ELECTION CAMPAIGN AND PARTIES
Veronica Schmidt (Spinoff): Christopher Luxon: The Nat with nine lives, or a man on borrowed time?
Claire Robinson: The Great Dissonance: We don’t like small parties, so why do we keep voting for them?
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): Election policies: The good, the bad & the unworkable pledges on the big issues (paywalled)
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Ipsos urges National to withdraw inaccurate claim about its polling on tax
Chris Trotter (Interest): Class Reps
Mark Jennings (Newsroom): Seymour: ‘Affording a decent life is the number one political issue’
Richard Harman: Seymour takes on Willis (paywalled)
Richard Harman (Post): ACT needs stars to dance with as David Seymour searches for political rhythm (paywalled)
RNZ: ACT pledges ban on compulsory karakia in resource consents
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Goldie’s never needed a personal vote more – might he get it despite himself?
Jane Yee (Herald): Chris Hipkins on finding the balance between being a dad and leading Labour – Ask Me Anything with Paula Bennett
Henry Cooke (Post): Nicola Willis says she isn’t letting herself think about being booted from Parliament (paywalled)
Sam Smith (Stuff): ‘Oh, did they?’ NZ First candidate’s awkward backtrack at debate
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Toy guns and raw mussels: A day on the campaign trail with Winston Peters
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Te Pāti Māori announces ‘one-person’ party list for 2026 election
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Te Pāti Māori reinforces strategic voting call with sparse party list
Verity Johnson (Stuff): The Opportunity Party is our new rebound boyfriend
Steven Cowan: The Opportunities Party: Spreadsheet politics
Josh Van Veen: A postliberal critique of the Coalition
Harriet Laughton (Post): ACT’s $6000 question and flooding the zone with Winston Peters: How parties are getting your attention this election (paywalled)
Nick James (Post): Chasing votes and pressing the flesh on the campaign trail (paywalled)
David Barber (Post): Remembering times and people who showed that politics can still inspire (paywalled)
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Some rare missteps for Simeon Brown, National (paywalled)
John Hartevelt (RNZ): AI has finally entered the election campaign arena
Herald: National MP Carlos Cheung says election billboard in Three Kings deliberately set alight
RNZ: Election signage deliberately set on fire, National MP Carlos Cheung says
Herald: Julie Anne Genter says Rongotai electorate name could return after next review
Samantha Gee (RNZ): New faces in race for West Coast Tasman
Charlie Dreaver (1News): Disabled voters still hunting for accessible booths, private ballots
Aziz Al Sa’afin (1News): Vote Compass 2026: Compare your views with party policies
RNZ: As it happened: Election campaign 4 October

LABOUR’S FISCAL PLANS
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): Labour’s fiscal plan: National’s claims and how Labour is defending it
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Labour’s fiscal plan leaves big questions on pay equity
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Labour promises to reinstate pay equity, but only costs one claim, leaving $8.5b out of plan
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Labour’s fiscal plan answers some questions, but leaves $10b hanging (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Labour’s fiscal plan near-identical to National’s; no ring-fenced fund for pay equity (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Why is Labour pretending it wants a big surplus? (paywalled)
Chris Hipkins (Post): A responsible plan for New Zealand’s future (paywalled)
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Labour releases its fiscal plan, promises pay rise for care and support workers
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Labour releases fiscal plan, promises immediate pay rise for care and support workers
Stuff: Labour reveals plan to give pay raise to care and support workers
1News: Labour reveals vaunted fiscal plan - here’s the key details
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Election 2026: Error page on Labour website as fiscal objective made ‘clearer’, National’s Nicola Willis says ‘not serious people’

TAX AND KIWISAVER
Hayden Wilson (BusinessDesk): The next Government faces a $3b choice over tax cuts and public spending (paywalled)
Louise Delany and Marnie Prickett (Newsroom): Tax reform not the province of the major parties
Jonathan Mitchell (NBR): MPs dangle tax and transport promises over voters (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Act announces multibillion-dollar KiwiSaver tax cut, to remove Government contribution
RNZ: ACT pledges removing tax on KiwiSaver earnings
Anneke Smith (Post): ACT Party wants to cut tax on KiwiSaver earnings, scrap $260 government contribution (paywalled)
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): ACT promises to remove tax on KiwiSaver earnings
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): Does KiwiSaver really make New Zealanders better off?

SUPERMARKETS AND COST OF LIVING
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The supermarket duopoly fights back
Justin Hu (1News): ‘Populist’ streak in supermarket break-up plans - Foodstuffs boss
Andrew Dickens (Newstalk ZB): Cost of living’s become an election issue and supermarkets are getting the blame
Rachel Pannett (BusinessDesk): Supermarket shakeup and grocery prices a key election battleground (paywalled)
Tom Raynel (Herald): Analysts supportive of Labour’s Fair Go proposal but question specifics (paywalled)
Rob Stock (Post): Labour’s planned consumer protection laws must be backed by a properly funded regulator, professor warns (paywalled)

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A week after National announced it would pursue the separation of Foodstuffs, 51 business figures signed an open letter asking every political party “to uphold a rules-based economy that respects private property and freedom of contract”. It was organised by the New Zealand Initiative, whose members include Foodstuffs North Island and Woolworths NZ among many other companies, and whose board includes Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin. Quin signed the letter, as did Foodstuffs South Island chief executive Mary Devine.

National’s radical supermarket policy has clearly rattled many in business, especially incumbents who fear their privileged position in concentrated markets might be disrupted. At the moment the Act Party appears to be the beneficiary. The Post’s Anneke Smith reported on Friday that since National’s supermarket announcement, National has taken donations of just $52,000 (in declared donations of $20,000 or more) while Act has taken in $275,000.

Leader David Seymour says he has heard “vociferous reactions” from significant National donors unhappy with the supermarket policy. The supermarket fight has also become entangled with a wider argument within the political right over business and the role of the state.

In yesterday’s Democracy Briefing I argued that the shift of radical supermarket reform from the political fringe to the centre of this election is a healthy democratic response to years of public anger. I also highlighted that the polls mainly show scepticism about whether politicians will deliver. But the fightback from business is a reminder of how much power incumbents can bring to bear on policy, both in public and behind closed doors.

The lobbying counteroffensive

On the day National announced its supermarket policy, Nicola Willis warned that Foodstuffs was one of the best-resourced lobbying operations in the country and that she expected a tough fight. Newsroom’s Andrew Bevin has since documented who is involved. Foodstuffs says its in-house communications, public-affairs and marketing-communications team numbers eight. It also uses lobbying firm Thompson Lewis and corporate-affairs firm Sherson Willis.

Thompson Lewis was co-founded by GJ Thompson, who worked for Helen Clark and later took leave from the consultancy to serve as Jacinda Ardern’s chief of staff. Director Wayne Eagleson was John Key’s long-serving chief of staff. Paula Oliver was Key’s deputy chief of staff. Newsroom also notes that its senior staff include a former adviser to Nicola Willis in the current Government.

Sherson Willis brings another set of political connections. Founder Trish Sherson previously headed communications for Act. In July the company hired Andrew Ketels, who served as David Seymour’s chief of staff from 2020 to 2025 and previously advised National. Ketels is now Sherson Willis’s head of government relations. Newsroom reported that he had recently completed a short government-relations stint with Woolworths.

Ketels also has a Herald column this weekend attacking the wider vogue for interventionist election policy. His argument ranges well beyond supermarkets, across petrol regulation, data centres, KiwiSaver and student loans, but lands squarely in this debate when he writes: “Politicians are just responding to the incentives in front of them. Voters want governments to ‘do something’ about problems, even if doing nothing is the better option.”

Ketels’ column makes the case that interventionist policies being promoted as solutions to problems such as supermarket competition are populist measures likely to produce unintended consequences. The column’s byline states his role with Sherson Willis, but doesn’t mention that his firm does public relations work for Foodstuffs North Island.

Woolworths has its own network. Its advisers include lobbying firm Lillis Clark, whose directors Anna Lillis and Kenny Clark previously worked for former National finance minister Steven Joyce. Woolworths’ head of government relations, Andrew Kirton, is a former Labour Party general secretary who later served as Chris Hipkins’ chief of staff when Hipkins was prime minister.

Joyce is an interesting figure in his own right. After the Grocery Commissioner’s first report last year, he wrote in the Herald that Foodstuffs “could voluntarily agree to split their brands into two co-operatives” in return for being allowed to merge each brand’s North and South Island operations. A few months later he joined the Foodstuffs North Island board, and he also chairs NZME, publisher of the Herald.

Then there is BusinessNZ chief executive Katherine Rich, a former National MP and former longtime head of the Food and Grocery Council. BusinessNZ, whose membership includes both major supermarket groups, is opposing National’s break-up proposal. These networks run across party lines: Labour-aligned political operatives have worked for supermarket companies just as National and Act figures have.

None of these connections is evidence of wrongdoing. They matter because New Zealand still has almost no transparency around lobbying. Voters can see some ministerial diaries and political-donation disclosures, but there is no comprehensive register showing who is lobbying whom, for which clients, or what arguments and material they are putting before decision-makers.

That matters particularly because we have been here before. Earlier this year I wrote about how the previous round of supermarket reform was watered down amid extensive lobbying. During the Commerce Commission’s market study, Countdown retained Capital Government Relations, run by former Labour chief of staff Neale Jones. In January 2022 Kirton arranged a dinner between then finance minister Grant Robertson and Countdown’s managing director. The Commission’s 2021 draft had contemplated structural separation of wholesale and retail. By the final report in March 2022, that option was gone, replaced by a much more limited wholesale-access regime.

There is no smoking gun showing that the dinner or lobbying killed structural separation. The problem is that our lobbying system makes it extremely difficult to know what influence did.

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• “Is this just anti-business populism?”

