I have now profiled 62 of the 71 seats being contested, and made predictions for 60 of them. Just nine seats to go.
The running total is:
So I have 36 seats so far as safe, 11 which are likely for a party, 13 which lean towards a party and two that are too close to call.
I’ve only got the nine seats north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge to go.
The Press reports:
Christchurch City Council staff are confident rate increases can be held to 6%, 5% and 4% over the next three years without cutting services or staff.
But they warned councillors the tighter financial position will leave less flexibility and require tough choices.
Councillors were presented with the first full draft of the 2027-37 long-term plan (LTP) on Thursday, showing average rate increase of 6% in 2027/28, 5% in 2028/29 and 4% in 2029/30.
Good to see Christchurch City Council trying to get their rates increases down to a more sustainable level. Auckland and Wellington take note!
On current average of the polls, NZ First would get 12 List MPs. A few people surprised by Ron Mark being relatively low and Harete Hipango-Brownlie being so high.
The left claim that the Government is anti-Maori, and that NZ First is anti-Maori. It is worth noting that six of their top 10 candidate are Māori and a seventh is Cook Islands Māori. I guess they are the wrong sort of Māori!
Nick Mowbray writes:
I’m aware of the criticism we receive for donating to National and ACT. I’m also aware of the false narrative that we lobby the government and expect something in return.
So let me be clear: we have never lobbied the government. Less than 1% of ZURU’s revenue is in New Zealand.
We donate because we care about this country’s future and believe National and ACT have the right talent and strategy to move it forward.
We grew up with that Kiwi number 8 wire mentality. Work hard figure things out and believe you can build something from nothing.
These photos show our second small factory on my parents’ dairy farm in Tokoroa, my brother winning the NZ science fair and our first factory in China. We used fibreglass matting from the Kinleith paper mill as flooring because we had no money. We sprayed weeds and milked cows on weekends to help pay the rent.
Then we moved to China and lived on US$1 a day for many years. No exaggeration. My brother spent close to a decade living in a tiny room inside our first factory. For a decade we worked almost every day from morning until late at night sacrificing pretty much every comfort to keep building.
Today, we compete globally with some of the biggest companies in the world. We employ thousands of people globally including hundreds of Kiwis, and aim to employ thousands more in New Zealand over the next five years. We will surpass NZ$10 billion in revenue next year and are investing heavily back into New Zealand.
That’s the future we want more Kiwis to have the opportunity to build. A New Zealand that rewards hard work and sacrifice backs people willing to take a chance and encourages them to compete globally and bring that success home. A country ambitious about becoming better and more prosperous.
New Zealand gave us a lot. We care deeply about its future. We expect nothing personally in return from any party. We simply want the next generation to have the opportunities we had and the chance to take them even further.
We want NZ to WIN ! build a country of makers not takers 💪
An incredible success story.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins vowed to scrap the requirement for primary schools to spend at least an hour a day teaching reading, writing and maths.
Opportunity have published their five bottom lines for any coalition, and they confirm that they are a party of the left. Their five bottom lines would fit perfectly in a Green Party manifesto.
Jeffrey Archer has died aged 86. He was one of my all time favourite authors. I literally purchased every one of his novels, and all his short stories collections.
Kane and Abel is probably my favourite of his novels. So gripping. Closely followed by First Among Equals and The Prodigal Daughter.
He was also a very talented politician, and a flawed human being. But only Archer could use his prison time to write more best sellers. He has sold more than 275 million books, which would make hime one of the top 30 authors of all time (Shakespeare is first and Agatha Christie 2nd).
Some books you don’t reread, but I find his books so great I will often go back to them after a few years.
He always has a twist at the end of his stories, and it reminds me once when I was flying to Zurich and reading one of his novels. I had around 10 pages to go and I let out a fairly loud yell on the plane. The stewardess came over and asked me what the problem was. I showed her the book, and how there was a misprint with the final 10 pages being a copy of the first 10 pages. This meant I was stuck in the air for a further 10 hours, unable to find out how the book ended. Fortunately I managed to find an English language edition in Switzerland, where I finished the book.
NZ has had a purely online passport application process for (off memory) well over a decade. I’ve often raved about how good it is, and also how quick it is. I got my latest passport three working days after I applied – and that was a non-urgent application.
The Herald reports:
Since the 1880s, a 37-acre site in the leafy Auckland suburb of Epsom was used to train teachers.
Now Epsom MP and Act Leader David Seymour wants the site, empty since the last of the University of Auckland students left in 2024, to be the new location of an unzoned, co-educational public school.
And not just any school – one jointly operated by two of the country’s top state facilities – the neighbouring Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls Grammar.
“They would like to co-sponsor a co-educational high school in the ethos of those two excellent schools,” Seymour told the Herald while walking through the empty university grounds.
