It is very clear that many media organisations do not support the Government’s proposed link tax to fund legacy media platforms. The legacy media of course want it – especially NZME and Stuff.

The good news is the Government may be listening, and the bill is not proceeding this week to second reading, as planned.

Smaller new media outlets like Chris Lynch and The Platform have been vocally against the bill. Lynch has warned it will harm him. Now some may dismiss them as they are seen as politically to the right (ie not left). But look at who else is against it.

No one could call Alastair as being from the right. Scoop is the longest surviving left platform in NZ, and they are against it.

Newsroom seem to be against it also, and they are certainly not on the right.

And Richard Harman from Politik is also against it. I’ve known Richard for over 30 years and have no idea what his personal politics are!

So this is not a left vs right thing. This is a new media vs legacy media thing. What is good for NZME and Stuff is not the same as being good for all media. In fact it could be very damaging for media diversity.

Euro News reports:

The ruling German coalition has collapsed: Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democrats (SPD) has sacked Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the Liberals (FDP). 

The leaders of what is known in Germany as the “traffic light coalition” – SPD, FDP and the Greens – had gathered at the chancellery in Berlin in the evening. 

About an hour after the news was broken by several media outlets, Chancellor Scholz faced the press and criticised his finance minister in no uncertain terms:

Lindner “has broken my trust too many times”, Scholz said, adding that there is “no more basis of trust for further cooperation”. The FDP leader is “more concerned with his own clientele and the survival of his own party”, Scholz remarked.

The Finance Minister was simply insisting that the Government stick to its agreed spending and tax rules, but the two left wing parties wanted to try spending their way out of trouble.

The Chancellor has an approval rating of just 18%. Compare that to Angela Merkel who had a median rating of 76% during her 16 years in office. Government approval is 14% vs 85% disapproval.

The current polling has the parties as:

• SPD (centre left) 16% (-10% from election)
• CDU (centre right) 33% (+14%)
• AFD (far right) 18% (+8%)
• Greens (centre left) 11% (-4%)
• FDP (centre right) 4% (-7%)
• Linke (left) 3% (-2%)

So when they have elections next year, a CDU/CSU led Government is very likely. However they will not want to go into coalition with the AFD, so will either need to do a grand coalition of possibly even a government with the Greens.

I am a huge advocate for the Charter School policy and appreciate the intent of Associate Minister Seymour to bring it back. My new Charitable Company has four applications in so I understand the risk of criticising what is happening. I have to though as the process so far has been incredibly poor and for this good policy idea to work things must change immediately.

The Charter Schools application process has been BIZARRE to say the least. E.g. my organisation has 4 applications in, within budget, with remarkable people, very high quality support and significant demand from families. We have not been asked a single question by the Charter School Agency or the Authorisation Board. The CSA funded application assistant – a very well known educator – consiered out applications to be of a very high standard. I can only assume we will be awarded four contracts but have laid a formal complaint with the Associate Minister about the process (see below).

1. ACT are, in theory, about saving taxpayer money. I was therefore simply astounded to see this on SEEK:

“The Head of Performance and Monitoring is an Executive Leadership role within the Charter School Agency.

Salary range: $175,616 – $263,424 per annum total remuneration (base salary plus employer superannuation contribution).https://www.seek.co.nz/Ministry-of-Education-jobs?page=2&jobId=80050071&type=standout

Each year I do a data process for the 460 high schools in NZ on a full range of their data. It is a big and complex job and I set four weeks aside to do it. 

I have read the job description for above and I am absolutely certain it would be two weeks work … for $263K.  It is close to half of what the Secretary for Education earns.

Unfortunately it is in keeping with the efficiency of the Charter School Agency at present that is not yet notifying schools that are to start in Term 1 2025 … and it is mid-November. Plus the secrecy involved has been off the planet.

2. I sent the following Offical Complaint in on Monday. I have heard nothing back from his office or the CSA.

Dear Mr Seymour – as Associate Minister of Education

Myself and the Board of Directors of Education 710+ have very significant concerns about the Charter School application process – including the behaviour of some of the officials involved.

We currently have four applications that we are told are “live”. Two are in central Auckland (a Year 0 – 8, and a Year 11 – 13 UE focussed and ideal for bringing Maori and Pasifika students in). One is in Epsom (a Year 7 – 10 primarily designed for neuro-diverse learners). One in Warkworth (Year 7 – 10 that already has 100 families waiting).

We have an outstanding Board of 9 highly capable people. We have support from educators like John Hattie, Dame Wendy Pye and others. We have inspirational people like Hamish Kerr putting his name in to be involved. We have inner city support from Simon Bridges and Viv Beck.

We also have 100s of families and many teachers who have been in wait mode for a very long time. 

Add to that we have 3 wealthy individuals and one organisation who have offered us the use of their remarkable buildings – investing millions because, up until now, they have believed in the model. They have been waiting months for indications/approvals.

We also have major suppliers – e.g. for IT – who have also been in wait mode.

We are well and truly ready to go and can have all four schools flying by February of next year.

We are not just expressing concerns from us but have heard from many of the other applicants who are bemused – at best.

We have concerns about some of the behaviours of Jane Lee. We have stuck to protocols – however Jane directly rang me after the first online applicant briefing to ask me how I thought things had gone. 

She then arranged for me to speak, online, with a number of their people about the assessment strategies I would recommend.