• “The think tank leading the counteroffensive”

• “The grocery campaign to win back the public narrative”

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ELECTION CAMPAIGN AND PARTIES
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The supermarket election
Gemma Rasmussen (Consumer NZ): How the main parties plan to improve the grocery sector]
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): National battles its own voters with this high-risk strategy (paywalled)
Luke Malpass (Sunday Star Times): National faces a clean-out but the upheaval may not end there (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Labour’s fiscal plan has many questions to answer – pay equity, public service cuts, future fund, spending and taxing promises (paywalled)
Andrew Ketels (Herald): Why bad policy feels as good in 2026 as it ever did (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Has the Opportunity Party blown it?
Anna Thomas (RNZ): An ‘awesome’ upbringing and parenting in politics: A road trip with Qiulae Wong
Brent Edwards (NBR): Election campaigning, the pre-election update, confused voters (paywalled)
Herald: National Party launches campaign bus, parties hold standups and walkabouts
Adam Pearse (Herald): Labour leader Chris Hipkins goes on spending spree during walkabout at Upper Hutt outdoor show
Grace Symmans (Herald): What is on older Kiwis’ minds this election?
Lisa Davies (1News): Community grills political panel over surge in youth online gambling
Michael Reddell (Sunday Star Times): If I was PM: Hard choices for renewed prosperity (paywalled)
The Standard: To overhang or not to overhang, that’s the question

AI, MEDIA AND ELECTION INTEGRITY
John Hartevelt (RNZ): AI has finally entered the election campaign arena
Tim Niven (Sunday Star Times): An election result was overturned - social media was to blame (paywalled)
Matthew Hooton (Sunday Star Times): Introducing ‘cognitive warfare’ (paywalled)
Julie Jacobson (Sunday Star Times): Peeping pixels: How political parties collect information about us (paywalled)
Mike White (Sunday Star Times): Plausible poison: The threat of foreign interference in this year’s election (paywalled)
Michael Daubs (Newsroom): What political parties should consider for their AI election policies

PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Whistleblowers offer to aid Education Ministry probe
Cecilia Robinson (Herald): Education reform: How schools can show parents children’s progress (paywalled)
Derek Cheng (Herald): New legal action filed on whether two-dose Covid requirements for under-18s was justified (paywalled)
Phil Pennington (RNZ): Police cyber crime capabilities weak, official reports show
Nevil Gibson (NBR): Above the law: Citizens against the system
Kiri Allan (Herald): There is an $11 billion benefit that belies the Government’s flawed conservation reforms (paywalled)
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): There must be a way to keep public servants accountable

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On Wednesday night I appeared on 1News talking about supermarket reform, which has become the defining policy debate of this election. The news item was built around a new Verian poll that looked like bad news for the politicians promising to shake up the grocery industry. Only 32% thought the proposed policies would lead to lower grocery prices within three years, while 54% said no and 14% didn’t know or preferred not to say.

I told 1News the supermarket policy choice “does really channel some of the zeitgeist of discontent in the electorate at the moment”, and that “these sorts of policies would have been seen as quite fringe a few years ago.” But I also pointed to an obvious credibility problem. “The public do have questions about the competency and credibility of the politicians,” I said, “especially after so many years of no progress on this.”

The supermarket debate has nonetheless become a radical one. Years of anger about broken markets have forced the parties to come up with structural fixes, and I think that shift should be welcomed as a sign of democracy working. I don’t read the Verian poll as undermining that. What it mainly measures is doubt that reform will reach the checkout any time soon.

The politician credibility gap

The Commerce Commission estimated the supermarket duopoly’s excess profits at around $1 million a day back in 2022. Since then, voters have watched successive governments appoint a Grocery Commissioner, whose specialist role is now due to be replaced by a regulatory committee in 2028, and hunt the world for a third player. This week The Warehouse ruled itself out of becoming that third player. Yet the Commission’s latest annual grocery report found “little observable change in core competition metrics”, with the two groups’ combined market share essentially unchanged at 82%.

Jacinda Ardern said in 2022 that she would “unlock the stockroom doors” of Woolworths and Foodstuffs, and Nicola Willis has spent well over a year promising more competition. Yet as Tom Pullar-Strecker wrote in the Post when the Commission’s report came out in June, “the supermarket duopoly is about as strong as ever.” Mike Hosking was blunter on Newstalk ZB: “No one has jawboned groceries like Nicola Willis, so her hot air outpaces any action.” Consumer NZ was picking up this scepticism well before the campaign. In its survey in April last year, 66% of people had low confidence in the Government’s grocery policies, with only 9% expressing high confidence.

Nor is there much confidence on the other side of the argument. Consumer NZ’s trust tracking found supermarkets suffered the biggest fall of any sector it measured between 2021 and 2024, with only 35% of shoppers expressing high trust in supermarket pricing and promotions.

So the politics is being driven by two kinds of distrust at once: dissatisfaction with the supermarkets and scepticism that governments can successfully reform them.

The Verian result shouldn’t be mistaken for a referendum on the reforms themselves. The question was essentially whether any of the proposed policies would leave respondents personally paying less for groceries within three years, which asks quite a lot of a voter. A policy has to get through coalition negotiations and actually work before it shows up in anyone’s grocery bill, all within a fairly short period.

Danyl McLauchlan’s cover story in this week’s Listener rates the parties’ supermarket policies against the evidence. He gives both the Foodstuffs break-up and Labour’s wholesale separation a verdict of “GOOD”, which he reserves for policies where “the mechanism is sound and the costs are honest”, though he warns that the break-up’s benefits would vanish if it raised the chains’ costs by more than 2%.

Foodstuffs’ own polling tells the same story as Verian’s. The co-operative commissioned Talbot Mills to survey 1325 people between 16 and 21 September, and its headline results were leaked to Stuff’s Jenna Lynch, who reported on them yesterday. Asked about National’s policy to investigate separating Pak’nSave and New World, 45% were in favour and only 38% opposed. When Stuff approached Foodstuffs, it confirmed the poll and shared further results. Asked whether forcing the separation would lower grocery prices, just 28% said yes and 48% said no.

So, supporting a break-up and believing it will make groceries cheaper are plainly not the same thing.

Support for National’s policy crossed party lines. National voters backed it by 58% to 34%, and a majority of Green voters were in favour. Even Act voters supported it by 45% to 43%, despite their party’s opposition, while Labour voters were evenly split. New Zealand First voters, whose party proposed the split first, were narrowly against it, by 41% to 39%.

Earlier polling found even stronger support for radical action. In September 2021, after being told of the Commerce Commission’s draft finding that competition wasn’t working well for consumers, 70% of respondents in a Phoenix Research survey for Monopoly Watch NZ supported splitting up the two supermarket groups, with only 15% opposed.

How 2026 turned into “the supermarket election”

It’s remarkable how quickly those dramatic proposed interventions have moved into the political mainstream.

In January the Herald’s Anne Gibson asked Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin what the key election issue would be. “Hopefully,” he replied, “it will be about things other than supermarkets and grocery prices.” Instead, as a Herald editorial put it last week, “After years of governments talking around the issue while the Commerce Commission did studies, and everyone hoped an Aldi-shaped caped crusader of competition would ride to the rescue before anyone actually had to do anything – we are now awash in policies.”

New Zealand First promised in April to split Foodstuffs into separate Pak’nSave and New World/Four Square cooperatives. On 6 September the Greens went much further with KiwiMart, a $2.8 billion plan to require Woolworths and Foodstuffs to “divest at least 120 stores and distribution centre capacity into public ownership”. National adopted the Foodstuffs split in September, subject to a Commerce Commission assessment, and Labour announced a price-gouging ban the same morning and, four days later, a plan to separate the duopoly’s wholesale arms from their stores. Te Pāti Māori is backing Māori-owned supermarkets, and outside Parliament the Opportunity Party wants the Commerce Commission empowered to seek break-ups through the High Court.

Act stands almost alone in Parliament in insisting the answer is not to restructure the incumbents. Its proposal is to make it easier for another operator to enter: streamlined consenting, fewer local-government hurdles and recognition of some overseas food labels – basically deregulation and cutting of red-tape.

Until mid-September National’s official policy was relatively aligned to Act’s approach, although Willis had told the Post in July that she was looking “in detail” at structural separation. Former Act leader Richard Prebble notes on his Substack that at 2.37pm on 15 September, Commerce Minister Cameron Brewer was still describing that approach to Parliament, starting with “making it easier to consent and build supermarkets”. Nineteen hours and 46 minutes later, by his count, National gave the media seven minutes’ notice of a press conference to announce a break-up.

Gareth Hughes, the former Green MP who now heads the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa, says in the Post: “The cost-of-living election has become the supermarket election.” Of National, New Zealand First, Labour and the Greens, he writes: “After four decades of governments reluctant to intervene directly in markets, all four parties now accept that New Zealand’s supermarket duopoly is not working and needs major structural reform.”

Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy told RNZ: “What is really encouraging is that we seem to be now not having a debate around whether the government needs to step in and do something about this sector, it’s how they should do that.” As Glenn McConnell wrote in Stuff, “A once radical proposal is, thanks to the election, becoming the mainstream consensus.”

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ELECTION 2026: THE CAMPAIGN
Tim Watkin (RNZ): How’s this election different? Disgruntlement, Opportunity and first-termitis
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Opportunity is being exceptionally honest about its bottom lines – has it made a big mistake? (paywalled)
Duncan Garner (Listener): Two ticks National – have Christopher Luxon and John Key got this wrong? (paywalled)
Paul Catmur (Listener): An insider’s look at this election’s advertising: Lies, damn lies, and political party slogans (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Why are would-be PMs picking parties that have never held the ninth floor? (paywalled)
Chris Schulz (Spinoff): ‘Enrol and have a free sausage’: Inside the campaigns to get young people to vote
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Four big, four small things you may have missed during week one on the campaign
Steve Braunias (Newsroom): The secret diary of .. the campaign: Week 1
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): ‘I’m so handsome? You’re saying all the right things…’
Brent Edwards (NBR): Election campaigning, the pre-election update, confused voters (paywalled)
David Farrar (Kiwiblog): The Herald poll of polls is wrong!
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): Christopher Luxon walks back ‘bizarre claim’ about the Greens
Henry Cooke (Post): Christopher Luxon wrongly suggests allegation about Greens came from media - it came from his minister (paywalled)
Henry Oliver (Spinoff): Local supermarket worker David Seymour seeks new job in November
Simon Wilson: They’re losing their shit over Chloe Swarbrick
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): What’s so scary about 16-year-olds voting?
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): What Taranaki wants at this election: Jobs, e-bikes and maybe new gas wells
Ethan Manera (Herald): Wellington Bays candidates make historic trip to Chatham Islands for NZ’s most remote election debate
Nick James (Post): A political world away from Wellington, the Chatham Islands have plenty to say (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): On the Chatham Islands, Wellington Bays candidates encounter a vastly different electorate

ELECTION 2026: DEBATES
Farah Hancock (RNZ): Winston Peters wins the airtime battle in first leaders debate, but who won the war?
Andrew Dickens (Newstalk ZB): The first Minor Leaders debate was a waste of time
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Minor parties keep calm and carry on in tepid kingmakers debate
Anna Whyte (Interest): From sunbeds to SMEs: Whiplash from the Press Kingmakers’ debate
Henry Cooke (Post): Does Winston trust David? ‘I didn’t like the guy but we shook hands and we made it work’ (paywalled)\
Mike Houlahan (ODT): In the immortal words of Mrs Merton, let’s have a heated debate (paywalled)
Ian Taylor (ODT): Are Seymour and Swarbrick really the best we can do? (paywalled)
Rebecca Howard (BusinessDesk): Kiwibank splits National, Labour at BusinessDesk-MYOB debate (paywalled)
Tom Raynel (Herald): Barbara Edmonds and Nicola Willis clash on small business policies in debate (paywalled)
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Finance debate: Nicola Willis and Barbara Edmonds set out competing business plans (paywalled)

ELECTION 2026: PARTIES AND POLICY
Anneke Smith (Post): David Seymour looks to steal the ‘party of business’ crown - with a shift at the till and a surge of donations (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Nicola Willis says $100b NZ First policy not well-formed enough for her to have an opinion on it (paywalled)
Chris Penk (Stuff): The Greens are striking a chord. But does their tax pitch stand up?
Max Rashbrooke (Post): Housing could give Labour the way out of its squeeze between past and future (paywalled)
Paula Penfold (Stuff): NZ First candidate defends past praise of controversial influencer Andrew Tate
Monique Steele (RNZ): Carbon farming, freshwater targets and tax features of farmer policy debate
Corin Dann (RNZ): National still keen on growing Kiwibank with help of private local investors
Herald: Editorial – National Party’s passport-free transtasman travel is a superficial policy win (paywalled)
The Post: Editorial – Ignore the hyperbole, this has not been an austerity government (paywalled)
RNZ: ACT leader David Seymour doesn’t see why AI shouldn’t write government Cabinet papers
RNZ: AI has finally entered the election campaign arena