“The motivation is that if this land becomes housing, it will put huge pressure on their rolls. On the other hand, if they can add a new high-quality school to Auckland, then that’s got to be a good thing for everybody.”
This is an incredible visionary plan. There are so many parents in Auckland who would love to send their kids to a school in the ethos of AGS or EGGS, but can’t afford the median $3.2 million house price.
37 acres is a huge site, so the school could be as large as needed by demand. I suspect it would soon become the largest school in NZ.
Thanks to Ruth Richardson, Governments can no longer hide the state of the accounts from the electorate, The pre-election fiscal and economic update is mandatory. The 2026 one is here. And for the first time in many years it looks positive. Key details:
It is critical we get back into surplus and start reducing debt (before the next global economic shock). A change of government will doom this prospect.
Here’s how much extra spending the four parties of the left are promising:
The higher our debt goes, the more money that we have to spend on interest on the debt, rather than on education and health etc.
A couple of weeks ago, six parents launched The Parents Alliance, a new group to be a voice for parents in the education system.
We already have over 3,300 supporters signed up, which is amazing. But our aim is to have over 100,000 parents, grandparents and supporters signed up. Our ability to influence education policy for the positive benefit of families and kids will be proportional to how many people support us.
We have an amazing board chaired by former ANZ Chief Economist Cameron Bagrie. Cameron correctly says the economic performance of NZ in 30 years time will be dependent on the education system of today.
Some quick links for those interested are:
I’ve been involved in this initiative for around three years now. The impetus was when the “experts” produced a draft science curriculum that did not mention physics, biology or chemistry. This is when I realised that parents needed to speak up. Few things are more important to us than the education our kids receive.
Please sign up. Feel free to share with your friends who are parents or grandparents. Our kids’ education is too important for parents not to have an assertive and effective voice.
Labour’s so called fiscal plan is a fraud. First here is what Barbara Edmonds said on Newstalk ZB:
Well, for example, a choice that we would not make is $300 million for a tobacco excise tax cut. Okay. That means there is $300 million more that is a choice. So only $12.7 billion more to find?
This is a lie. The actual cost of a 50% reduction in excise tax on heated tobacco products has been $2.25 million, not $300 million. That is actual hard data. So Labour’s Finance Spokesperson is out by a factor of 100, in her finances.
This is beyond dishonest.
Their fiscal plan shows $365 million of revenue from removing the 50% discount on heated tobacco products. The actual revenue it will bring in is $2.25 million a year.
On top of that whopper, Nicola Willis has also found $16 billion of other spending they have forgotten to include.
Paul Goldsmith announced:
Legislation which disestablishes the Broadcasting Standards Authority has been introduced to Parliament today, Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith says.
“Our Government promised to get this legislation into the House before we rise. Today we’re delivering.
“New Zealand’s media landscape has changed dramatically, but our regulatory settings have not kept up. For some time now audiences have moved seamlessly between traditional broadcasting, on‑demand services, podcasts and online platforms – yet only a small portion of that content is subject to the BSA’s oversight. It doesn’t make sense, and can create inconsistencies and unfair outcomes for media providers.
“The reality is, the BSA regime was designed for a broadcasting environment that is rapidly disappearing.
“I’m confident greater industry self-regulation is the most practical way to level the playing field across platforms, and can provide an appropriate level of oversight to maintain ethical journalistic standards and audience trust.
“Print media already self regulates through the New Zealand Media Council, and some broadcasters have opted to be part of it. Our expectation is the Media Council will become the primary regulator for journalism.
Good to see the bill introduced.
The Herald reports:
A protection order was supposed to keep a woman safe.
Instead, a judge said it proved “no better than a piece of soiled toilet paper” as her partner hunted her down, beat her, threatened her life and raped her during a sustained attack that left her fearing she would die.
Now the Northland man has been jailed in the Whangārei District Court for nine years after being convicted of multiple violent offences, including rape, assault and threatening to kill.
For once this isn’t about the sentence. It seems reasonable. It is about this aspect:
But on the second day of the trial, her evidence took a turn.
“She was now saying that everything she said in her evidential interview … was just a pack of lies,” Judge McDonald said.
“Apart from telling the truth about her age, her name, and the number of children she had and their names, everything else was untrue.
“You never assaulted her, you never supplied her with drugs, you never raped her. She painted you as a loving, gentle giant of a man who did everything that you could for her, and that she was the one that was violent, she was the one that was disrespectful, she was the one who was addicted to methamphetamine, she was the one who wouldn’t look after her children.”
Judge McDonald said he allowed the Crown to cross-examine her and, although she accepted some events, she continued to deny the vast majority.
Both the jury and judge rejected her evidence and found the man guilty of the charges.
It’s this part I find so sad. She was raped and almost killed by this man. Yet during his trial, she perjures himself to try and protect him.