All applicants met the stage 1 deadline – but the CSA decided that they would extend their own time frames by a week. We have been frequently told that the CSA’s role was merely to decide if we were fit and proper people and capable of delivering.

We then received a bizarre letter from Jane Lee  telling us that one of our applications had made stage 2 – but we (Education 710+) had to choose which one. In that letter Jane clearly indicated that she wanted three of our applications removed because of the “high number of applicants”. It is, therefore clear, that they were not looking for the 15 best applications (i.e. not looking for the 15 best schools to serve the NZ education system/families/taxpayer) they merely wanted to spread them around the applicants. Is that what you, as Minister, stipulated?

What then followed was an online meeting with Jane Lee and Chris Richards. Jane refused to record the meeting when I requested it. I recorded it anyway as is my habit after years of experience with Ministry officials. The meeting was not pleasant for either party. Eventually they acknowledged that they were wrong and that – if we were fit for purpose and capable for one – then all four were required to go through to stage 2 as applicants had been told repeatedly. 

It is important to note that we have not had a conversation with a genuine educator during this process and the application documents were certainly not written by one. We have been asked very little about curriculum and very little about genuine assessment plans. The application documents were repetitive and some questions simply did not make sense. The key people are procurement people – Chris Richards who is an expert in waste management, Helen Saville whose qualification is in fashion and a young stats graduate. 

It was also clear that Chris Richards, etc, had not read any of the previous Charter School evaluations and knew very little about the policy in general.

The next online meeting was inexplicably cameras off and applicants were fully muted. It cannot have been to keep secret who were in stage 2 as all of the applicants names were up when they logged in. Why be secretive anyway? Why not actually take questions in a public/private partnership application process?

There was significant insistence from the CSA/Jane that they would be providing advice/rankings to the Authorisation Board (touted as an “Independant Body”.)

Applicants were then told that those who were likely to be approved would see draft contracts in the week of October 21 – 24. This didn’t happen.

The next notification (below) informed that the Authorisation Board had “finished their review” of applicants and that no one would then know about approval until November 15. Applicants were also told that the AB would contact applicants by email if they needed clarifications. No interviews were mentioned.

During the last week, as the applicants are very open with each other, applicants became aware that some applicants had been interviewed by the AB and others had not. Even those interviewed found that process confusing and were not sure of the point.

As I said – we will be ready to go by February – if approved – others, including some interviewed are much less certain.

These aspects raise major questions. 

– By October 28 had the AB decided that some of the applicants would not be approved?

If that is so and the applicants have not been informed that is appalling. It also has huge financial, and potentially legal, ramifications. Like in our case – we have 4 property owners who have put their incomes on hold and not sought other tenants. One has had to delay a major property purchase a number of times as he took the CSA’s time-line to be accurate. Likewise applicants have put many aspects of their lives on hold – as well as having waiting stakeholders – including MANY families who are frequently contacting applicants as they are looking for the best for their children and actually have to make choices.

In our situation – if not approved as Charter Schools for all four schools we would have been sending in Designated Character School applications (our model is approved with a designated Character as it is largely the one I wrote for South Auckland Middle School and Middle School West Auckland). I will send all four applications directly to you later today for approval as Designated Character Schools. As you are well aware it is a waste of time sending these to the Ministry. When I applied, three times under Hipkins, all were turned down. Jo Martin and others met with you – and you advised them to “play the long game” until you had decision-making power. Now is the time. 

Also – for at least two of the sites we would be also stongly consider a private school application.

– If decisions were not made by October 28 – why have some applicants been interviewed (with attempts to swear them to secrecy) and others not?

All of our applications clearly meet the criteria. Our Board is outstanding. The staff in waiting are of the highest quality and there is ample demand. I am also well aware of many of the other applicants and what they may bring.

I can only assume that we will be approved (unless people have another agenda) and that the AB simply has no questions for us. 

That does not lessen the frustration of huge concern about the nature of the process and the way the applicants (and all of their stakeholders) have been treated. Including the bizarre elimination of Crimson – who could genuinely change the education environment in NZ. I was speaking to a group of 35 State School Principals in Hamilton yesterday. There was a Correspondence School leader there who informed the meeting that they now have over 30,000 enrolments – and we know the outcomes they are getting.

David – we are aware of how important this policy is and we have/had significant belief in it. So far this process has been significantly worse than 2013 – 2017. In fact the transition process under Labour to State schools was far better and is likely a key reason why the former Charter Schools have not returned (nor are many State or State Integrated Schools looking to transition).

We look forward to a timely reply and actions for us and all applicants. There is significant media interest and, if asked, I will be sharing this letter.

Yours 

NB: CSA email below, Jane Lee email below (with my emphasis added).

Alwyn Poole
[email protected]
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd
(both sites currently being re-done)
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

Kia ora,

The Authorisation Board have conducted their review of all stage two applications and are now seeking clarifications before they make their final decisions. If your application requires clarification, we will be in touch with you by email.

Once the Board has all the information that they require to make their decisions, they will communicate these which will allow approved sponsors to be passed back to the Charter School Agency to commence contract negotiations.

We expect that we will be in a position to communicate all of the Board’s decisions by 15 November 2024. Please note that this date is an estimate which may change.

All decisions will be conveyed to you formally with a letter by email.

Kia pai tō rā

Applications Team

Charter School Agency

Good morning Alwyn

Thank you for your response to our feedback so far, which was intended to assist you at this stage of the application process.