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THE KINGMAKERS’ DEBATE
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): ‘Kingmakers’ debate sheds little light on party leaders’ coronation plans
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Minor parties keep calm and carry on in tepid kingmakers debate
Adam Pearse (Herald): Minor party leaders kickstart election sparring in breathless first debate (paywalled)
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Winston Peters, ruthlessly on brand, and ruthless - a winning combo - in Kingmakers’ Debate
Luke Malpass (Post): The Press Kingmakers’ debate: Kingmakers set a standard for the would-be kings (paywalled)
Richard Harman: Kingmakers leave crown unclaimed (paywalled)
Emma Ricketts and Sam Smith (Stuff): Here’s what the potential Kingmakers had to say after Stuff’s debate
Liz McDonald (Press): Kingmakers’ Debate: Winston Peters won debate, political panel says (paywalled)
Karanama Ruru (Stuff): Winston Peters says he was ‘pulled out’ of queue at hospital after doctor recognised him

THE “SPLIT YOUR VOTE” CAMPAIGN AND STRATEGIC VOTING
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The rightwing “Split Your Vote” campaign
Henry Cooke (Post): ‘An absolute rort’: Chris Hipkins hits out at Mowbray overhang campaign (paywalled)
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Too clever by half (paywalled)
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): There’s nothing strategic about strategic voting
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): New poll of Māori voters shows strategic voting may be sinking in

LABOUR’S DEMOCRACY AND TRANSPARENCY PLEDGES
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Hipkins unveils four-point plan to overhaul government transparency
Anneke Smith (Post): Labour wants mandatory lobbyist register, promises to limit use of urgency (paywalled)
Ashley Parker (BusinessDesk): Labour leader Chris Hipkins pledges to curb urgency and toughen Official Information Act (paywalled)
No Right Turn: Labour on democracy and trust in government
Mike McRoberts (NBR): Hipkins promises new checks on power (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Labour will abolish ratepayer roll, axing extra votes of landlords, holiday home owners

ELECTION CAMPAIGN AND PARTIES
Farah Hancock (RNZ): NZ First gets $161,000 boost from anonymous donors, latest Electoral Commission disclosure shows
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Youth enrolment in the election is shocking
Nik Dirga (RNZ): Explainer: Did you know not enrolling to vote is against the law?
Sammy Carter (RNZ): Politicians are trying to be funny online - young voters are cringing
Duncan Greive (Spinoff): The worm electrocuted the election debate in 2002. Now we’re living in the worm’s world
Anneke Smith (Post): The curated chaos of the campaign trail begins (paywalled)
Piers Fuller (Post): How will the cookie crumble for each major party? (paywalled)
Neil Sands (LawNews): Hipkins gives hard ‘no’ to tax demands from potential coalition partners, rules out raising current tax rates
Ani O’Brien (LawNews): What will Chris Hipkins have to give away to become Prime Minister?
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Labour ruled them out, but National is still counting ‘nine new taxes’
Anneke Smith (Post): NZ First wants Working for Families lifted by $120, maybe more (paywalled)
Matthew Hooton (Post): If it’s dog whistling, I refuse to identify with the dog (paywalled)
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Pawn to Queen – and the unspoken clash of the campaign
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): Arena Williams steals the show at Chris Hipkins’ no bullshit policy launch
Katie Bradford (Herald): Sir John Key’s election predictions: ‘It’s going to be tight getting some good MPs home’
Ian Taylor (Stuff): Seymour and Swarbrick can tell us who to blame. Who can tell us how to grow?
Lisa Marriott (Newsroom): Capital gains tax starts to shift the debate from being stuck on repeat
Michael Daubs (Newsroom): What political parties should consider for their AI election policies
Mihingarangi Forbes (RNZ): Poll says Māori are turning to the Greens for their party vote
David Farrar (Kiwiblog): Māori NZers poll
Liadhan Robinson (Post): Every election cycle, the vandalism reappears - and this year is no different (paywalled)
Tom Rose (Herald): Act candidate Antonia Modkova heckled over Te Tiriti comments at Auckland Central debate
Sam Smith (Stuff): All to play for in Epsom with National minister ‘very confident’ in making it sixth time lucky
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): National’s Emma Chatterton is the party candidate prototype
Tom Eley (Herald): Farming, tax and climate policy debated at Mystery Creek
Riley Kennedy (BusinessDesk): BBQ, beers and politics: A night out at Mystery Creek (paywalled)
Gianina Schwanecke (RNZ): Farmers warn Opportunity’s land tax has risks
RNZ: Opportunity party leader Qiulae Wong on recognising the good and the bad of AI
Imogene Bedford (Herald): Christopher Luxon says extra security measures needed for female MPs facing gendered abuse
Tom Raynel (Herald): Poll shows support for coalition parties among SMEs falling below 50% (paywalled)
BusinessDesk: SME election poll: National still leads, but Labour support nearly doubles (paywalled)

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The battle on the political right over strategic voting is heating up. Harry Mowbray has turned the right’s overhang argument into a public campaign. His new Split Your Vote website tells National supporters to give their party votes to Act or NZ First while continuing to elect National’s local candidates. Mowbray, father of the billionaire Zuru siblings, has backed it up with a series of short whiteboard videos on YouTube, and a busy presence on his own social media, where the campaign posts sit alongside others such as “Trump is the best president in my lifetime”.

Mowbray argues that if enough rightwing voters follow his instructions, the quirks of MMP could produce an “overhang” of up to 40 additional MPs for the coalition parties. The proportionality of Parliament would be severely skewed, allowing the right to win this election, and future ones, even if more New Zealanders voted for the opposition parties. His website says so plainly: “If we can learn to strategically split our votes like this in future elections a centre-right coalition will retain the Treasury Benches for the foreseeable future.”

National’s leadership wants supporters to reject the advice. Some rightwing advocates, however, regard weakening National and removing its senior MPs as part of the attraction.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has condemned the campaign today as a “rort” by “entrenched interests”. He told the Post’s Henry Cooke: “Billionaires shouldn’t be spending their money to try and rort the electoral system.”

I have previously examined how both sides could game MMP and the campaign to engineer a National overhang. The launch now makes it possible to examine who is organising it and what they want voters to do.

Who’s behind the campaign

Mowbray appeared on The Platform with Sean Plunket this morning and explained that he had initially planned to organise the campaign with others. Plunket referred to a meeting at Mowbray’s Coatesville home three weeks ago and a fundraising target of $400,000–$500,000.

Ani O’Brien says she provided paid consultancy advice on the proposed campaign. Her advice, she says, was that a full campaign was not possible under electoral law, and she then ended her involvement. She says she had nothing to do with the campaign Mowbray subsequently launched. Mowbray also identified Stephen Franks as one of those who had warned him about the electoral rules. He denied that the Taxpayers’ Union was involved, while acknowledging talking with Jordan Williams and having him to lunch “a few times”.

Mowbray denied that the Taxpayers’ Union was involved. He acknowledged talking with Jordan Williams, having him to lunch and attending the political debate with him the previous evening.

Then the organisers encountered the Electoral Act. According to Mowbray, O’Brien and Franks explained that the proposed campaign would have to comply with electoral rules. He says the collective project was abandoned, and he started again on his own, saying he would spend no more than $17,000.

Plunket was sceptical that this was really a one-man operation, pointing out that the campaign’s Facebook page described it as a political organisation, and that the website invited people to subscribe to “our” newsletter. Mowbray said he would check the wording, and acknowledged that he had “mates that are helping me do bits and pieces”. The website now invites readers to subscribe to “my newsletter”.

Calling it an individual campaign does not, by itself, remove the advertising rules. Anyone promoting an election advertisement for a party or candidate is required to have that party’s or candidate’s written authorisation. Staying under the spending threshold does not remove that requirement.

Mowbray told Plunket he has no third-party promoter approval from National, Act or New Zealand First, and Seymour confirmed that Act hadn’t been approached. Paid promotion of a website telling people to party vote Act or New Zealand First would appear to need exactly that permission. Seymour’s view was blunt: “if they want to become a promoter in the election, I think they got to register and get the permission of the person. If they’re breaking the rules, then I’m sure someone will dob them in and they’ll be in big trouble.”

However, individuals publishing personal political views online without making or receiving payment are exempt. Whether Mowbray’s campaign qualifies depends on how it is run and what paid work went into it. Paying O’Brien does not, on its own, establish a breach.

What the campaign promises

Mowbray’s argument is that on current polling National will win about 40 electorates but won’t get enough party votes to bring in any list MPs, so every National party vote is effectively lost. On Facebook he put the upside in sweeping terms: “If everyone was to split the approx 870,000 votes you would get 36 extra seats plus 4 national overhang seats, if 240,000 people split you would get 10 extra seats plus the 4 Nats seat overhang. Zero risk only upside”. Elaborating on The Platform, he again described a 40-seat overhang under which “the centre right would govern New Zealand for the foreseeable future”, and explained why he thinks this is necessary: “The present situation is MMP will continue to drive this country to the left.”

The 40-seat overhang only arrives if virtually every National party voter abandons the party, leaving National with almost no party vote at all. The claim that a National party vote achieves nothing is also overstated. Seats are shared out across all parties according to their share of the party vote, so every National party vote still reduces the entitlement of the other parties, including those on the left, so the “wasted vote” line doesn’t stand up.

The campaign’s stated goal is to keep the centre-right in power for the foreseeable future, using a feature of MMP that was intended to protect local representation. As Cooke points out, the mechanism would let the coalition parties “enjoy a majority in the House without necessarily winning more votes than the Opposition”.

Responding to the “rort” accusation, Mowbray told Cooke: “In terms of rorting it - the rules are there. We are only just using the rules that are there.” But it is clear that his campaign asks voters to make Parliament less proportional on purpose.

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections:

• “Act and NZ First keep their options open”

• “National has good reasons to object”

• “Some advocates want to punish National”

• “Making Parliament less proportional”

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PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Lobbying reform finally has leverage
Greg Treadwell (The Conversation): Education Ministry inquiry the latest sign NZ’s Official Information Act isn’t working
Emma Stanford (Stuff): Trans-Tasman races and secret audits: What an OIA reveals about NZ’s $8m Michelin deal
Kate MacNamara (Herald): Fletcher Building cement plant: Officials advised against $60m Government help (paywalled)
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Govt agrees to public service reform over untracked Māori funding
Azaria Howell (Herald): Public sector bosses at Upper Hutt leadership retreat told now is an ‘exciting time’ to be a leader
Andrew Bevin (Newsroom): Major export and construction firms warn against legal definition of women
Oscar Francis (BusinessDesk): Slate of new digital credentials planned amidst delays in filling Govt.nz wallet (paywalled)
Rodney Hide: We stopped believing. The rulebook got religion
Anneke Smith (Post): New Ambassador of France, François Decoster, on why it was Wellington, or nowhere (paywalled)
1News: Agency bosses face monthly scrutiny after Tom Phillips inquiry

THE OVERHANG AND STRATEGIC VOTING
Audrey Young (Herald): MMP overhang debate: How strategic voting could expand Parliament and benefit the right (paywalled)
Isaac Davison (Stuff): Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop among top ministers who could lose their seats as election overhang possible
Henry Cooke (Post): ‘This election is no different’: Winston Peters not going all-in on overhang strategy (paywalled)
Ani O’Brien: Should the centre-right split their vote?
Stuff: What is ‘strategic voting’ and why don’t the main parties like it?