I understand who some women do this. They think they won’t get anyone better. They think that as flawed as the man is, at least he is her man etc. So I am not blaming the poor woman.
I just find it so very very sad that she thought she had to do this, to protect this awful man.
I hope with him behind bars, she can find a better life.
The Mental Health Foundation has published its scorecard of the parties With regard to mental health. Reflects very well on Mental health Minister Matt Doocey who has been the first dedicated Minister for Mental health.
The Taxpayers’ Union has published their 2026 manifesto. Some extracts:
Chris Lynch reports:
HarperCollins and author Byron Clark have publicly apologised to Conservative Party leader Helen Houghton after she challenged her inclusion in a chapter about the Alt Right in Clark’s book Fear: New Zealand’s hostile underworld of extremists.
Authorbook signing
The settlement is significant because Clark was regularly presented by New Zealand media outlets as a researcher and commentator on far right extremism, while his work was given substantial exposure through outlets including RNZ and The Spinoff.
Houghton objected to being named in a chapter titled “Women and the Alt Right”, arguing that placing her in that context could lead readers to believe she associated with, or shared the views of, far right extremists.
The left love to label anything that moves as far right or alt right. Clark is a hard left activist, and media treating him as an authority on the far right is very misguided. He’s very entitled to his views, but they should not be seen as anything more than that.
Owen Jennings writes:
Last week our worthy host, David, suggested that any encouragement to National party supporters to split their vote would be madness. It’s a view that is reinforced on any busy street corner adorned with blue-backgrounded billboards carrying the need for National to gain both party and electorate votes.
In every election since MMP was unfortunately foisted on us, such entreaties would have been logical and supportable. David’s reaction was right, “two ticks, blue” was a winning strategy for National based on historical data. Looking back over all those elections – except the last one and, now this one coming, National had a sensible approach.
But this isn’t “every election”. It is different, unique. Centre parties who have dominated politics forever have found themselves polling in the mid and high ‘twenties’ only. It’s at a level that will yield less than 40 seats in Parliament even allowing for “wasted” votes from parties under the 5% threshold to be factored in. National and Labour could easily end up with a Party List vote that awards them as low as 30 seats total. Remember its only the Party List vote that determines how many seats a party wins. Electorate seats are filled first and the names on the party’s list are added.
That could well mean when the votes are added up and Electorate seats are added in first National will have won more of those Electorate seats than they are entitled to with their Party Vote.
National could quite likely win over 37 – 38 Electorate seats. They could even win a couple of new ones – Wigram from boundary changes and Auckland Central from a strong candidate.
At 29% in current polling National would get 35 to 37 seats – if polling figures reflect into Party List votes. Remember National has got down as low as 21% in 2002 election.
It is possible they will pick up a few points, but the fact remains with their high number of Electorate Seats the following outcomes are almost certain:
It is as simple as this. If National voters put the needs of the country ahead of party and conclude that a Coalition of the centre right is urgently needed, they desperately need to split their vote.
Hold their nose, shut one eye or do whatever is needed to use their Party List to vote for NZFirst or ACT.
Otherwise, the unthinkable could happen and we are into heavy taxing, runaway expenditure, increasing debt – an outcome that we could not recover from in a lifetime.
Is this suggesting there should be calls from the top National to drop the “two ticks, blue” campaign? No. It is simply saying that circumstances have changed from previous elections. Voters who want the centre right cannot afford ‘wasted votes’ when the centre left is strategising to create its own overhang and take the House.
It is country first, party aside.
Splitting votes. Supporting National’s electorate candidates ahead of anyone else with the Electorate vote.
It’s a case of voting for a Coalition, not a party. A partner. With the Party List vote.
The alternative is unthinkable.
DPF: I allow guest posts from people who disagree with me. My original post is here.
One is a former ACT MP, and it is no surprise he advocates for something that will help ACT.
My view is crystal clear. Any attempt to win the election through an overhang strategy will almost certainly fail (to succeed you would need a massive overhang), would devastate National in a way it may never recover from, and would generate a huge public backlash.
The way to get the Government re-elected is to win more party votes than the Opposition. It is that simple.
National MPs are not interchangeable with NZ First (or ACT MPs). If you want more National MPs and more National Ministers, then party vote National. If you are an ACT supporter and want more ACT MPs, then sure party vote ACT.
But do not think you are actually helping National by not giving them your party vote. You are not.
ACT announced:
End compulsory employer collection of union membership fees and make payroll deductions voluntary. Currently, employers must collect and transfer union fees under the Employment Relations Act. Union membership is a relationship between an employee and their union, and employers should not be legally required to administer fee collection on the union’s behalf.
All other incorporated societies have to collect their own membership dues from members. It is pretty easy to do so with Internet banking APs. But unions should have the legislative privilege of forcing employers to collect their fees for them.