The Post has some interesting results on some issues questions asked by Freshwater. The net agreement for each statement is:

• There should be a referendum on Māori co-governance, to end the confusion and let every New Zealander have a say: +31%
• Government departments should be known by their English name, not their Māori name: +23%
• There should be quotas to ensure enough women are represented in parliament and government: +5%
• There should be quotas to ensure different ethnic groups are represented in parliament and government: -7%
• Road signage should be written in Māori as well as English: -13%
• There should be more co-governance with Māori in government decision-making: -17%

So much more support than opposition for a referendum on co-governance and referring to government departments by their English name.

Mild net support for a gender quota for Parliament and mild net opposition to ethnic quotas.

Moderate net opposition to bilingual road signs and more co-governance.

A Newshub Nation Reid Research poll found:

Party Vote

• National 28% (+14% from 2020)
• Labour 28% (-16%)
• Greens 27% (-3%)
• ACT 6% (+1%)
• TOP 5%
• Te Pati Maori 3%
• NZ First 3%

Candidate Vote

• Labour/Ibrahim Omer 31% (-27% from 2020)
• National/Scott Sheeran 28% (+10%)
• Greens/Tamatha Paul 27% (+9%)
• NZ First/Taylor Arneil 5.1%
• ACT (no candidate) 3.5%
• ALCP/Michael Appleby 2.9%
• TOP/Natalia Albert 2.8%

This is a very good result for National and Scott Sheeran. Omer is an incumbent (List) MP and Paul an incumbent City Councillor yet Sheeran is ahead of Paul and just behind Omer.

ACT are not standing in Wellington Central, so their 3.5% is likely to go to Sheeran also. It is a very tight three way race, which is amazing considering Robertson has a 19,000 majority.

NewstalkZB reports:

A Restore Passenger Rail protestor is standing by the group’s decision to spray-paint a luxury Wellington car dealership.

Three protestors threw paint at the Gazley Motor Group building on Cambridge Terrace and glued themselves to the footpath.

The trio were subsequently arrested and charges are being considered.

Spokesperson James Cockle claims the luxury cars sold by the dealership are a symbol of excess and wealth inequality impacting this country.

“It correlates directly to the damage that’s being done to our planet. We’re sending a strong message to the New Zealand people- let’s stand up against luxury emissions and reign in the excesses of the mega-rich.”

Almost laughing out loud at the belief that someone who buys a Gazley car is mega-rich, let alone the Communist type belief that no one should have any wealth.

Mr Cockle is of course a Green Party member who recently stood for the co-leadership. He also somehow manages to travel from Dunedin to Wellington to take part in protests, all without creating any emissions himself. Amazing.

Newshub reports:

Labour to campaign on overhauling consent laws, put onus to prove victim said ‘yes’ to alleged perpetrator

This is a radical proposed change to our criminal justice system. What Labour is proposing is that anyone accused of rape is deemed guilty under the law (if sex occurred) unless they can prove consent.

So under Labour you will be deemed guilty unless you can prove you are innocent.

Currently, the victim has to prove in court they did not consent. Labour’s now promising, if elected, they’ll change the law so the accused to prove they did have consent.  

Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said it’s an important step. 

I would have thought the Law Society might have something to say about Labour proposing to legislate to make people guilty by default.

The Herald has a great article that look at what net debt has been projected to be in 2027 under each forecast since 2021 (so post Covid).

• Dec 21 – $138b
• May 22 – $147b
• Dec 22 – $156b
• May 23 – $181b
• Sep 23 – $193b

So in less than two years, the debt forecast for the next four years has increased by a massive $55 billion.

1 News reports on the approval ratings for Hipkins and Luxon.

• Chris Hipkins: 42% (-4% from Jan) approve and 43% (+33%) disapprove for net approval of -1% (-37%)
• Chris Luxon: 44% (+1%) approve and 35% (+1%) disapprove for net approval of +9%

What a huge slide for Hipkins.

Stats NZ reports:

Annual food prices were 8.9 percent higher in August 2023 than in August 2022, according to figures released by Stats NZ today.

That’s better than 12% but the cumulative impact of two years of runaway increases has been massive .

The full results are here.