You have indicated that you wish to proceed further with all four of your applications as we proceed into the next stage of the process so far. As I have said, that is your choice and all the applications that you want to proceed with will be fully supported in the process (as needed) in the same way as all the applications going through this next stage. Your applications will be presented to the Authorisation Board when it meets to consider the many applications received.

In terms of the remit of the Charter School Agency, our role is to make recommendations to the Board to assist it in its role, and we are clear that the Board is the decision-maker.

Nga mihi

Jane Lee

Jane Lee
Chief Executive
Charter School Agency
charterschools.govt.nz

The Teaching Council is the body in New Zealand that registers teachers. They published last year their guidance for teachers when it comes to political involvement. They noted:

Teachers have the same rights to freedom of speech and political activity in your private lives as any New Zealander. Chatting about politics or policy in private conversation with colleagues in the staffroom or campaigning for a party in the weekend is all good (in general).

However, when acting as an employee, best practice is to be politically neutral (the Public Service Act has been amended, and teachers are now clearly part of the public service).

So this is pretty clear. Teachers can do politics as citizens, but not when acting in their professional capacity. They explicitly say teachers should not:

using my authority as a teacher to undermine the personal beliefs of my learners or inappropriately influence them to take a course of action

Now look at what Naenae School has done.

This is appalling. If teachers want to take leave and attend a protest march that is fine, but here the principal is announcing the school is taking an institutional stance on the Treaty of Principles Bill and they are taking the whole school to join in a protest march against the Government’s bill.

Apart from the ethical stance of using 5 – 10 year olds as pawns in a protest, the teachers doing this are clearly breaching the Teaching Council guidelines.

It is not clear who made the decision, but the principal is the leader of the school so is responsible. His name is Murray Bootten.

I would encourage people to file formal complaints that this action is a breach of the Teaching Council guidelines. Send them to the board chair and the Teaching Council. The board chair is Tina Renata. They don’t list an e-mail for her but use the office e-mail address. And you can fill in the Teaching Council form here.

I want to be very clear this is not to do with what their views are as an individual. If they want to attend a protest march as individuals, fine. But to bus in school children to a protest march is a breach of their professional standards, and their role as state employees funded by taxpayers.

And here you have a principal saying that their taxpayer funded school supports the protest march, and they will mark any student missing school to attend as having a justified absence. This is both breaching the law, and the Teaching Council neutrality standards.

The SWIS board chair is Mel Millington. You need to complaint to her first in order for the Teaching Council to then consider your complaint. But as the note says the board supports the decision, don’t expect a positive response. So also complain to with the Teaching Council form here.

Again this is not about their personal views. This is against what is a form of abuse – pushing their partisan political views on children.

The Post reports:

Two new tunnels are planned for Wellington as Transport Minister Simeon Brown confirms the preferred options for how residents get around.

Brown announced on Tuesday afternoon the board of NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi had decided what it wanted for the city: A 0.7km Mount Victoria Tunnel parallel to the existing tunnel, a 0.5km Terrace Tunnel parallel to the existing tunnel, extending the Arras tunnel under the Pukeahu National War memorial, and changes for traffic around the Basin Reserve.

This sounds good – the two extra tunnels will allow the long awaited four lanes from the airport to Otaki/Levin.

The board of the agency had decided against pursuing a previously discussed long tunnel under the city, which Brown had said could save up to 15 minutes for people travelling to the airport and be built with much less disruption to the city centre.

I liked that option, but I suspect the price was horrendously high.=

The FP reports:

When Houston Porter, a 28-year-old law student at Pace University, first walked into the college auditorium last month, he was surprised to see a packed house for the “Saving Women’s Sports” panel he was co-moderating. 

“Our events normally don’t get that kind of turnout,” says Porter, a member of The Federalist Society, a conservative group that sponsored the panel at Pace’s law school in White Plains, New York. “So it was exciting.”

But not long after, Porter’s world started “crumbling down”—with at least one professor shouting at panelists and another allegedly rushing the stage, followed by a Title IX investigation that accuses him of having “aggressively pointed” at a transgender student and misgendering her. Now Porter faces the possibility of suspension, expulsion, and even being barred from practicing law.

So the professors try to shout down the speakers and rush the stage, and nothing happens to them. But a student faces suspension for aggressive pointing!

Radio NZ reports:

Brosnan said the big issue was the lack of consultation with iwi and hapū prior to the raids.

Why on earth would Police consult prior to a police raid on gangs and alleged drug dealers?

Semafor reports:

Both sides have accused the other of engaging in a lengthy negotiation process that has stretched over two years. The Guild has put forward a number of proposals that management has balked at in totality, including a four-day work week coupled with significant increases in pay, full coverage of all health care premiums for employees and family members, guaranteed RSU grants for all members of the unit, and non-performance-based annual bonuses, all of which the company estimates would cost over $100 million over three years.

Management says that the Guild has bogged down negotiations with what the paper sees as outlandish, even illegal, proposals. As Semafor previously reported, the Guild proposed a ban on scented products in break rooms, unlimited break time, and accommodations for pet bereavement, as well as mandatory trigger warnings in company meetings discussing events in the news.

Times management has been frustrated by proposals that would provide more money for nonwhite staff and others from underrepresented communities to attend conferences, and language that would prioritize non-citizens in the US on visas in the case of layoffs — both of which the paper pointed out couldn’t be fulfilled because they likely violate employment laws.

