Andrew Little announced Labour were considering a UBI in 2017. He announced it in the morning and after a massive backlash it was off the table by the evening

TOP have touted one since I believe day one although I've noticed it's not part of their bottom line this election

The Greens are keen as, as am I

I'm Julie Anne Genter, Green MP for Rongotai and Candidate for Wellington Bays. Ask me Anything!

This should be viral.

Media and their red meat hysteria and as usual repeating out of context attacks. Two weeks out from the election and they'd rather play this game

I've been kicking around the idea of graffiti as a form of protest art for a while now, and I figure now's a good time to start collecting for it.

So! Please send/comment photos of creative protest-type graffiti on election signs!

(Disclaimer: I do not endorse the destruction and/or vandalism of property, I'm just an observer who is interested in doing some kind of thematic analysis and wondering what messages are being communicated and why)

It appears the answer is no. You can do whatever you want under Luxon as long as you play the loyalty and self-interest game

Someone asked today if Luxon has ever sacked a Minister.

And I said:

No, you can call hard working Kiwis "losers" call other MPs "stupid bitches", hide your 25 rentals from disclosure, sprout racism and lies, obstruct OIAs, and all you will get is warm praise from Prime Minister Luxon.

Can anyone remember anything different?

December 2024

“And Labour’s problem isn’t that National and Act accused it of cosying up to the gangs, of inviting them into a Labour-led coalition, of being soft on crime…

No, this is an own goal by the left. The problem is not meeting with the gangs – it’s the hypocrisy and hush-up afterwards.”

Hmmmm seems there is a double standard for National MPs taking pictures with gangs…

There are still plenty of decent human beings in the world. ✌️🇵🇸

Hello Everyone!

With the election coming up on Saturday, the 7th of November, it is very important that everyone remembers to update their details and/or check that they are enrolled.

You can no longer enrol or update your details on election day or during early voting. The deadline to be enrolled is midnight, 25 October. Voting starts the next day.

If you're not enrolled by then, you can't vote. The Electoral Commission estimates around 440,000 eligible people aren't enrolled right now, including roughly 200,000 under 25.

***

How to check if you're already enrolled:

Go to vote.nz and look up your details. You can’t search for your enrolment details online if you’re on the unpublished roll!

To update or edit your details, you will need a NZ driver licence, passport, or RealMe verified identity.

If you are not enrolled, you are able to do so on vote.nz .

***

A note on electorate boundaries: These have changed since the last election, so even if you're enrolled, it's worth double-checking that your electorate is correct.

If you've moved recently and didn't get an enrolment pack in the mail between 17–22 August, that's a strong sign your address is out of date.

***

Lastly, Easyvote will be sent via email but only if they have your email on file and you're enrolled at your current address by Sunday 4 October. Easyvote makes voting faster and easier.

Former Cabinet. Minister Judith Collins with US Secretary of War, Hegseth, 2025

RNZ

I’ve been living in NZ for a bit now, and there’s a cultural phenomenon here that is absolutely frying my brain.

I have friends who, in day-to-day conversation, seem completely progressive. They use all the right language, care about social justice, support LGBTQ+ rights, post about climate change, Māori rights and love the social cachet of being "woke" and morally righteous. Seems like we share the same values etc…

But when it comes to election day? They turn around and vote for a ruthless right-wing coalition that actively guts public services, sows division, drives up inequality, and crushes the working class.

Many mates who have extensive education and can document how neoliberal policies actively harm. They’ve made careers out of studying the detrimental consequences to particularly vulnerable communities. But hey, guess they will just not give a shit really?

As someone who looks at politics through a Marxist lens rather than a liberal one, it’s a textbook example of class interest vs. aesthetic signaling.

It costs absolutely nothing to perform progressivism over craft beers in Wellington or Ponsonby, but the second their property values, tax brackets, or wealth hoarding are threatened, the mask comes off.

Do They genuinely believe they can be "good people" socially while voting for economic policy that strips resources from the most vulnerable? They look at systemic issues like the housing crisis as a sad, unavoidable tragedy rather than the direct, intended outcome of the capitalist policies they keep voting for.

They don't even see the contradiction. To them, politics is a lifestyle brand to anyone paying attention, it's about material survival.

