to win UTMB, which she adds to having previously taking out the shorter CCC and OCC races there.

This is not a drill! Ruth Croft is leading UTMB! The GOAT Dauwalter dropping to third is a surprise, but still a lot of distance to cover.

Kiwi ultra running star Ruth Croft in the form of her life and only 9 minutes before the GOAT Courtney Dauwalter in UTMB. 🏔️🏃‍♀️👟

It’s easy to talk up alternative visions when the people floating them aren’t paying. The real challenge is delivering realistic, funded proposals. If someone’s colourful kite flying doesn’t come with a price tag and a plan, you’re right to be sceptical. localaotearoa.substack.com/p/colourful-...

In politics, some kites take off and become real, useful projects. But others are cynically intended to muddy the waters, spike actual realistic proposals, promote unviable pet projects, or are used to distract from the real issues. localaotearoa.substack.com/p/colourful-...

Did my good deed for the day. Saw a ewe and its two lambs stuck down on SH59 near Pukerua Bay where they’ve worked their way down from the farms up on the escarpment. Called police who are organising animal control to round them up. 🐑🤞

NIMBYs once again proving they’re deeply unserious people, doing and saying deeply unserious things, in defence of a deeply unserious idea.

Judith Collins, Simeon Brown, and Erica Stanford trying to convince the public that nurses and teachers are well paid for the work they do is a hilariously dumb comms and political strategy that’s resulting in their feet constantly ending up in their mouths, yet they still persist.

According to Kāpiti's local NIMBYs it’s Waikanae 🤣

There’s plenty of things to disagree with Bishop on, but grabbing a sneaky car power nap ain’t one of them. I’ve grabbed more than a few while doing the school pick up wait over the past few years and highly recommend them 🤣 www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...

Guess who has two thumbs and is doing a guest uni lecture on local government? 😁

Hahahaha Luxon tried to say the line again 🤣

Love it when a local mayoral candidate apparently thinks schools don’t give out homework anymore and that even if they didn’t this is somehow a local govt issue 🤣

Candidates often promise to freeze or slash rates increases while somehow not reducing core council services or infrastructure. Yet if you want to know how they'll achieve this, you'll usually only find vacuous statements rather than transparent costings. 🤨 localaotearoa.substack.com/p/promises-t...

This is unforgiveable incompetence: NZ has spent $671m to get no ferries, rather than $551m to get new ferries that would be arriving within months to replace clapped-out ferries. This sort of mismanagement should bring down a government; amazingly, it's not even the worst example of their failings

Brb off to become TOP’s new leader

This is just such a dumb thing for Luxon to lie about.

Bigly “concept of a plan” energy.

A political stunt? Given the government's offer was effectively a pay cut *while also* demanding secondary teachers work more days during the year, I'm pretty sure the government is getting the response it deserves to what was a fundamentally bad faith offer. www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3607...

I direct NZers attention to who was asking in the House if politicians had backbone in 2008

Got to admire the drive of the ice cream truck owner who’s parked right outside the entrance to the boys’ school to catch the afternoon rush.

Only 2 months until I step down as Mayor, but hopefully into the role of Māori Ward Councillor for WCC to protect that amazing kaupapa we've worked so hard for. But I'll need your help getting elected. I need peeps for: 💚Phone calling bit.ly/45BNqOt 💚Hosting a sign bit.ly/3HwPFKH xx #nzpol

So it turns out that the Boundary Review Commission didn’t lose my submission, but did sort of lose it because they mislabelled it as not for publication, though it did get sent through for consideration. Basically human error, but a reasonable mea culpa and commitment to fix things next time.

Asked about stimulus for struggling urban economies, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon offers some visionary leadership. Be open to stuff. Discuss stuff. Then do the same stuff as always.

Eight year old son’s report on eels took a very dark turn…

Sorry for all the parliamentary process nerdity ... but Brownlee's actions appear to be in contravention of a previous Speakers' ruling by Jonathon Hunt. Brownlee ordered her from the Chamber, hence "the matter is at an end at that point".

Tbf when the Representation Commission loses your submission (after specifically acknowledging back in March that they had received it) spamming them suddenly seems like a more viable strategy... 🙃

Watching the reactions of NIMBYs lately we can safely conclude that they're deeply unserious people, saying deeply unserious things, about a deeply unserious ideology. localaotearoa.substack.com/p/deeply-uns...

According to some NIMBY cookers in Waikanae, privately built townhouses in Waikanae Beach are somehow equivalent to state built apartment complexes in communist Poland, with both apparently being socialism… 🤔🤣

I swear Capital Football is taking the piss. At the ground we’re playing at this morning there’s no toilets (well there are but they’re never unlocked), so god knows what orifice they think we’ll pull a club room with hot chocolates out of 🙄

I submitted on the boundary review, had issues with their web form so emailed it through, got confirmation both were received, yet today there’s no sign of my submission on the boundary review website. Was suggesting the electorate be called Kapiti-Mana with iwi consulted on the macron in Kāpiti.

“wE’rE tUrNiNg A cOrNeR”