So the staff demands are:

• An extra $100 million for 600 staff, being around $55,000 more per year each
• A ban on scented products
• Unlimited breaks
• Pet bereavement leave
• Trigger warnings for the news
• Prioritising non-citizens over US citizens for jobs

The reality some people live in, is amazing.

In this post I look at what the absolute and relative change in support for Trump was between 2016 and 2024 with various demographics based on the exit polls. So going from 15% to 30% is a 100% increase in relative support (and a 15% increase in absolute support).

Gender

So Trump improved slightly more with women in an absolute sense, and quite a lot better in a relative sense. So this wasn’t about Trump attracting more sexist men who didn’t want a woman President.

Age

Not quite a youthquake but Trump got 7% more with under 45% and 3% less with over 65s. The very young under 25s had support for him rise by one quarter.

Race

This is stunning. Trump made no gains with white voters but went up 18% with Latino voters, 12% Asians and 5% Blacks. His share of the Latino and Black votes increased by almost two thirds.

He also got 65% of the Native American vote, but no comparative data for that.

Race and Gender

So Trump went down with the patriarchy (white men) and had his biggest increase with Latino men and Latino women. His relative gains with black men and women are also massive.

Race and Age

With whites, younger whites went slightly towards Trump, and older whites slightly away.

Older black voters went away from Trump but he had a consistent 6% gains from Blacks under 65.

Latinos were more even with their increased support for Trump – ranged from 16% to 21% over all age groups.

Education

Trump had a 12% gain with those who did high school only, and a 5% gain with all non-college graduates. Very little change with college graduates.

Education by race and gender

Trump’s 2016 victory was put down to white non-college voters. But he did not gain from them in 2024. He stayed at 66%. He dropped 3% with whit college graduates.

Breaking those down by gender he increased 2% with white non-college women and dropped with all other white voters.

It’s the non-white voters where he gained 14% with non-white voters with no degree and 10% with non-white voters with a degree. So working class voters of colour went from 20% to 34% for Trump – a 70% relative increase.

Income

This should worry the Democrats. Trump fell with all income brackets over $100,000 family income but grew with all brackets under $100,000. Up a large 12% with those earning $30k to $50k.

Marital Status

Trump gained support with both men and women, married and not married. While unmarried women were his weakest demographic, it was also the one that grew the most – from 32% to 38%.

Religion

Trump’s biggest increase from 2016 was with Catholics. He fell slightly with Jewish voters.

Area

Trump’s support grew the most in the cities, but he of course still did better in rural and suburban areas.

Other Demographics

Trump’s support in union households went up 3%. He got 65% of the Veteran vote – up 5%. His share of the LGBT vote was down 1%.

Most importantly he won 56% of first time voters – up 18% from 2016.

So overall what groups did Trump most improve with. They were:

• Young voters
• Latino voters
• Asian voters
• Black male voters
• Those who only did high school
• Voters earning under $50k
• Catholics
• 1st time voters

When you look at that list, none of these scream traditional republican groups. This was one of the more extraordinary realignments in voting support I have seen. What we don’t yet know is whether it is a one time thing, or will continue.

The Auditor-General announced:

The Auditor-General has decided to inquire into the systems and processes that help Ministers to identify and manage conflicts of interest, with a particular focus on Ministerial decisions about which projects to include in the Fast-track Approvals Bill. 

This is good. I support the Fast-track Approvals Bill, but any decision by Ministers around eligible projects does need to be done in a way where it is clear that personal interests play no part in decisions.

The Guardian reports:

Merseyside police announced last week that 18-year-old Rudakubana, who is accused of murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport in July, had been charged with two further offences – producing the toxin ricin and possessing an “al-Qaeda training manual”.

The force said the new charges had not changed counter-terrorism policing’s decision not to declare the Southport attack terrorism, and urged people not to jeopardise Rudakubana’s forthcoming trial with speculation.

So he burst into a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop for children and stabbed 11 children and two adults, killing three children. He has a supply of ricin, and a study of a terrorist training manual.

Yet somehow this was not a terrorist attack!

Being terrorism doesn’t mean multiple people were involved. It is the unlawful use of violence in pursuit of political aims.

1 News reports:

But Labour leader Chris Hipkins said there is “absolutely no evidence to suggest that this is going to reduce smoking”.

“It’s a $200 million-plus tax cut to the country’s biggest tobacco company,” he said.

This is a falsehood, no ifs and no buts.

I deal with this here. The Government has agreed to halve tax on heated tobacco products to see if that will lead to more smokers using them, instead of cigarettes. They are less harmful.

The actual tax on these products is $5.97 million, so the reduction in tax is $3 million, not $200 million.

So what is this $200 million figure? It is an estimate of the reduced tax revenue from smoking, on the assumption 7,200 smokers stop smoking, and substitute to heated tobacco products.

This is not a tax reduction on tobacco companies. It is less taxation, as fewer people smoke and fewer cigarettes are purchased. Labour are complaining that there will be less tax revenue from smoking, because fewer people will smoke.

The media should not just repeat claims that are so fundamentally false.

A 16 year old almost beat a man to death. Instead of being sent to prison for attempted murder, he “avoided a jail sentence and was given a stern warning to stay out of trouble or he’d come up for sentencing again.”