Party Vote

• National 39% (+2% from last poll in August 2023)
• Labour 28% (-1%)
• ACT 10% (-3%)
• Greens 10% (-2%)
• Maori Party 2.6% (nc)
• NZ First 5.0% (+1.3%)
• Freedoms NZ 0.5% (-0.2%)
• TOP 1.4% (+0.8%)
• New Conservatives 0.8% (+0.5%)
• DemocracyNZ 0.3% (+0.3%)

Seats

• Labour 35 (-30 from election)
• National 49 (+16)
• ACT 13 (+3)
• Greens 13 (+2)
• NZ First 7 (+7)
• Maori 3 (+1)

Government

• National/ACT 62/120
• Labour/Greens/maori 51/120

Preferred PM (unprompted)

• Chris Hipkins 23% (+2%)
• Christopher Luxon 23% (+3%)
• David Seymour 5% (-1%)
• Chloe Swarbrick 1% (-1%)
• winston peters 4% (+1%)
• Jacinda Ardern 1% (-1%)
• Nicola Willis 1% (-1%)

News.com.au reports:

The poll also found that Labor voters are deserting the party line, with 57 per cent of its supporter base planning to vote Yes and 43 per cent No.

By contrast, the RedBridge poll found that 87 per cent of Coalition supporters were planning to vote in line with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s No camp.

It has no chance of passing if Labor’s own voters are so split.

Stuff reports:

Defendants facing serious charges were among those given a $75 Prezzy Card for attending meetings in Hawke’s Bay courts to share their court experiences and ideas, and to “re-imagine the District and Family Court” in the region.

What a great idea. Pay criminals to share their experience on how they think the courts should work.

The ministry didn’t know how many attendees were defendants or victims.

Surely this would be useful stuff to know.

The Pre-election fiscal update confirms massive deficits and debt.

The forecast of a potential surplus in four years is wishful rather than realistic. Even if forecasts of the economy in four year times were accurate, the assumptions are a level of fiscal discipline that the current Government has shown it is incapable of achieving.

The more useful numbers are what will happen this year, and probably next year.

Treasury are saying that in the year just ended we will have a massive $10 billion deficit and in the current year an even larger $11.4 billion deficit. Debt in just two years will go from $71 billion to $100 billion.

In my adult life I have seldom watched TV. My kids grew up, by and large, without it – sometimes with comic effect when one of them saw a shark show once and hid behind the couch. We had some 12″ fossil TV (bought in 1986) that we never turned on. Except that I woke up on September 12, 2001 and for no good reason I fired it up. I could not believe that some idiots had programmed on some terrifying movie about planes flying into skyscrapers. It probably took me 5 minutes to click.

In the subsequent years I have been to the WTC Memorial three times and the Pentagon Memorial on one occasion (after a very moving walk around Arlington Cemetery). All of these places are overwhelming and the best I could do on each occasion was to note one name and later look them up to grasp something of the humanity.

When we think of events like these we tend to load in the names, faces and impressions of the major players. Many NZers have a pathological distaste for the USA and at a US government level there are some reasons for that. However, having travelled there many times for family reasons I can say that I have never had a bad experience and have met so many brilliant, positive, welcoming and generous people. We have so much to learn from their higher education system just for starters. At the “ordinary person” level – as well as the spectacular scenery, wild-life, etc, it is a beautiful country.

The two pieces of media that follow remind me most of the importance of Joe Lunchbox. C.S. Lewis was right – there are no ordinary people. So, when we walk down the street or bump into people on struggle street remember there never was, is or will be a human “River of Filth”.

This one is contender for the greatest speech of all time:

And this is simply stunning:

Alwyn Poole ([email protected])
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
www.cambridgefestivalofsport.co.nz
www.alwynpoole.substack.com

HDPA writes:

It’s become hard to believe that Labour’s fibs about National and Act were mistakes. It looks more like a planned campaign of misinformation executed so badly that Labour got busted.

Clearly, Labour has got desperate. They’ve run out of every other strategy. Policy hasn’t worked. The big one was supposed to be GST off fruit and vegetables. They’re so embarrassed by it they barely talk about it anymore. Hipkins hasn’t worked. He’s now neck and neck with Christopher Luxon in polls. Going dirty is all Labour has. And it’s probably not to win the election, but just to keep the polling high enough to save the furniture. On current numbers, they stand to lose about half their MPs.

Going dirty is not a good strategy though. Telling fibs, calling Act racists, making excuses for their union buddies buying attack ads on Luxon can backfire.

Sure, some voters will hear the fibs and not hear the corrections and will be freaked out enough to flip away from the centre-right and back to Labour.