ELECTION CAMPAIGN
Chris Trotter (LawNews): Election 2026: when the tail is growing large enough to wag the ideological dog
Eva Corlett and Kat Wong (Guardian): A tight election looms in New Zealand. This time, overseas voters could be bad news for the big parties
Amanda Gillies (Newsroom): ‘Very, very tight race’ puts election on a knife edge
Oliver Hartwich (NZ Initiative): When the party was home
Jonathan Ayling (Herald): Evidence tells us what works, values tell us what is worth doing (paywalled)
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Does the Govt deserve another three years?
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): On the trail: Hipkins out-ovationed, for a good cause
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Chris Hipkins has been found out
Glenn McLean (Post): Hipkins confident Labour can swing New Plymouth seat back (paywalled)
Robin Martin (RNZ): Election campaign sees Chris Hipkins hit the streets of New Plymouth
Mike Houlahan (ODT): Odds on the key issue is the cost of living (paywalled)
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): We know Chlöe Swarbrick’s not getting the finance portfolio, right?
Mandy Te (Interest): Chlöe Swarbrick talks portfolios the Greens have an eye on
Stan Ellis (Stuff): Swarbrick to Willis: ‘Reflect on those poll numbers’
Liz McDonald (Post): Christopher Luxon spots ‘No More Taxes’ sign during Christchurch factory visit (paywalled)
Stuff: Steel sign makes Luxon’s day
Jazlyn Whales (Herald): Rollickin’ Gelato in Christchurch reveals political party flavours
Maxine Jacobs (Press): Vote with your taste buds or your politics: Rollickin Gelato rolls out election scoop poll (paywalled)
RNZ: A field guide to the dissolution of Parliament

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections: ELECTORATE RACES AND DEBATES; MĀORI ELECTORATES; PREFU AND THE FISCAL DEBATE; OPPORTUNITY PARTY; ACT AND THE EPSOM SCHOOL; EU TRADE DEAL CLIMATE COMPLAINT; DIRTY WORK AND THE TAXPAYERS’ UNION; ECONOMY AND BUSINESS; TRANSPORT; LOCAL GOVERNMENT; HEALTH; EDUCATION; CARTOONS

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For the first time, the regulation of lobbying has become a condition for forming a government in New Zealand. Yesterday the Opportunity Party named five “non-negotiable” policies that any party wanting its support to form a government would have to accept, and one of them is regulating political lobbying. Leader Qiulae Wong said that “New Zealanders deserve to know who is trying to influence their government, and no one should be able to buy disproportionate political influence.” She was blunt on what the party would not compromise on: “We will require real reform of lobbying and political donations.”

The announcement comes after a fortnight in which the Greens published a detailed lobbying policy and draft legislation, Victoria University researchers released a major report on lobbying, and the Public Health Communication Centre tried to pin the political parties down on where they stand.

Lobbying reform is receiving more sustained attention in this election campaign than ever before. But the history of the issue provides plenty of reason for scepticism. New Zealand has never been short of politicians willing to criticise lobbying from opposition. What it has lacked is governments willing to impose significant restrictions on political access and the revolving door once those relationships become useful to them.

Opportunity’s announcement matters because the latest 1News-Verian poll has the party on 6%, or seven MPs. Under both seat scenarios calculated by 1News, neither the current governing bloc nor Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori reaches a majority without Opportunity. So, on those numbers, lobbying reform has something it has rarely possessed in New Zealand politics: bargaining power.

The easiest promise to keep badly

Of all Opportunity’s bottom lines, lobbying reform may be one of the easiest for a major party to concede. It has little direct fiscal cost, there is substantial public support for greater transparency, and politicians on both left and right have previously endorsed variations on the usual reform package.

That also creates a risk: lobbying reform may be easy to satisfy in name while changing rather less in practice.

There is already some ambiguity in Opportunity’s position. Its full Clean Up Politics policy promises a one-year cooling-off period between senior government roles and lobbying, a mandatory public and searchable register, and a statutory code of conduct with “real consequences for misconduct, including deregistration and fines”. But its new bottom-line document is narrower. It says any governing partner must accept “a mandatory register and code of conduct for lobbyists”, along with its separate requirement on political donations. The one-year revolving-door restriction is not expressly included in the bottom-line wording, nor are the proposed fines.

That may simply be shorthand. But what would another party actually have to agree to? Would the complete lobbying package need to be enacted? Would a register and mandatory code be enough? Could the next government agree to the principle, send officials away for another year of policy design and declare the condition met?

There is plenty of history of lobbying reform going into the system and very little coming out. In 2023 Chris Hipkins responded to a series of lobbying controversies by backing the development of a voluntary code and announcing longer-term work on regulatory options. National was then in opposition, and Nicola Willis went further, supporting a transparent public register and a 12-month stand-down before former ministers could move directly into lobbying. Once National took office, however, the urgency drained away. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith put lobbying reform alongside all the other competing demands on his portfolio and the regulatory project stalled. The pattern is bigger than National: lobbying reform always seems more urgent from the Opposition benches.

Max Rashbrooke put the political pattern rather neatly to Newsroom’s Fox Meyer last week. He said lobbying reform is something opposition parties can use to “embarrass” governments, only for it to become “suddenly not a priority” after they take power. Of National’s earlier commitments, he observed: “In practice, however, they have – strangely enough – not found it a matter of urgency to implement them.”

That is what makes Opportunity’s move potentially different. A manifesto promise can quietly drop down a ministerial work programme. A provision in the coalition agreement that establishes a government is harder to lose without somebody having to explain why. But that only works if the commitment is precise enough that another review, another code and another promise to look at the difficult bits cannot be presented as delivery.

Labour answers without answering

Yesterday the Public Health Communication Centre released a survey report on what the various parties will commit to on lobbying and democracy reforms. Apart from Opportunity and the Greens, no other parties were fully committed to reform of lobbying. On lobbying reform the report’s summary table labels Labour’s response as “Unclear”.

The full response explains why. Labour was asked a straightforward question: “Will your party introduce an online, public and searchable register of lobbyists…?” It replied: “Labour believes it’s important we have a sensible and transparent system that does not give the impression that lobbyists enjoy an unfair advantage over other New Zealanders.”

That is not a yes. The wording is also notable: it talks about the impression of unfair advantage rather than explicitly saying that an unfair advantage exists.

Labour can reasonably point out that it initiated the 2023 reform work and that health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall has lodged a Tobacco Transparency Bill. But the party has still not set out a clear general package covering a statutory lobby register, disclosure of lobbying activity and restrictions on the revolving door.

The other party responses are hardly conclusive either. Te Pāti Māori says it is “open to supporting specific policies which promote greater transparency over commercial lobbyists as a part of Coalition Agreement negotiations”. New Zealand First did not give a clear answer on a lobby register and warned that “for a lot of areas” its 2026 policies were yet to be finalised. National and Act did not respond to the Public Health survey at all. The authors find broad support for reform, but agreement on an actual statutory regime is much thinner.

The paywall now starts at halfway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections:

• “Would the Greens really prioritise lobbying reform?”

• “Reading the Greens’ lobbying fine print”

• “Swimming in a sea of lobbying”

• “The lobbyist who thinks the problem is overstated”

• “The test after the election”

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PREFU AND THE GOVERNMENT’S BOOKS
Jo Moir (RNZ): What the government’s $4b surplus means for the election
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Time for Champagne, Lindauer or Tui? - Treasury lifts lid on ‘yeah right’ recovery (paywalled)
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): The pre-election books have been opened. Do they bring cause to cheer?
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Govt’s books improve with return to surplus a year early, but Treasury warns ageing population threatens finances
Cushla Norman (1News): Better picture for Govt books, not a ‘green light’ to spend - Willis
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Less debt, bigger surplus coming in pre-election fiscal update
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): Treasury gives Willis pre-election boost as surplus forecast improves
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Recovery slows and economic risks loom in pre-election forecasts
Corin Dann (RNZ): Treasury growth forecasts largely unchanged - house prices weaker
Corin Dann (RNZ): Will rosier government books catch the eye of global ratings agencies?
Jamie Gray (Herald): NZ Treasury sends bond market a positive surprise with reduced borrowing plan (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Nicola Willis says surplus must come before tax cuts – and has a message for her opponents (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Nicola Willis’ PREFU good news forecast has an MMP problem (paywalled)
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Willis delivers a ‘stay the course’ Prefu (paywalled)
Cameron Bagrie (BusinessDesk): Fixing the books relies on six critical assumptions (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): House price growth forecasts slashed significantly - is Labour’s Capital Gains Tax in danger?
Anneke Smith (Post): Opposition parties say the public has paid the price for brighter books (paywalled)
Herald: Act leader David Seymour says Prefu numbers ‘hopeful’ but more needs to be done
Richard Harman: Gone by Christmas? (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Labour and Greens promise to release their fiscal plans soon (paywalled)
Rebecca Howard (BusinessDesk): Treasury forecasts wider $4.02b surplus by June 2029 (paywalled)
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): The Government’s books are looking better, but the economic outlook — not so much (paywalled)
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Treasury brightens forecasts - but they don’t account for recent global downturn (paywalled)
Liam Dann (Herald): Inside Economics: ‘An aspirational quality’ - can we trust Treasury forecasts? ...plus, oil shock round two (paywalled)
Herald: Is the NZ economy really getting better, or is it just better than expected? - The Front Page
Anneke Smith (Post): Housing market slowdown appears baked in, Treasury pre-election forecast shows (paywalled)

OPPORTUNITY PARTY BOTTOM LINES
Katie Bradford (Herald): Opportunity Party releases its five bottom lines – with two key policies missing
Adam Pearse (Herald): Labour welcomes Opportunity bottom lines, National ignores them
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Opportunity reaches deep with new bottom line to phase out bottom-trawling
Ella Somers (Interest): Opportunity announces its ‘non-negotiable’ bottom lines
Ella Somers (Interest): ‘We need an independent watchdog with teeth’
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Post): Opportunity leaves tax plan off coalition bottom lines (paywalled)
RNZ: Health, supermarkets and political lobbying among Opportunity Party’s bottom lines
Sam Smith (Stuff): Opportunity announces bottom lines hoping to appeal to both Labour and National
1News: No land tax or ‘citizens’ income’ in Opportunity’s bottom lines
The Post: Editorial – A land tax is no fringe idea (paywalled)
No Right Turn: Bottom lines
Ani O’Brien: Could Opportunity really work with the Right?