The offending involved:

• Attacking the man as he lay in his bed at home
• Was armed with a crowbar
• Hit him in the face and teeth
• Fractured his leg so badly a bone stuck out
• Multiple bones broken, as hit over 50 times with a crowbar and hammer

When police arrived they found the badly injured man with his face covered in blood and a fractured bone sticking out of one of his legs.

“They hit me in the teeth … There was blood everywhere… They just laughed,” the victim would later say in court.

His staying out of trouble lasted three months. He then robbed a man, stole from a petrol station, and resisted arrest.

He went back before the same judge, who this time gave him …. 12 months home detention.

Wow, that will really teach him not to offend.

NewstalkZB reports:

Auckland Council’s cultural and economic agency, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, has defended the cost of a campaign aimed at getting people to feel more positive about the city.

Figures obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act showed Tātaki spent a total of $737,208.58 to address what it said was a decline in perceptions of Auckland among locals and the rest of the country. …

The mayor told RNZ it was a waste of money.

“I am very dubious about the merits of this particular campaign,” he said.

“Spending over $730,000 of ratepayers’ money on some bloke from Finland having a sauna and eating a kebab while telling us Auckland makes him happy doesn’t sound like value to me.”

I’m with the Mayor.

In July 2021 Australian Labor Leader Anthony Albanese promised to”deliver the same legislated tax relief to more than 9 million Australians as the Morrison Government”.

Then in February 2024, Australian Labor reneged on their promise and abandoned Stage III of the legislated tax relief.

In June 2024 UK Labour shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised no significant tax increases and in October 2024 announced 40 billion pounds of new taxes – the second largest increase in history.

Is this a pattern? Labour Parties promise one thing on tax, and then once they are in, break that promise.

The Post reports:

New figures show that a “frustrating” cycleway beneath the noses of a disapproving Government has made for a longer bus commute.

The issue of the new Molesworth St bike lane, outside Parliament, was brought to the fore this week with reported “gridlock” on surrounding streets stretching all the way to Bowen St, where one person reported a 20-minute bus ride to Karori took an hour on Tuesday night.

While the Wellington City Council said a number of factors including a traffic light issue and construction caused Tuesday evening’s congestion, new figures from the Greater Wellington Regional Council show that bus commutes through the area are taking longer since the new cycle lane was installed.

Molesworth Street is effectively a motorway onramp. It is one of the worst streets to put a cycleway on, let alone the terrible design they have gone for (the cycleway is between parked cars and the footpath).

Yesterday I covered the first 5 reasons why Trump won. Here are the last 5.

6. Greatly improved Republican ground game

There are four areas where Republican efforts more closely matched or even exceeded those of the Democrats whereas in all four, GOP campaigns in 2020 were significantly outspent and outsmarted:

• Media spending. Trump was outspent by Clinton by 3:1 in 2016 and by Biden 5:1 in 2020. Whilst Trump closed the gap in 2020 somewhat with free publicity from his controversial statements (something that is called earned media), the volume of Democrat material disseminated to voters was vastly more in 2020. In 2024 this gap was significantly narrowed to the point where, allowing for Trump’s natural publicity seeking antics, it is fair to say there was virtual parity for the first time in many election cycles,

• Ballot harvesting. There are legal variations as to the extent of ballot harvesting that can be done depending on relevant state law but regardless of that, in 2020 Republican campaigns engaged in zero ballot harvesting. That changed dramatically in 2024. Both the formal Trump campaign and various offshoots such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action and Scott Pressler hired hundreds of young people across most of the swing states to actively chase ballots. This was encouraging low propensity voters to register and vote early in states that allowed it and the chasing of high propensity voters on election day to ensure they voted. Each used sophisticated Apps that fed from real data from state election offices that identify voters yet to cast a vote by party affiliation where allowed. These groups wrung out 10,000’s of votes many of them from people who had either never voted or rarely voted. The most dramatic example of this was Pressler’s efforts just in Pennsylvania where he and his team registered 180,000 Amish! The Amish traditionally don’t vote but regulatory overreach by the Democrat administration in Pennsylvania in seizing and destroying raw milk so upset the Amish that they were propelled into political activism and voted en-mass for Trump.
• Campus outreach. Charlie Kirk, as a young 30-year-old articulate and knowledgeable debater, had for years visited large university campuses across America but in the run up to 2024, he ramped up his efforts. Often all it involved was setting up a TPUSA tent and advertising that he was there to answer any questions from student voters with a particular emphasis on Harris or non-committed voters. Kirk’s exchanges are legendary and as the swell of support for Trump grew, these events attracted thousands of students each time and Kirk gave away 1,000s of MAGA hats each time at literally hundreds of events over the years. Exit polls show that Trump made huge inroads into the Gen Z vote and won a plurality of Gen Z males, and this result was largely because of Charlie Kirk’s efforts, and this campus outreached was barely matched by the Democrats.
• Defensive lawfare. Trump’s campaign in 2020 ran out of money 3 weeks out from the election for anything other than his huge rallies. Media advertising almost dried up and there was no money to pay lawyers to defend the vote from illegal actions by mostly Democrat election officials at the state and county level. In contrast, in 2024 a vast sum was spent recruiting hundreds of lawyers and hundreds of thousands of poll watchers and these lawyers were judiciously deployed in battleground states and were phenomenally successful. Various incidents cropped up in the weeks leading up to the election and on the day itself from shutting down early voting lines too early, to deliberately malfunctioning machines to barring Republican poll watchers. The lawyers were specific to each states’ election laws and swiftly intervened and the threat of legal action was often enough to get a behaviour change and when legal action made it to court, the well documented evidence was almost always sufficient to have a capricious and incorrect ruling or procedure overturned or aligned with state law. NONE of this was possible in 2020. There were myriads of acts of fraud and election malfeasance committed in 2020 and none of them could be intercepted on or before election day and often they were left to be litigated after the event when courts often ruled against Trump and the GOP due to out of time filing or lack of standing. This time around small, localised attempts at fraud were intercepted and quickly dealt with. Whilst there was undoubtedly fraud in places on November 5^th, this time it was far less impactful because of the aggressive defensive lawfare waged by the Trump campaign.
• 7. The fall of legacy media and the rise of alternative media