But there are plenty of other voters who will see the desperation and nastiness for what it is and find it sad and ugly. It’s especially bad for Labour because it’s so off-brand. They’ve just pushed the “Be Kind” schtick for five years. It’s whiplash-inducing to go from Jacinda hugging everyone to Chris’ troops spreading misinformation on Facebook with a brazenness that would make the anti-vaxxers blush.

If Labour’s going to lose, it’s probably better to lose with dignity than to lose dirty.

They will not take Heather’s advice.

Thomas Coughlan writes:

Hipkins, while appearing like a competent and normal human in more traditional political settings like Parliament and broadcast interviews, appears stilted and awkward when pretending to be normal in public. The campaign, alas for Hipkins, is showing up his flaws and Luxon’s strengths.

What an interesting description.

Things will get worse tomorrow, with the release of the Pre-election Economic Fiscal Update forecasts from Treasury, which are likely to show a gloomy outlook both for the Government’s finances and the economy at large, ideal mood music for the centre-right.

The focus shouldn’t be on the mythical projected surplus in four years time (which would require Grant Robertson to actually restrain spending) but on the current year and next year. I suspect they will be quite nasty.

Party Vote

• Labour 26.8% (-5.5% from July)
• National 40.9% (+4.3%)
• Greens 12.3% (+2.7%)
• ACT 10.1% (-2.0%)
• NZ First 4.6% (+0.5%)
• Maori 3.1% (+0.4%)
• TOP 0.7% (-0.8%)
• New Conservatives 0.8% (+0.1%)

Seats

• Labour 34 (-31 from election)
• National 53 (+20)
• Greens 16 (+6)
• ACT 13 (+3)
• Maori 4 (+2)

Governments

• Labour/Green 50/120
• labour/Green/Maori 54/120
• National/ACT 66/120

Preferred PM

• chris hipkins 22.5% (-1.5%)
• Christopher Luxon 22.5% (+6.6%)
• David Seymour 7.0% (-3.9%)
• Winston Peters 4.6% (+0.3%
• Chlöe Swarbrick 3.2% (+1.6%)

National has announced five health targets for a National-led Government. They are:

1.  Shorter stays in emergency department – 95% of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.
2. Faster cancer treatment – 85% of patients to receive cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat.
3. Improved immunisation – 95% of two-year-olds receiving their full age-appropriate immunisations.
4. Shorter wait times for first specialist assessment – a meaningful reduction in the number of people waiting more than four months to see a specialist (target to be set in government).
5. Shorter wait times for surgery – a meaningful reduction in the number of people waiting more than four months for surgery (target to be set in government).

The last National Government showed that setting targets and publicly reporting on them does work.

In 2008 only 70% of ED patients were “seen” within six hours. By 2014 it was 94%. Today it has dropped to 78%.

In 2008 only 76% of two year olds were fully immunised. National got it to 93% and it has dropped back to 83% today. Even worse the rate for Maori two year-olds has dropped to 67% from 93%.

With cancer waiting times, National inherited 65% starting treatment within four weeks, and got it to 100%.

It’s time for a Government that is willing to be accountable for health outcomes.

The Māori Party justice policy includes the following:

• Reallocate 50% of Corrections, Police and Courts budgets to Māori Justice Authority to implement a parallel Māori justice system
• Abolish prisons by 2040
• Repeal Bail Amendment Act (will make bail easier)
• Raise the age of criminal responsibility to 16 (under 16 year olds can offend with impunity)
• Amend the Clean Slate Act to apply to custodial sentences (rapists and paedophiles get clean slates)

Every poll this year has shown that Labour is unable to form a Government without the support of both the Greens and the Māori Party.

Liam Hehir writes:

This all comes as Labour’s campaign consistently finds itself spreading misinformation.

Hehir lists multiple examples:

• Labour attacks ads saying National will cut a disabled transport subsidy that doesn’t exist
• Wille Jackson saying National will abolish the minimum wage
• Andrew Little saying National will flog off the schools and sack all the teachers
• Shannon Halbert saying National will reduce sick leave from 10 days to five days
• An ad claiming National would bring back interest on student loans
• Duncan Webb claiming National would abolish the Matariki holiday

So this is not an isolated example, but continued and repeated disinformation.

Hehir also points out Hipkins himself has a bad track record himself with misinformation about:

• Hawkes Bay security post cyclone
• Charlotte Bellis
• Northland lockdown blame
• Exaggerating National’s tax cuts by 2500%
• etc
• etc

Labour’s lies have got so bad, even the Disinformation Project were forced to put out a (very mild) release about political misinformation.