ELECTION 2026
Justin Hu (1News): Poll: Both Luxon, Hipkins’ approval ratings down ahead of election\
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): All eyes on minors as Labour and National faceplant out of the starting blocks
Henry Cooke (Post): NZ First seriously pushing an election-skewing overhang would make it far more likely (paywalled)
1News: Surging Greens ‘not here to play silly buggers’, eye portfolios
Stuff: Swarbrick says finance portfolio for voters to decide, not Hipkins
Stan Ellis (Stuff): No, Swarbrick wouldn’t be finance minister, Hipkins says
Harriet Laughton (Post): Chris Hipkins sets own bottom line against minor-party veto power (paywalled)
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Greens’ shoots grow as major parties continue slide
Adrian Beaumont (The Conversation): NZ election poll watch: minor parties gain as Labour and National slide
Paula Penfold (Stuff): A National Party member was told the campaign launch was full - but hundreds of seats were empty
Steven Cowan: The Greens don’t owe Labour any favours
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): Strategic voting – is it really a clever decision?
Alice Peacock (Newsroom): Capital gains tax a ‘complete waste of time’ as revenue tool – Deloitte tax partner
Tom Peters (World Socialist Website): New Zealand election: Labour’s phony “principled” foreign policy
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Flip Forecaster: No way to power without Opportunity... unless
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Why Mt Albert is shaping up as the most exciting battle of election 2026
Felix Walton (RNZ): Auckland’s seat of Maungakiekie has never been a safe bet
Nick James (Post): Christopher Luxon in his happy place - just outside of Wellington (paywalled)
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): National softens its language on lifting Super eligibility age, saying political consensus is needed, but missing (paywalled)
Herald: Editorial – Election attack slogans, like taxes, are inevitable but have they ever been more misleading? (paywalled)
Shayne Currie (Herald): This National Party billboard has drawn more than a dozen formal complaints – why advertising watchdog says it’s OK (paywalled)
Kirsten Wise (Herald): The missing piece of NZ’s political puzzle is risk (paywalled)
Cate Macintosh (Press): New Zealand on track for lowest youth vote ever (paywalled)
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Electoral Commission wants number of youth enrolled to vote ‘to be a lot higher’
RNZ: ‘Best thing we can do is show up and vote’: Students urge peers to have their say
Virginia Fallon (Post): ‘I’d love to have a trapdoor’: The art of moderating a political debate (paywalled)

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections: PAY EQUITY; MĀORI ELECTORATES; ADRIAN RURAWHE; PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE; ECONOMY AND BUSINESS; LOCAL GOVERNMENT; HEALTH; MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY; EDUCATION; ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY; CARTOONS

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ELECTION 2026: POLLS
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Major parties in name only
1News: Poll: Greens surge to best result ever as National, Labour slide further
Thomas Coughlan and Chris Knox (Herald): Coalition loses advantage in poll of polls – change more likely than not (paywalled)
Karanama Ruru (Stuff): Greens surge to new high as Labour and National drop in latest poll
Julia Gabel (Herald): Green Party surges to record high in 1News Verian poll
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Left bloc may be able to form government latest poll suggests
Justin Hu (1News): ‘Pretty cool isn’t it’ - Party reacts to best-ever 1News poll result
Justin Hu (1News): The two ways of calculating seats for the 1News Verian poll
Russell Palmer (RNZ): ‘There’s a long way to go’ - ACT, Greens on gains in polling, and working with Opportunity

ELECTION 2026: STRATEGIC VOTING
Harriet Laughton (Post): ‘Insanely stupid idea’: Christopher Luxon warns against strategic voting (paywalled)
RNZ: ACT, NZ First hit back at National’s warning against ‘strategic voting’
Ryan Bridge (Newstalk ZB): What strategic voting will do
Peter Williams: Splitting your vote - It’s the only way
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Winston Peters warms to overhang strategy: ‘You don’t just carry on with previous ways’

ELECTION 2026: CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES AND THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
The Post: Editorial – No new taxes, precious few new ideas (paywalled)
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): Both parties’ launches reeked of desperation
ODT: Editorial – The campaign (really) starts now (paywalled)
Audrey Young (Herald): Campaign launch showdown: Who made the biggest impact as Luxon, Hipkins get personal (paywalled)
Gordon Campbell: On The Flaccid Campaign Launches, And Despair Over Diesel Prices
Herald: PM Christopher Luxon speaks to Mike Hosking after National, Labour launch campaigns
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): What makes a political campaign work?
Adam Pearse (Herald): Christopher Luxon’s surprise McDonald’s mission and a positive ‘toot to finger’ ratio (paywalled)
Amber Allott (Press): Labour leader Chris Hipkins on the charm offensive in Christchurch (paywalled)
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): ‘I’m floored’: Hipkins stumped by question at ice cream shop
Stuff: ‘It’s a promo’: Winston Peters settles campaign video speculation
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): Christopher Luxon labels policy by potential coalition partner ‘madness’

ELECTION 2026: SUPERMARKETS
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): National’s plan to intervene in the business of supermarkets reflects its desperation (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Sir John Key not sure if National’s supermarket split is right solution (paywalled)
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Foodstuffs queries claim it could duplicate warehouses for $300m after break-up (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Act’s David Seymour warns politicians in ‘state of panic’ responding to cost-of-living woes
RNZ: ACT’s David Seymour slams ‘unethical’ promises to break up supermarket duopoly
Justin Hu (1News): ACT reveals supermarkets policy, decries ‘insane’ break-up proposals
Sam Smith (Stuff): ACT promises ‘one-stop shop’ to cut red tape for new supermarkets
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): ACT pitches label law overhaul to lure new supermarket operator (paywalled)
NBR: The Act Party’s plan to boost supermarket competition (paywalled)

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections: LOBBYING, DONATIONS AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE; ELECTION 2026: ELECTORATE RACES AND CANDIDATES; PARLIAMENT, ELECTION AND GOVERNMENT; ELECTION 2026: STUDENT LOANS; ECONOMY AND BUSINESS; WORK AND PAY EQUITY; HOUSING; HEALTH; EDUCATION; MĀORI AND TREATY ISSUES; ENVIRONMENT AND PRIMARY SECTOR; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DEFENCE; CARTOONS

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Labour and National are now on 28% each in the 1News-Verian poll released tonight, giving them just 56% of decided voters between them. Their leaders are doing even worse, with Christopher Luxon preferred as prime minister by 19% and Chris Hipkins by 14%.

The poll was taken between 23 and 27 September, mostly before the two parties launched their campaigns in Auckland on Sunday, so it shows the slump that the launches were supposed to turn around. Neither launch suggested the parties know how to do that.

Kerre Woodham’s verdict on Newstalk ZB this morning was that “For both parties, the launches pretty much reeked of desperation.” The description seems even more apt after tonight’s numbers. And neither launch exactly looked like a major political movement sweeping confidently towards election day.

Three weeks ago I wrote about the “politics of meh”, arguing that both major parties were struggling to offer much beyond warnings about what the other side might do – see: Democracy Briefing: The politics of meh. Their campaign launches were an obvious opportunity to move beyond that. Instead, Sunday largely confirmed the problem, albeit at much greater volume.

Short on hope and heavy on fear

With so little enthusiasm for either party, both major party leaders spent Sunday mostly talking about the other. Luxon told his audience “You can’t afford Chris Hipkins”, and a couple of hours later Hipkins was telling his that “I’ve never felt more strongly in my life that the National Party is a risk to the future of this country.”

Stuff’s Jenna Lynch captured the choice neatly: “National wants voters afraid of what a Labour-led government might tax. Labour wants them afraid of what another three years of a National-led government might cost them.”

In that sense, the politics of meh hasn’t disappeared. It has simply become louder and more negative, with much of the campaign increasingly built around fear of what the other lot might do. The Listener’s Danyl McLauchlan, who welcomes the absence of unaffordable promises this time, argued that if Labour and National “can’t resort to their usual gimmicks, they have next-to-nothing to offer other than their mutual loathing.”

No political party is entitled to anything

The two parties’ combined support in the 1News poll has gone from 67% in April to 61% in June, 59% in August and 56% now. Hipkins dismissed an August Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll as “rogue”, but he can no longer do that. Two other polls this month had both parties below 30%. If tonight’s figures were repeated on 7 November, it would be the lowest combined vote for the two parties since National was formed in 1936. The lowest so far under MMP was 62% in 1996, and as recently as 2017 the pair took about 81% between them.

The voters leaving Labour and National are ending up with the smaller parties. The Greens are on 16%, their best result ever in the poll, with Act on 11%, NZ First on 9% and Opportunity on 6%.

Asked whether the Greens were taking Labour’s votes, Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said: “No political party is entitled to anything.” Luxon fell back on the old standby that “The only poll that matters now is November the 7th.”

Mr No New Taxes

National made its central message impossible to miss yesterday. The strategy is straightforward: National wants tax to become the defining risk voters associate with changing government.

Newsroom’s Sam Sachdeva counted the word “tax”, or variants of it, about 64 times in 54 minutes of speeches — “an impressive, or horrifying, 1.2 taxes per minute”. Christopher Luxon was introduced as “Mr No New Taxes”. Nicola Willis described a possible alternative government as “a potpourri of half-baked socialists who seek to punish success, destroy wealth, and take what you’ve worked so hard to earn”. Sachdeva also noted that Simeon Brown invited the audience to imagine Chlöe Swarbrick as finance minister, Rawiri Waititi in Corrections and Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong imposing a land tax as revenue minister.

The “No New Taxes” slogan was “recited ad nauseam by supporters in the crowd”, according to the Herald’s Jamie Ensor and Adam Pearse. They explained that until the slogan arrived, “the party was lacking a central unifying narrative at a time when it felt like there was more momentum behind attempts to roll its leader than towards victory.” Beyond the absence of new taxes, “there also wasn’t much new of anything else”, and apart from a couple of policies, such as compulsory KiwiSaver, the pledge card read as if “someone had copy and pasted the 2023 pledges, and just changed them up a tad.”