Donald Trump began labeling the mainstream media as fake news pretty early into his 2016 campaign. Since then, he has gone a step further and often called the MSM “the enemy of the people”. It has been known for many decades that the world’s legacy media generally have a liberal left leaning bias. For many years institutions like the big 3 US networks, Canada’s CBC, Britain’s BBC, Australia’s ABC and NZ’s TVNZ and RNZ journalists tried hard to hide their biases and reported the news in a more neutral and professional way. But as time has gone by and as journalism schools have been churning out more and more ideologically activist and more overtly political graduates, the newsrooms of legacy media globally have become more openly biased and more nakedly partisan. Parties and politicians from the right are subjected to more slanted coverage, more hostile questioning and way more investigative scrutiny whilst favoured candidates and parties on the left increasingly face limited scrutiny, soft ball questions and outright suppression of news stories that might make them look bad. But when Donald Trump came onto the political stage, he provoked a veritable firestorm of MSM opposition that has intensified and not abated. The MSM have rushed to cover hoax after hoax that initially made Trump look bad (I covered a bunch of these here). The US corporate media peddled the lies that Trump only won in 2016 with the help of Russia, they gleefully published lies of the 51 Democrat friendly intelligence experts who claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation and they lied about the origin of Covid and pilloried and banned people who said the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. All these lies were eventually uncovered and debunked, but the media have continued to peddle any lie that makes Trump look bad.  In the current Presidential campaign, this is but a sample of the massive anti-Trump pro-Kamala skewering that has occurred on MSM outlets:

* During the ABC sponsored debate between Trump and Harris, ABC executives agreed in advance to limit certain types of questions to Harris and stayed away from all ‘no-go’ topics as suggested by the Harris campaign. Trump was only asked questions of concern to Democrats and was subjected to attempts at real time fact checking by the moderators whilst ABC agreed in advance to no fact checking of Harris. It was obvious to even the most nonpartisan observer that Trump was debating not just Harris but the moderators as well.

* Harris’ 60 Minutes interview reached a new low of the MSM putting their thumb on the scales when they replaced a long rambling word salad nonsensical answer that Harris gave to a question posed about the administration’s response to the Gaza war with a more simple and rational answer that she gave in another part of the interview. That is extreme journalistic malpractice AND election interference that will have profound repercussions for CBS once Trump changes the partisan makeup on the FCC and FEC.

* The MSM are notorious for amplifying outlier polls that favoured Harris. Perhaps the most egregious example of this was the famous Des Moines Register poll by Ann Seltzer, considered by many as the gold standard of polls. Whilst Seltzer had a prior track record that has been pretty accurate, any polling expert could’ve told you that a poll showing Harris up 3 in Iowa when all other polls had Trump up by 7 to 10% (and the fact that Trump won Iowa by 11% and 8% in 2016 and 2020 and eventually won in 2024 by 13%!) was a dramatic outlier. But in the heat of the campaign with Trump tied in national polls and slightly up in swing state polls, the prospect of a hidden Harris blue wave was too tempting to pass up and so this poll was blasted from legacy media rooftops (and was even given prominence from our esteemed site owner Mr. Farrar perhaps because of his well-publicised disdain for DJT). The pollsters who picked Trump’s eventual result were ignored and even scoffed at. The pushing of outlier polls is a deliberate conservative voter suppression tactic engaged in on a regular basis by the MSM.

* The Media Research Centre analysed the positive/negative coverage of the 3 major networks for the GOP versus Democrat nominee over some Presidential elections since 1992 and you can see the trend dramatically:

                Dem      GOP      Dem advantage

1992     52%+    33%+    +23

2004     59%+    37%+    +22

2008     68%+    33%+    +35

2020     66%+    8%+       +58

2024     78%+    15%+    +63

People aren’t stupid, they can see this bias and they react accordingly.

What has been the impact of the media’s descent from neutral, a-political, down the middle reporting to slanted, ideologically driven coverage and outright hostility to the GOP candidate for the most powerful office in the world?

* Gradual but accelerating ratings and subscription declines – more on that later.

* Decline in profitability – MSM newspapers like the Washington Post have laid off hundreds and look at the closing of TV3 and layoffs at TVNZ and Stuff in New Zealand.

* Slump in public trust as indicated in polls that show the MSM polling worse than Congress.

* A widespread belief that the MSM are biased against Trump and protecting Kamala has inevitably led to a rise in viewership of alternative media.

