During COVID we faced the reality of life or death The govt of the day did their best to prevent more deaths This time we have the reality of not life or death but can we fill our car up with fuel. That's all this govt has to do is get more oil and wow they don't know what's happening #nzpol

I fondly recall that Jacinda had the Covid crisis so throughly in hand that she even told us the Easter Bunny was an essential worker. The thoughtfulness. The attention to detail. On top of saving tens of thousands of lives. #NZPol

If these holidays for IDF is still going on Aotearoa NZ should stop this, lest Israeli Govt get the idea we agree with anything they are doing to civilians in Gaza, South Lebanon, the west bank and Iran. There is no “whitewashing” going on now. #nzpol

Hmm

Can we all shut the fuck up now about Hipkins and his ex, because however strongly you feel about her allegations, this will impact on their kids. They are at that age. Please stop the public gossip & speculation or just do it offline if you absolutely have to

www.instagram.com/p/DWAEsjLjsyZ/ Too many of the original Dirty Politics team have their fingerprints on the furore regarding Hipkins' private life not to see it for what it is - an attempt to distract from Luxon's inadequacies and his government's punishing policies. Let's vote them out!

Greenpeace was just on the steps of Parliament with Chris Hipkins, handing over a petition, which was signed by thousands of New Zealanders, calling on the Luxon government to take a stand on the war in #Iran.

I had dealings with her when she was min of police.. told a pkt of lies and tried to tell me about infection prevention and nursing practice. when I was contracted to the police.

You can literally see where this government increased our exposure to oil price shock There is no reason for this other than oil money funding politics #nzpol

I find it very hard to believe our media cannot simply state, as the report shows, that our COVID response was largely successful with room for improvement. Given these figures on excess mortality, extent of lockdowns and level of debt, how can the coalition complain? #NZpol

Many people reckon Simeon Brown should have asked more questions about the risks of his mandatory higher speed limits in neighbourhoods, around schools & on dangerous highways — evidence that was readily available to him at the time, and that continues to accumulate in the form of injuries & deaths.

Next Govt should have a Royal Commission into the cancellation of the ferries, just to be fair and all

National lamenting $60 billion Covid spend while they are on track to borrow $120 billion with no pandemic. Labour saved 20,000 lives. National are saving landlords and tobacco

National's misrepresentation of the Covid Royal Commission's findings is some of the most pathetic, dishonest, and irresponsible campaigning NZ has seen. #nzpol

UK to bring into force law to tackle #Grok AI deepfakes this week www.bbc.com/news/article... @legallyfeminist.bsky.social

In case Mark has forgotten #nzpol

that about sums it all up

#NZPOL What did Simeon Brown know about NZ's second major health cyber breach? open.substack.com/pub/mountain...

Worth a quick look at the current Govt financial year (to June 2026). Labour scheduled in a chunky operating surplus this year (fantasy forecast). Treasury have up-doomed their forecasts as the prolonged downturn sends revenue well below operating costs. They might be right. [Ends]

A key reason that cutting spending into a downturn is a shit strategy is that it contributes to a tanking tax take - creating a doom loop of spending cuts and revised targets as Govt tries to hit it's operating balance target. [7/n]

What the 2024 and 2025 data shows is that Govts pulled around $10bn of investment in an obvious recessionary period. Even the ghouls would predict that this would cause a prolonged downturn - particularly given how high and long RBNZ held interest rates up. [6/n]

... the economy was tanking and Treasury were panicked into forecasting an operating deficit of over $8bn. Govt merrily chopped & delayed spending to constrain near-term debt forecasts. When the accounts were done, the capital deficit spend was down a chunky $6.4bn on Budget 24 forecast. [5/n]

Now, having stalled the economy proper by choking off investment (aided ably by RBNZ), how did the coalition handle 2025? Well, May 2024 forecasts for year ending June 2025 were for $19bn of net capital spending and a sliver of an operating surplus. Seven months later... [4/n]

What Labour should have known (it was obvs) is that they were tightening into a downturn. The coalition then doubled-down and had even less excuse given the number of lights flashing red. Worth noting that operating deficit (blue) was not actually as bad as predicted a few months before. [3/n]

By mid-2023, Labour were running scared of inflation and related attacks from ghouls. So, by the pre-election update we'd already seen about $4bn of capital spending (net) dropped or pushed back. The coalition pushed harder and the final data showed net capital spend down by $8bn at $16.1bn [2/n]

Finally had time to dive into last week's budget data and update previous work on deficit spending forecasts vs actuals. Let's start with year ending June 2024. Grant's last budget in May 2023 forecast a whopping $30bn of deficit spending (op+cap) - but this fell to $22.2bn by Dec 24. Why? [🧵 1/n]

I know it’s click bait but, knowing people who quite literally cannot access a home in this country, and others who are deciding every week between paying for food, rent or power, and still more being targeted by this government’s policy with no end in sight, “cursed” doesn’t begin to describe 2025.

took this pic of a lil joey a few years back in Tasmania, Australia

In today’s Weekend Herald

#nzpol NBR reports the Min. of Finance saying a "Stronger economy will help the Government’s books". nbr.co.nz/politics/str... The chart (from @labourcartel.bsky.social) might explain the government's current situation. Something happened in late 2023, and things have gotten worse since.

May 2026 is so far away, not fair! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfNL...

The Post - Where something that wasn't news in 2022, is somehow news in 2025. Instead of outlets reporting the news, these days they're trying to make it. #nzpol

This is just getting pathetic

It’s like, stop using me for rage bait. How this paper will survive when I’ve left the country is beyond me 🥴

They just aren’t very good at governance are they?

We have to get rid of them at the next election. The countryside will be in ruins if they get a second term. #nzpol

#nzpol ⬇️🧐⬇️

I am absolutely gutted to hear some douchebag(s) has gone through my crowdfunding rewards and targeted at least one person at their workplace for offering a reward to support me. That is absolutely stink. Imagine being that nasty and petty. It’s the yin to today’s #SecretSantaAoNZ yang.

I’m going mad watching a Japanese programme that insists on calling kiwifruit “kiwis” 😩 Of course I blame the Americans 😒

Goddamit covid. My covid tests said negative so I went and bought one of these. That line went bright red straight away. I knew this wasn’t a normal cold!!

#nzpol Just catching up with the HYEFU data today - but the data looks grim pretty much across the board. One data point stood out to me - the economy will be cumulatively $28.3bn smaller at the next election than predicted by Treasury at the last election.

#nzpol HYEFU data today showed that unemployment is forecast to stay much higher than forecast by Treasury at the last election. There will be 76,000 more people on jobseekers by 2027. Wages going up by less every year than forecast at the last election.

#nzpol HYEFU shows that the OBEGAL deficit is no longer in the same postcode as the National Party Fiscal Plan. We never get close to the surplus being promised - to the tune of -$48bn across the period to 2027/28

At no point in time in the book do I give a debt-to-GDP limit recommendation - I just point out the Treasury analysis and other interpretations. Could Nicola Willis please correct the record?

The book states:

#nzpol In the house today, Nicola Willis said that in my recent book I thought the debt limit for the government should be 80-90% of GDP. As is clear in the book - that is the Treasury's position, not mine. See P.14 of www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/defaul...

This data shows there is no plan to deliver growth. The government is looking at more cuts at the next Budget. We have record numbers of Kiwis on benefits. Its time for a different economic approach - before working people and their families face another year of drift and decline