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections:
National’s loyalty problem
Hipkins finds his temper
What the major parties are missing in the campaign

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ELECTION 2026: CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): A pledge card vs a policy. Inside the battle of the campaign launches
Jamie Ensor and Adam Pearse (Herald): What stood out at National, Labour’s campaign launches (paywalled)
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Labour launches with a Wahs-like vibe and a student surprise
Jo Moir (RNZ): National and Labour leaders come out firing - and fed up
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): Field notes from National and Labour’s campaign launches
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): National’s taxing campaign to hold the throne
Henry Cooke (Post): Labour outclasses National’s energy on campaign launch day (paywalled)
Henry Cooke and Harriet Laughton (Post): ‘The fight in front of us’: Labour campaign launch puts the spotlight on cost of living (paywalled)
Harriet Laughton (Post): National Party launches election campaign, vows to stand against the ‘economic vandals’ (paywalled)
Richard Harman: Hipkins comes out of the shadows (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Christopher Luxon warns Labour bereft of ideas as he reveals National’s 10 top promises
Adam Pearse (Herald): Labour reveals policy to forgive student loan debt as party kicks off election campaign
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Student loan write-off vs pledge card: The Chrises launch their campaigns
Russell Palmer (RNZ): ‘The job isn’t done’: Luxon launches National’s election campaign in Auckland
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): ‘It made me so angry’: Hipkins targets cost of living at Labour campaign launch
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): National and Labour launch election 2026 campaigns
RNZ: Labour promises to write off 10% of some student loan balances
Justin Hu (1News): Key hypes Luxon as Willis teases fiscal outlook at campaign launch
Justin Hu (1News): Labour pledges wiping 10% off student loans for NZ-based borrowers
Anna Whyte (Interest): Labour goes after student loan debt, National goes after tax
Mike Houlahan (ODT): Promises and pledges: election campaigns officially under way (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): A tale of two election campaign launches (paywalled)

ELECTION 2026: PARTIES, ELECTORATES AND VOTERS
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The campaign to engineer a National overhang
Stuff: Two-thirds of Kiwis think politicians don’t care about people like them
Verity Johnson (Stuff): Hey NZ, please don’t be a conscientious objector voter this November
Michael Swanson: Gaming the House: overhang seats and the 2026 election
Isaac Davison (Stuff): Labour has held Mt Albert for 80 years. Even loyal supporters fear it could finally turn blue
Chris Trotter (Interest): Undue influence
Richard Harman (Post): Barbara Edmonds does it the ‘Porirua Way’ (paywalled)
Fox Meyer (Newsroom): Greens say change won’t come from reheating the same political nachos
Justin Hu (1News): Greens-National deal a ‘conversation’ but gap wide - Davidson
Maria Slade (BusinessDesk): Growing grey vote is tiring of lack of options (paywalled)
Shawn McAvinue (ODT): Agriculture politicians share their vision for southern rural communities (paywalled)

HOUSING
Eric Frykberg (Listener): Rising housing inequality & widening wealth gaps: Is the Bank of Mum & Dad to blame? (paywalled)
Andrea Vance (Post): Ten years without power: How Wellington’s community housing system is failing its most vulnerable (paywalled)
Tom Hunt (Post): Government selling up 36 empty Wellington state homes (paywalled)
Simon Wilson (Listener): Wider Auckland needs about 1000 emergency beds. Move-on orders won’t fix that (paywalled)
Kate Newton (RNZ): Ministry delays rules on too-hot homes
Ellen O’Dwyer (RNZ): Kāinga Ora decision to sell off Wellington housing blocks disappoints locals
Sunday Star Times: Cheap homes may change schools (paywalled)

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Henry Cooke’s frontpage article in the Post yesterday opened with a striking sentence: “There is an attempt – a very nascent one – from a very rich right-wing man to fundamentally skew the New Zealand election.” The man is Harry Mowbray, father of the siblings behind the Zuru toy company, and Cooke reports that he “has been calling around looking to get a campaign going that exploits the ‘overhang’ in MMP to get the current parties of the coalition an advantage.” Mowbray apparently believes “anywhere from 10 extra MPs to 30 is possible.”

A month ago I wrote about how both sides could game MMP – see: Democracy Briefing: How both sides could game MMP. At that stage Te Pāti Māori had built its campaign around the candidate vote, and people on the right were mostly just discussing whether National voters could do the same on a bigger scale. That talk has since turned into something closer to a campaign, and a steady stream of broadcasters and bloggers repeating one instruction: “electorate vote National, party vote Act or New Zealand First”.

None of the three coalition parties will put its name to the strategy, and National is openly hostile to it. The advocacy is coming from donors, commentators and some candidates, while the parties themselves resist the proposal. If it develops into paid campaigning, the organisers will face requirements that ordinary political commentary does not.

I’ve criticised Te Pāti Māori’s version too, but at least it is owned by a party that voters can punish on 7 November. In this case, however, a campaign organised outside the parties raises an additional question: who takes responsibility for its funding and methods?

More seats without more support

Here’s why this overhang strategy is very clever, but not very ethical.

Normally, the party vote determines each party’s total entitlement to MPs. Electorate winners fill part of that entitlement, and list MPs make up the balance. If a party wins more electorates than its party vote entitles it to, however, it keeps those electorate MPs and Parliament expands. That is an overhang.

The broader strategy promoted by individuals like Don Brash exploits that exception. National supporters would keep electing National’s local candidates while transferring party votes to Act or NZ First. If National retained enough electorates, reducing its party-vote entitlement would enlarge its overhang while the transferred votes helped elect more of its partners’ MPs.

Consider a hypothetical result in which the governing parties’ combined party votes would ordinarily produce 58 seats against the opposition’s 62. If transfers within the governing bloc generated a six-seat National overhang, the result could become 64 against 62. Parliament would grow to 126 MPs, with 64 needed for a majority. The coalition would have crossed that line without increasing its combined party vote.

Of course there is nothing inherently wrong with splitting your votes. Someone can prefer a National electorate candidate and Act’s policies. The objection is to deliberately coordinating votes to produce a Parliament less representative of the party vote, potentially allowing a bloc with less support to remain in government.

From talkback to a campaign

Anyone who listens to rightwing talkback will have heard the pitch by now. Don Brash brought the idea to wide attention in August, telling The Platform that “The right would be unstoppable.” Michael Laws, a New Zealand First candidate who also hosts a daily show on The Platform, says he has been “hammering” the case for the “overhang ruse or rort” since February. Peter Williams conceded on his Substack that the tactic was “not absolutely ethical or in the spirit of the electoral system but needs must.” Ashley Church has pushed it on his blog and on Leighton Smith’s podcast, and Act candidate Paul Henry has hinted at it on his roadshow.

Muriel Newman’s New Zealand Centre for Political Research has since published detailed advice on vote-splitting, identifying electorates where Act and NZ First supporters could help National. She argues that National party votes may produce no additional MPs, while acknowledging that a recovery in its support could change the calculation.

Cameron Slater has been pushing the same split at the Good Oil. A website called “Two Votes, Two MPs” already advocates an electorate vote for National, except in Epsom and Tāmaki, and a party vote for Act or NZ First. The site names Dieuwe de Boer in its authorisation statement and says it is unaffiliated with any party or third-party promoter.

And at the start of September Nick Mowbray, who has given $250,000 to National and $200,000 to Act this year, set out the strategy on X: “The objective is simple: maximise the chances of the current coalition continuing to govern.”

Much of the arithmetic comes from Oliver Hartwich of the New Zealand Initiative, whose modelling found that “If one National party vote in nine moved to a coalition partner, the Government would gain a parliamentary majority even if the opposition wins more votes in total.”

Writing about Te Pāti Māori’s tactic, Hartwich warned: “This tactical manoeuvre makes political sense, it is legal, and that is exactly the problem.” As Toby Manhire observed at the Spinoff, “All of this might be dismissed as fanciful were it not for the fact that it has been championed by a group of intelligent and influential figures on the right.” Newman and others have since treated Hartwich’s paper as a how-to guide.

The Mowbray plan

Cooke describes Harry Mowbray wanting Act and New Zealand First voters to pledge their electorate votes to National, while some National voters give their party votes to Act. Cooke is blunt about what that would mean: “Mathematically, this could give the right a large number of extra seats – without having to win over actual new voters.” It would also “make it entirely possible for a Government to be elected that had far fewer votes than the Opposition, but were simply better organised.”

This is reminiscent of the first past the post electoral era, such as in the 1978 and 1981 elections, in which the party with the most votes lost. Mowbray’s proposal could produce a comparable mismatch between votes and power.

Cooke found Mowbray “refreshingly open about his goal”, and reports that he “thinks MMP is a dog of a system for allowing such a move.” Hartwich, for his part, told the Taxpayers’ Union’s podcast that he would prefer first past the post, although he argues MMP should be repaired before voters are asked whether to keep it. I suspect some on the right wouldn’t mind much if MMP were discredited along the way.

What remains unclear is who would finance such a campaign and how much voters would learn about its spending.

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections:
“The obstacle to an advertising campaign”
“The prospect of paid influencers”
“Doing what the parties can’t”
“Changing the rules”

The obstacle to an advertising campaign

Mowbray has run into two obstacles. The first, as Cooke tells it, is that “the parties he wants to involve in this are completely aghast at the idea.” National doesn’t want to become an electorate-only party, and Act and New Zealand First know that chasing two ticks keeps their volunteers working.

The second is electoral law. “Instructing someone on how to vote, especially in a paid pamphlet as Mowbray was mulling, would likely be seen as an election advertisement under the Electoral Act,” Cooke writes. An outside campaigner who wants to run advertising promoting a party or candidate needs that party’s or candidate’s written permission, and Cooke’s reporting suggests National would be unlikely to welcome such a request.

Advertising against a party is a different matter, and Cooke notes “There is space to encourage people to vote against another party, but there are still rules and limits around that spending.” A campaign confined to opposing National’s party vote would raise different authorisation questions. But material that also promotes Act, NZ First or electorate candidates would still need to satisfy the relevant rules.

Cooke also reports that Mowbray “was now looking to see if he could spend $17,000 promoting a website that pushed the plan – but this was not yet final.” The figure matches the unregistered third-party advertising limit. Staying within it would avoid compulsory registration, but election advertisements would still need to identify their promoter and obtain any required authorisations. Identifying the promoter, however, does not necessarily tell voters who supplied the money.

The prospect of paid influencers

Separately, I am told that paid promotion through social media influencers is being considered by some on the right, in lieu of an official campaign. But paying influencers would not automatically avoid the advertising rules. The Electoral Commission’s exemption for online political content covers “individuals publishing their personal political views online without making or receiving payment”.

Paying someone to promote particular parties would not qualify for the unpaid personal-views exemption. Whether the content constituted election advertising would depend on its substance and any other applicable exemption, including for editorial content. If it did, promoter identification and the relevant written authorisations would be required.

There is a problem of enforcement though. Undisclosed paid content could be difficult to identify and investigate before election day. Therefore the Electoral Commission would do everyone a favour by spelling out now how the rules apply.

Doing what the parties can’t

Michael Laws has been admirably frank about why the parties must be kept at arm’s length from such a campaign. He told his listeners that the parties “cannot admit this particular strategy”, going on to say: “But the rest of us aren’t bound.” His justification is retaliation against Te Pāti Māori: “We’re going to screw the scrum as well.”

According to a Herald report, Paul Henry told a Lower Hutt audience that people who had “worked it out” would talk to others, “and maybe that’s the best way this news should filter around”, then remarked that “there are members of the media here”.

Chris Bishop’s response to Brash was that “voters would punish that kind of game-playing”. But that deterrent works best when a party is doing the playing. Hartwich argues that “A National voter who understands this needs no instruction from anyone.” Those voters are now receiving a great deal of instruction, and some of it may soon be paid for.

Changing the rules

New Zealand’s rules on third-party campaigning were largely designed before paying social media influencers became a campaign tool. The question is whether existing disclosure and enforcement arrangements are adequate for paid political promotion through social media, particularly when audiences cannot see who is financing it. Once the votes are counted, the next government might want to look at the rules again, alongside the overhang itself, which has survived several reviews recommending change. As I argued last month, that review should be independent and cross-party, rather than run by whichever side happened to benefit in 2026.