Into the void left by the increasing partisan legacy media has stepped a variety of conservative commentators who have been able to rack up substantial views and social media impressions that have come to swamp who views the legacy media. Many of the people I am about to mention have podcasts and shows that they broadcast from their websites, Twitter, Rumble and even mainstream social media platforms that regularly match and exceed even the major network news shows and far exceed equivalent shows on CNN and MSNBC. The biggest players on this list have audiences that vastly outstrip even the biggest MSM shows or podcasts. These include the following:

* Megyn Kelly – former top NBC host and now the host of the number 1 conservative podcast The Megyn Kelly Show.

* Dan Bongino – former Secret Service agent and founder of alternative social media Apps such as Parler (that was exiled in 2020 by internet hosting sites) and Rumble, the conservative alternative to You Tube. Dan hosts a very successful radio and live streamed show that reaches on average 200,000 viewers every day. Dan is close to Trump and has interviewed him multiple times.

* Charlie Kirk – owner and founder of Turning Point Action and TP USA, the largest conservative youth outreach organisation with chapters in thousands of high schools and college campuses nationwide. More significantly, his clips of exchanges on college visits where he forcefully makes the case for Trump’s election have had over TWO BILLION combined views across Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Kirk employs popular conservative commentator Jack Prosobiec, and he features frequently on his shows.

* Tucker Carlson – he was Fox News’ most popular commentator with a show that used to be the No. 1 show on cable TV until he was fired for his outspoken support for Trump and his controversial interviews. He formed his own media show called TCN and has interviewed a range of conservatives including his interview of Donald Trump that garnered almost 200 million views on Twitter.

* Steve Bannon War Room – Bannon was a strategist for Trump in the early years of his Presidency and had been a senior executive with Breitbart News. His War Room daily show has a huge outreach, and he interviews almost all the prominent conservatives. He became infamous for having to spend 90 days in Federal Prison for defying a Department of Justice subpoena to appear and testify before the January 6 committee.

* James O’Keefe – founder of Project Veritas until forced out by his RINO donors, O’Keefe pioneered undercover journalism exposing numerous scandals involving Democrats and left leaning organisations like Planned Parenthood. O’Keefe carried on his undercover work on his own as O’Keefe Media Group and uncovered numerous election related frauds and scandals in the run up to November 5^th the most prominent being exposing the Democrat Party’s funding arm ACT Blue using unsuspecting small donors to launder hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal overseas donations.

* Steven Crowther – one of the most prolific conservatives who also uses You Tube to publish humourous ambush style interviews of liberals.

Glen Beck – Owner and Founder of conservative media empire The Blaze with its own TV channel, radio station and podcast. Beck was a protégé of the most famous conservative talk back radio host the late Rush Limbaugh and styled himself in a similar mold.

* Ben Shapiro – Owner and founder of the Daily Wire, another major player in the more mainstream conservative new media space. Shapiro for quite a while was a Never Trumper but got on the Trump train for the 2024 election.

Trump became very adept at using new media despite his age. His youngest son Barron, who is an 18-year-old college student in New York, mingles with all the big conservative Gen Z and Millennial influencers from the so-called Manosphere including Theo Von, the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Andrew Schulz and Shawn Ryan. Trump appeared on all their shows each with millions of views and came across as natural and funny to huge audiences of disaffected young males. Of course, the grand poohbah of the Manasphere is former UFC executive Joe Rogan whose centrist Spotify show has the biggest reach of any podcast in the world, each with an average viewing audience of 16 million. Trump’s famous 3-hour unscripted riff with Rogan where Rogan asked whatever questions he wanted (and Trump answered without ducking and diving) garnered across Spotify, You Tube and Twitter almost 100 million views! These appearances helped propel Trump to dominating the under 30 male vote in a way that Harris couldn’t come close.

The net effect of all of this: the Trump hating MSM are losing their grip on the narrative. Whilst they still have some influence, they are increasingly becoming a liberal echo chamber religiously watched mostly by left leaning true believers whilst Independents and right leaning folk are consuming their news from alternative sources that increasingly have a far greater reach then the legacy media. This played a vital role in Trump’s victory and his decisive win will only accelerate this decline unless the MSM return to their roots in reporting unbiased straight news and let go of the politically slanted advocacy that poses for news.

8. The proliferation of global conflicts

Trump is the first President in 40 years to not commence a new war. Reagan invaded Grenada, Bush 1 fought the Gulf War, Clinton attacked the former Yugoslavia, Bush 2 invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama toppled Gaddafi and Biden has sent hundreds of billions to fund Ukraine. Trump withdrew troops from Iraq and laid the plans (that were massively cocked up by Biden) for an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump negotiated and signed the Abraham Peace Accords ushering unprecedented diplomatic rapprochements between Israel and various Arab nations. Trump defused the escalating nuclear tension with North Korea all while getting NATO countries to pay their fair share of military expenditures.

More significantly is what Putin didn’t do during Trump’s 4 years. Under Obama he invaded Crimea and Georgia and under Biden, he invaded Ukraine. Putin made no territorial incursions under Trump. There was relative stability in the Middle East from 2017 to 2021. There is no way Hamas would’ve attempted their brazen infiltration into southern Israel under Trump and yet their actions under Biden have sparked the most prolonged and bloody conflict in Gaza and such tension and military retaliatory action with Iran as to see the whole region on the brink of war. Biden’ poor handling of the Ukraine war, for a while, saw the very real threat of US and NATO boots on the ground in an escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia. And if that isn’t enough, the Chinese also sensed Biden’s weakness and have threatened the sovereignty of Taiwan in a way that Xi never remotely attempted when Trump was in power.