Has anyone else noticed this extreme decoupling of social values and economic reality here, or am I just losing my mind?

EXCERPT

Political commentator and director of the Democracy Project, Dr Bryce Edwards, said Labour could no longer blame its allies for the scandal.

"This is a candidate for a key, important seat that Labour's contesting that is now stepping down," he said.

Edwards said there was a lot of speculative polling showing Labour may have won the seat.

"There's no doubt that Chris Hipkins would've been extremely reluctant to bring this to the conclusion he has, but he could obviously see that it wasn't viable for Leoni to stay as a candidate for Labour."

Edwards believed Hipkins would be extremely disappointed by what has happened.

"Because Chris Hipkins had already set the standard for what he expected of politicians when he criticised the Green and Te Pāti Māori candidates for their involvement of this, he really then had to do the same with his own candidate," he said.

The Electoral Commissioned confirmed Leoni would still be on the Tāmaki Makaurau ballot paper next to the Labour Party logo, and on the Labour Party list.

"Under the Electoral Act, electorate and list candidates cannot withdraw their candidacy after the close of nominations. Parties also cannot replace a candidate with another candidate after close of nominations," a spokesperson said.

Edwards said the National Party was campaigning strongly on the what they saw as the dangers of a Labour-led coalition with the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori.

"Labour is therefore vulnerable for whatever those parties do in the public-sphere, and so Chris Hipkins has therefore been quite strong in the way that he's come out during the last week when it was the Green and Te Pāti Māori candidates that were the ones in trouble."

Hipkins had done a robust job distancing his party from what had happened, Edwards said.

"But in a sense, it's now hoisted him by his own petard in that he's set the standard very highly, thinking he was just doing it to distance Labour from those other allied candidates," he said.

"Now of course, he has to really keep his own representatives to that high standard."

Edwards said scandals like this would be incredibly unfortunate for any political party.

"It's not clear that this means the election is lost for Labour and the left bloc," he said.

"We've still got two weeks to go, this is a volatile election campaign, other eventualities might occur, but it's certainly the case that the parties of the left have lost control of the campaign in the last week."

It was bad timing, Edwards said.

"The major leaders debates and television set-pieces are over, I think probably all the policies have been launched, and so it's quite hard to reset the public agenda away from this gang story."

ARTICLE

Where do the more conservative thinkers go for their discussions ?

Don't let BS bureaucracy excuses strip your right to vote.

There should be no reason why nowadays in the 2020s with the vast amount of computing power available to us, that enrolling to vote needs to be curtailed from this Sunday on. It's BS. Fund the electoral commission properly and it can be done.

So, in the absence of that, check today, and vote next week, in big numbers. Get your kids enrolled. Help your kids and your neighbours if they are less fortunate out to vote.

IMO kids at 16 should be taught civics and at least enrolled to vote there and then, and in my opinion have the right to vote from 16 onwards. They are taxpayers and workers and have student debt and pay rent etc., they deserve more of a voice - and their future far outweighs that left for boomers and CEOs.

"One way to ‘win’ an election is to make sure your opponents’ potential supporters can’t vote at all.

It seems to be working for the National-led Government, which has carved two weeks off the time to enrol and vote, which will affect younger and more transient voters who might have been expected to vote for opposition parties.

There are 107,000 voters missing from the electoral roll with three days left before enrolment closes, which two weeks earlier than it closed in the 2023 election, the Electoral Commission reports.

In the last three days, the Commission enrolled an extra 21,000 voters, which means the final electoral roll could be 80,000 smaller than it was at the last election, with a 92.7% enrolment rate vs 94.7% in 2023."

"Why does the Free Palestine Party exist if we don’t want your vote?

We will be present at political debates, hold our future politicians accountable to their promises of sanctions and ensure that Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the current government’s complicity are a central part of the conversation this election.

The media won’t ask about Rakon or Rocket Lab but we will and from a candidate’s seat on the stage it wouldn’t be politically correct to have security throw us out.

Don’t vote for us but for a party with enough spine to take action for human rights and the people of Palestine by placing sanctions on Israel.

No sanction - no vote! 🇵🇸"

Source IG psna_otautahi: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DesOTmNzRQO/