Hartwich put the broader danger well: “An electoral system that punishes sincere voting and rewards clever voting will not stay legitimate for long.” I’d say the same about campaign rules that let a wealthy backer spend right up to the registration limit while the public learns almost nothing about the money.

As Manhire has pointed out, the Royal Commission that recommended MMP forty years ago trusted that “any attempt to deliberately manipulate the system would be both difficult to implement and likely to attract an electoral backlash”. Harry Mowbray will not be on the ballot. Any electoral backlash would fall on the parties his campaign sought to help.

In a further Democracy Briefing I’ll look at who on the right stands to gain from all this, and why National itself may be one of the campaign’s targets. Until then, Michael Swanson’s advice on his Substack is the best available. He says the overhang strategy is “a corruption of what the system was designed to do” and concludes: “The honest advice is the boring advice: vote for the person you want in your electorate, and give your party vote to the party you actually want in Parliament.”

Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project

Further Reading:
Henry Cooke (Post): Why the Mowbray plot to skew the election probably won’t work (paywalled)
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): The calls on the right to ‘rort’ MMP by engineering a National Party overhang
Muriel Newman (NZCPR): Strategic voting to win
Oliver Hartwich (New Zealand Initiative): Tactical voting could sink MMP
Oliver Hartwich (NZCPR): Unravelling MMP
Taxpayer Talk: Jordan Williams and Oliver Hartwich on MMP gaming and overhang chaos
Ashley Church: Could an MMP loophole return a centre-right government?
Peter Williams: Should Nats follow the TPM Method?
Michael Laws (The Platform): MMP overhang is the only effective answer to Te Pāti Māori’s tactics
Cameron Slater (Good Oil): Still no list MPs. Still no answer.
Michael Swanson: Gaming the House: overhang seats and the 2026 election
Nik Dirga (RNZ): Explainer: What is an overhang and how could it change NZ’s election result?
Electoral Commission: About election advertising
Electoral Commission: For third party promoters

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ELECTION 2026 CAMPAIGN
Emily Simpson (1News): ‘It’s going to get scrappy’: Tova O’Brien and Jack Tame predict a heated Election 2026
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Politicians have fled Parliament. Here’s what they say to expect on the campaign trail
Henry Cooke (Sunday Star Times): 8000 door knocks, a league table and a bit of rain - inside the first weekend of the election campaign (paywalled)
Vernon Small (Sunday Star Times): Another week, another policy quietly shuffled into the ‘later’ pile (paywalled)
Kylie Klein Nixon (Sunday Star Times): To get youth voting, we might need to take the piss a little bit (paywalled)
Caroline Williams (Stuff): Orange Guy got a $140k makeover - but something’s missing
Matthew Hooton (Sunday Star Times): Don’t make the Orange Guy angry and drag you off to court (paywalled)
Peter Davis (Sunday Star Times): If I was PM: How to reach a new equilibrium on fiscal responsibility (paywalled)
Duncan Garner (Listener): Forget the Nicky Hager sideshow, there’s a new cost-of-living shock set to hit before election day (paywalled)

NICKY HAGER’S DIRTY WORK
Damien Grant (Stuff): Why Nicky Hager’s latest book falls well short
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work attack on Taxpayers’ Union ‘naive’ (paywalled)
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Dirty Work, Maiki Sherman and the Question of Who Really Shapes Our Politics
Steven Cowan: Dirty Work: Shining a Light on the Machinery of Conservative Politics
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Sunday Star Times): Nicky Hager still makes the media lose its mind: Do we all need to calm down? (paywalled)

CHRIS HIPKINS AND LABOUR ON THE TRAIL
Anna Thomas (RNZ): Where did the nickname ‘Chippy’ come from?: A road trip with Chris Hipkins
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): Labour’s Chris Hipkins targets Auckland turnout ahead of campaign launch
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Has Labour’s Chris Hipkins’ campaigning improved since 2023 – and what’s Trevor Mallard doing? (paywalled)
RNZ: ‘What’s a woman?’: Vision NZ’s Karl Mokaraka heckles Chris Hipkins at Ōtara Markets
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Karl Mokaraka heckles Chris Hipkins at Ōtara markets as Trevor Mallard steps in

NZ FIRST, THE WAITANGI TRIBUNAL AND THE TREATY
Andrea Vance (Sunday Star Times): Winston’s winning the Long War (paywalled)
RNZ: New Zealand First announces plan to abolish Waitangi Tribunal
Herald: NZ First plan to abolish Waitangi Tribunal, shift modern claims to Māori ministry
Stuff: NZ First pledges 100-day plan to abolish Waitangi Tribunal
1News: NZ First vow to ‘immediately abolish’ Waitangi Tribunal if elected
Chris Knox (Herald): Whenua 2.0: Updated map, new histories showing Māori-Pākeha land deals in New Zealand

ACT’S NOISE CAMERA POLICY
RNZ: ACT promises noise cameras to combat boy racers in Tāmaki
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Election 2026: Act wants to deploy ‘noise cameras’ to catch loud cars, boy racers
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): ACT to clamp down on noisy cars
1News: ACT promises noise cameras, tougher penalties for loud vehicles

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ELECTION 2026
Henry Cooke (Post): Why the Mowbray plot to skew the election probably won’t work (paywalled)
Anneke Smith (Post): Ready, set, go! Everything to play for in this election (paywalled)
Isaac Davison (Stuff): Report Card: The policies which the Government didn’t campaign on but did anyway
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Labour claims Christopher Luxon ‘MIA’ on campaign, National reveals what PM’s been doing
Emma Ricketts and Hamish McNeilly (Stuff): Where is the prime minister? Hipkins says he is missing in action
Hamish McNeilly (Stuff): Politicians ‘sneak about’ says climate protester after missing Luxon
Mike Houlahan (ODT): He’s not missing in action, he’s right there in the spotlight (paywalled)
Tom McKinlay (ODT): Festival rocking for democracy (paywalled)
Paul Gorman (ODT): ‘Everything sucks, but that’s why young people’s voices matter’ (paywalled)
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): Are these election promises worth it to you?
James Nokise (Post): Look out for the slop as AI takes centre stage in election campaigns (paywalled)
Julia Gabel (Herald): Labour’s Ginny Andersen ahead of minister Chris Bishop in Hutt South race - poll
Alice Peacock (Newsroom): Judith Collins’ successor has skin in the game in Papakura
Tim Brown (RNZ): The election fight for Wigram is taking flight
Fox Meyer (Newsroom): Labour’s West Coast candidate backs fast-track hydro once damned as ‘destructive’
Will Johnston (Post): Jones talks gas, industry and backs new candidate at Taranaki meeting (paywalled)
Robin Martin (RNZ): Shane Jones backs NZ First’s controversial New Plymouth candidate selection
RNZ: New Zealand First names New Plymouth Deputy Mayor Murray Chong as election candidate
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Controversial New Plymouth councillor to stand for NZ First
Stuff: The Coalition Government wanted to build more, faster. Did it succeed?

NICKY HAGER’S DIRTY WORK
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): In defence of Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work
Steve Braunias (Newsroom): The secret diary of .. Nicky Hager’s book
Dane Giraud (Herald): Nicky Hager is of an elite intelligentsia who hold a kind of Free Speech Union derangement revealed in Dirty Work (paywalled)
Ben Thomas (Post): Nicky Hager lobs a dampish squib while Chris Hipkins self-detonates (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Dirty Work, monetary policy mistakes, local government reform (paywalled)

TAX AND FISCAL POLICY
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Landlord tax cut was about the Labour Party, not property (paywalled)
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): Do Kiwis want more tax, less tax, or no tax? – The Front Page
Anna Whyte (Interest): Ipsos poll suggests 64% support wealth tax of 2.5% on assets above $10m
No Right Turn: Taxing the rich is popular
Harriet Laughton (Post): Nearly half of voters would support delaying return to surplus by a year to restore pay equity (paywalled)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The Post: Editorial – Head Start becomes a false start (paywalled)
ODT: Editorial – Bordering on the absurd (paywalled)
Sue Teodoro and Tom Hunt (Post): Amalgamation freeze leaves willing councils stuck in limbo (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Council amalgamation – something else this Govt didn’t deliver
Ruby Shaw (ODT): ‘No goalposts have been shifted’: Watts dismisses Dunedin MPs critical of council merger ‘stunt’ (paywalled)
Rebecca Hogan (Local Democracy Reporting): ‘Angst’, ‘irony’ and ‘lost time’: Wider Manawatū reacts to Government pausing council reforms
1News: Local councils ‘left in limbo’ after amalgamation process paused
Bronson Perich (Local Democracy Reporting): Ōtorohanga Mayor: Local government reform delay ‘a bit like the Wahs’
Bronson Perich (Local Democracy Reporting): Forced merger proposal process a waste of time – Tūrangi councillor
Jordan Smith (Local Democracy Reporting): Thames-Coromandel council reveals cost as Head Start proposals delayed
Ayla Yeoman (Local Democracy Reporting): Tauranga, Western Bay mayors on Government decision delay
Lianne Dalziel (Newsroom): Council voting rights attack is a dog’s breakfast for the sake of a dog whistle
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Auckland leaders’ warnings over Māori votes ignored by Govt, bruising relationships
Moana Ellis (Local Democracy Reporting): Ngāti Rangi blasts Horizons over complaints process after iwi leader cleared of conflict concerns
Craig Ashworth (Local Democracy Reporting): Iwi want early say in South Taranaki council decisions
Andrew Little (Post): Tough decisions are coming (paywalled)

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Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work is the third in his trilogy about the political right, following on from The Hollow Men and Dirty Politics. It’s the weakest of the three, and yet it’s still well worth reading for what it tells us about the organisations around Jordan Williams.

My first column about the book set out what it contains, and my second examined the fight over its facts, including Hager’s decision not to seek responses before publication. But the argument over errors, and over Three Waters, has crowded out what I think is the book’s most valuable contribution. Several organisations around Jordan Williams present themselves as grassroots movements, community campaigns, student groups or independent trusts. Hager traces their founders, staff, campaign suppliers and, in some cases, their money. Whether these bodies are what they appear to be deserves more sustained attention than it has received.

Hager doesn’t fully answer that question. He examines some organisations closely and others hardly at all, and at times he slides from scrutinising their independence to attacking their politics. But this is where the book is strongest, and it tells the public things that political insiders knew and most voters didn’t.

“Everyone does this”

Some of Hager’s most persuasive critics admire his earlier work. In the Listener, Danyl McLauchlan praises The Hollow Men but argues that much of Dirty Work describes “the routine practice of activism, fundraising and media campaigns”. “Everyone does this,” he writes, “but it’s all described as if there’s something novel and sinister going on.” He says Hager too readily treats “the ordinary, pedestrian work of politics as shocking crimes unique to his subjects”. Collecting email addresses, commissioning polls and soliciting small donations are familiar campaigning methods.

The Herald’s Thomas Coughlan identifies a related weakness. Earlier books allowed readers to inspect political operators’ own correspondence. Here, much depends on anonymous former staff “of unknown seniority whose remarks are often so vague it is unclear how close they were to the allegations they describe”.