The supreme irony in all this is that in 2016, the Democrats said that Trump would plunge the US into global wars and that his warmongering would lead to an unstable world. The truth was the opposite happened – Trump presided over a period of relative peace and only used US military muscle selectively to quickly destroy the ISIS Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, a task that eluded Obama for 8 years. It is Biden and his weakness as a leader that sees the world on fire and on the brink of something akin to WW3 and it is Trump who was and will be again the candidate for peace. The prospect of America’s sons fighting in the midst of a Slavic conflict thousands of miles from home was a motivation for some voters to hold their nose and vote for the man who sends mean Tweets.

In the two days since Trump was elected, Zelenskyy has called him, Putin has scheduled a call, Hamas is saying it will end the war, Qatar has asked Hamas’ leadership to leave and I’m guessing the Chinese won’t be trying any drills where they encircle the whole island of Taiwan any time soon.

9. The RFK Jr – Tulsi Gabbard coalition

I covered the positive political impact of RFK Jr’s endorsement here. Trump has brought into his inner circle three high profile Democrats: JFK Jr from the closest America gets to a political royal family, Tulsi Gabbard who once was deputy chair of the Democrat National Committee and ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020 and Elon Musk who publicly backed and donated to Democrat politicians for years. Each of these people brought key constituencies to Trump’s cause and, perhaps more importantly, they gave permission for centrists and moderate Democrats, disgusted by their own party’s decent into left wing identity politics but turned off by Trump’s bombastic and at times arrogant persona, to vote for Trump. Joe Rogan (and many others) made the case that voting for Trump is not just about Trump but you’re voting for Tulsi, for RFK Jr and for the thousands of political appointees that will implement the policies that resonate with an actual majority of voters. Trump drove the Cheney’s, Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger to support Kamala and in exchange, he got Kennedy, Musk and Gabbard. I think that’s an awesome winning exchange and in the end, so did voters.

10. The lawfare and the assassination attempts against Trump backfired.

I covered this topic more extensively in these two posts. In summary, Trump’s opponents thought they had him on the ropes with all the various indictments when in actual fact, the politically motivated lawfare against Trump worked in his favour. When Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis insisted Trump be arraigned in person at the County Jail in a seedy inner city part of Atlanta, Trump’s defiant mug shot became a viral sensation but, much more significantly, it helped cement Trump’s record level of black male support that helped propel him to victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The footage of thousands of poor blacks lining the streets to the jail to cheer Trump as he exited the arraignment went viral in the African American community.

I don’t need to overstate the political impact of the two assassination attempts, most particularly the July 13^th attempt at the rally in Butler, PA. The photo of a bloodied Trump with his raised pumped fist under a huge American flag ranks up there with the shot of Churchill’s VE Day speech to a monstrous crowd in London, the flag raising at Iwo Jima, John Kennedy Jr saluting his Dad JFK at his funeral, the fleeing Vietnamese refugees from the My Lai massacre in 1968 or the lone protestor holding up the tanks on Tiananmen Square. Trump’s pugnacious and defiant response reinforced his image as the ultimate alpha male in the eyes of millions and, whilst not intended nor sought after, became a major electoral plus for him.

Conclusion

Whilst the electoral magnitude of Trump’s victory is not on the same scale as the two Reagan victories in 1980 and 1984 (489 to 49 and 525 to 13) nor the Nixon 1972 49 state sweep, nonetheless it will go down as one of the greatest comebacks in US political history given the unique nature of Trump and his experiences. His defeat in 2020 was shrouded in controversy with allegations (credible IMO) of election fraud that were of a magnitude that, in his mind and in the mind of many supporters, cost him the election. The events of January 6, 2021, came to overshadow and dominate Trump’s prospects with unprecedented levels of negative publicity aimed at Trump as his opponents sought to blame him for the events at the Capitol that day. He faced two impeachments, he was the subject of two Special Counsel enquiries, he was indicted 94 times on politically motivated charges (many of which will now melt away now that he has won and the rest will be reversed or die in appellate courts), the state of New York tried to bankrupt him and seize key properties, he has faced the most unrelenting media opposition of any politician, he faced two assassination attempts that came close to succeeding, frankly any other person would’ve given up. He faced a wall of negative media coverage of his campaign and fawning sycophantic coverage of his opponent, and countless attempts yet again at electoral fraud and he faced down the lot AND WON and won convincingly. It is a feat that may never be equaled in the annals of US political history!

Mike Hosking writes:

So it is on that note I pose this very simple premise – if and when Labour get back to power, they are going to need most likely not just the Greens, but the Māori Party too. 

This is correct. Without Te Pati Maori, Labour and Greens in the TU-Curia polls since the election have varied between 45 and 52 seats – well off the 61 needed for a majority.

The Māori Party are radicals. 

When the police raided the Mongrel Mob the other day in Opotiki, Rawiri Waititi called it “state sponsored terrorism” driven by a race agenda. 

How do the Labour Party live with that? How do they explain it? How do they justify being in Government with that? 

If I was running the campaign in 2026, I would do billboards around the country with quotes from Te Pati Maori MPs. When people realise Labour can only govern with the support of Te Pati Maori, they will run a mile