Henry Cooke reports in The Post that Hager was pressed at the launch on “what exactly was wrong with a group that believed in right wing beliefs doing things to further those right wing beliefs”. As Cooke points out, Hager “could not, obviously, argue that the Taxpayers’ Union had been working in secret”.

On Newsroom’s Raw Politics podcast today, Tim Murphy and Sam Sachdeva have also questioned how far this instalment matches its predecessors. Both nevertheless saw material worth pursuing, with Sachdeva singling out the tobacco connections for further investigation.

Effective rightwing campaigning is a legitimate part of democratic politics. But “everyone does this” leaves the question of representation unanswered. Who commissions a campaign, who controls it, and what does the public understand about those arrangements?

Grass roots or astroturf?

At the book launch, Sam Sachdeva reports, Hager said Williams saw himself as setting up “a whole constellation of little groups” that “would appear to us silly public as being independent and having different points of view … but actually they were all part of his spider’s web”. That is essentially a claim of astroturfing, a term Hager uses in the book and defines as a situation “where an orchestrated political operation is disguised as a spontaneous grassroots movement”. He uses the term only five times in the main text, although the problem runs through much of the book. It is familiar territory for him. His 1999 book with Bob Burton, Secrets and Lies, was subtitled “The anatomy of an anti-environmental PR campaign”.

Chlöe Swarbrick, quoted in The Post, listed “the astroturfing” among the things that set the Union apart when the Greens pulled out of its debates, and the word is easily thrown around. Employing professional campaigners or running online petitions does not, in itself, make an organisation fake. McLauchlan is right that “Everyone does this”, but not everyone hides who is running a campaign. The astroturf question arises when a campaign’s public presentation disguises the sponsorship, direction or constituency behind it.

I’ve made a similar point before. When David Fisher profiled the Union for the Herald in 2015, I told him it was “disingenuous in the way it represents itself”, with “the appearance of standing for wider society”. I also called it “a legitimate part of the political scene”. That is still roughly my view.

The Union rejects Hager’s claim, as Stuff put it, that it is “a ‘fake’ organisation posing as a broad public movement”, and says about two-thirds of its donations come from grassroots donors. On Duncan Garner’s podcast, Ani O’Brien said yesterday that “If Jordan was trying to hide something, he wouldn’t have a website that is out there, and he wouldn’t be so public.” She has a point about the Union itself. But according to Hager, O’Brien also built the relaunched Sensible Sentencing Trust’s website at the Campaign Company, and that is a different story.

Hager’s early example is Williams’ 2011 Vote for Change campaign against MMP. He calls it “a classic example” of astroturfing, “essentially a three-person initiative” with Williams as spokesperson, Simon Lusk as campaign manager and Cameron Slater as online publicist, and “the model for establishing the TU two years later”.

For me, this is what makes the organisations around Williams worth investigating. We are being asked to listen to these groups because they speak for taxpayers, students or small businesses. That claim deserves checking.

The business behind the campaigns

Hager adds a lot to what was known about Williams’ Campaign Company, which I wrote about in April last year. Set up in 2021 and sharing the Union’s Auckland office, it follows what Hager calls the “United States astroturf model”, and “can organise a major political or issue campaign with just a few staff and a budget”.

It starts with a petition. People who sign one have their email addresses added to a campaign database. “At this point, these people are not really supporters,” Hager writes. Regular emails, memes and appeals for money then turn some of them into donors. One former staffer objected to the Union calling the people on its own list “subscribed supporters”: “These people have not subscribed. They just signed an online petition.” Williams has described taking a client that had plateaued at about 4,000 supporters to “nearly 70,000, achieving legislative victories”. Hager identifies the client as Hobson’s Pledge.

The same small team can also serve several apparently independent groups. The Campaign Company has worked for Hobson’s Pledge, Groundswell, the Sensible Sentencing Trust, the Free Speech Union and the Union itself.

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections:
Big Tobacco and the dairy owners
The return of the Sensible Sentencing Trust
Real supporters and questions of control
When Hager argues with the politics
What insiders know and readers do not
A worthwhile third book

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ELECTION CAMPAIGN
Adam Pearse (Herald): New survey shows two-thirds of Kiwis want wealth tax, Labour’s control of main issues slipping
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): Labour’s lead on top issues narrows as National gains - survey
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Health and unemployment concern on the rise in final big issues poll before election
Herald: Editorial – In supermarket break-up battle, voters unlikely to defend duopoly (paywalled)
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): The official battle for your vote begins now
Jordan Meyers (Post): Why so many New Zealanders are set to be surprised on November 7 (paywalled)
Isaac Davison (Stuff): Did Government achieve its promises on infrastructure?
Sam Smith (Stuff): Dogs, dinosaurs and Twilight: A day out on the campaign with Chris Hipkins in Hamilton
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer scales back election trail due to ‘very unwell’ mother
1News: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer to scale back campaign as mum becomes unwell
Robin Martin (RNZ): One issue trumps them all in New Plymouth
RNZ: Controversial Dunedin councillor Benedict Ong to run as independent in general election
The Post: Editorial – Culture deserves more than campaign leftovers (paywalled)
Natalia Albert: We can’t explain the Super problem, let alone solve it

COUNCIL AMALGAMATIONS PAUSED
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): ‘Cowards’: Govt pauses work on council mergers until after the election
Gwynn Compton: They rushed councils, now Watts and Bishop are ducking for cover on Head Start
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Let’s hope the Government hasn’t lost its nerve on amalgamations
Nick James (Post): Furious councils accuse Government of wasting ratepayer time and money over amalgamation plans (paywalled)
Ellen O’Dwyer (RNZ): Mayors left stunned by Government’s council amalgamation U-turn
RNZ: Government hits pause on council amalgamation plan until after election
Ethan Manera (Herald): Mayors ‘fuming’ after minister Simon Watts halts Local Govt reform
Ethan Manera (Herald): Coalition disagreement understood to be behind halt to local government reforms
Mathew Nash (Local Democracy Reporting): Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell blasts local government reform delay
Mandy Te (Interest): Councils ‘frustrated’ after Government delays local government reform
NBR: Council uncertainty as Government slows local government reform (paywalled)
1News: Council amalgamation plan paused after millions spent on proposals

PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE
Audrey Young (Herald): Top 5 performers in the House this term; Hager saga and the lawyers on the sidelines (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): The Golden Gerries: Awarding the highs and lows of the 54th parliament of New Zealand
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Last one out turns off the lights
Daniel Perese (Te Ao Māori): 54th Parliament: 34 Māori MPs started, 39 served, 32 remain
Neil Sands (LawNews): Wise words and warnings: an exit interview with former Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly, who quits Parliament today
Asher Emanuel (Stuff): ‘Move on’ orders are the latest turn of NZ’s prison ratchet
Sammy Carter (RNZ): Firefighters’ union says FENZ shake-up can’t wait until after election
Kate MacNamara (Herald): ACC paid nearly $200,000 for former CEO Megan Main’s early departure, legal fees and training (paywalled)
Paula Penfold (Stuff): New Zealand’s financial markets watchdog admits holiday pay method breached employment law

NICKY HAGER’S DIRTY WORK
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The fight over the facts in Dirty Work
Simon Wilson: Dirty work and the disinfecting sunshine it deserves
Chris Penk (Stuff): Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work belongs in the fiction section

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Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work reaches bookshops around the country today, but since Tuesday night’s launch in Wellington most of the argument about it has been over whether its claims are true. The Taxpayers’ Union, its co-founders and others named in the book have issued detailed denials, and Hager has now challenged the Union’s executive director, Jordan Williams, to waive any confidentiality over the book’s most serious allegation.

Yesterday I published a chapter-by-chapter guide to the book. Today I’m sticking to the disputes over the facts. The wider argument about what the book means, and the case for it, can wait for another column. On the evidence so far, the Union has made some fair points against the book, and the argument over its most serious allegation has turned into a dispute that remains unresolved.

The harassment allegation and the denials

Hager writes that the Union’s board paid out money to deal with “at least one sexual harassment case against Williams”. Williams calls the allegation “a disgusting smear” that “has come from absolutely nowhere”. The Union’s chair, Ruth Richardson, says the board “categorically denies” it: “There have been no claims, let alone settlements.” She says she has spoken to previous chairs and to co-founder David Farrar, and that all are “unequivocal” that the allegation is “totally untrue”.

Hager is standing by the claim. He told the Herald’s David Fisher he had checked it independently with people who knew about it first-hand. He also told Ryan Bridge that two separate sources knew what had happened and that he “wouldn’t make an allegation like that without having very solid information”.

And in a public statement through his lawyer, Felix Geiringer, he challenged Williams and Farrar to waive any confidentiality over the alleged complaint and settlement. “If the complaint letter and subsequent settlement do not exist, as Jordan Williams and David Farrar claim, then they will have no problem publicly waiving any and all rights they have to any claims of confidentiality, non-disclosure, or privilege, in relation to them,” he said, adding that documents could be redacted to protect the woman’s identity.

Hager also argued that Richardson, who became chair in June 2025, would have no direct knowledge of a settlement that predated her, and that at least two earlier chairs would know about it, although Richardson says she has already spoken to previous chairs. Farrar says payments require authorisation by at least two directors.

Why the waiver became an issue

Heather du Plessis-Allan put the waiver challenge last night to Williams in a Newstalk ZB interview about an hour after Hager’s statement came out. “Is it true that you settled a sexual harassment case?” she asked. “No, it is not,” Williams replied.

Williams repeatedly said there was “nothing to waive”, and adding that he couldn’t offer a blanket waiver because “We have employees that deal with confidential information.” Du Plessis-Allan treated his answers as a refusal and kept pressing him for an explicit waiver.

Williams called the challenge “frankly, desperate”, and said Hager had now given “three different versions of an allegation that came from nowhere”. The book, he pointed out, says the board paid out. On Wednesday morning Hager told Ryan Bridge Today that the settlement had been hidden “even from members of their own board”, and by the afternoon he was saying at least two earlier chairs would know about it.

Du Plessis-Allan kept pressing Williams: “If it doesn’t exist, there’s no risk in waiving it,” she told him, and at one point: “Front up, front up.” Asked if he would sue, Williams said he was “taking advice” and had been “in regular discussions with lawyers”, but that his focus was on not letting “this leftwing activist” derail the Union’s work in the six weeks before the election.

On Newstalk ZB’s “Huddle” panel that evening, former National minister Maurice Williamson was no kinder to Hager, calling the book’s reliance on anonymous claims “despicable journalism at the very, very worst”. But he said he was surprised Williams hadn’t simply offered a waiver. “I’d just say I give a full waiver to anybody that’s ever had a settlement with me over a sexual harassment because I know that doesn’t exist,” he said. “There you go, done.” He allowed that Williams “may be just trying to take the very cautious legal view”. Q+A host Jack Tame thought a waiver “would be a relatively easy thing to do should you choose to do that”.

Williams says Hager has changed his story. But a settlement known to some directors could have been concealed from others, so the accounts are not necessarily contradictory. Hager says he checked the allegation with people who had direct knowledge; the Union categorically denies it. The reporting available so far does not resolve that dispute. It is reasonable to ask Hager for a fuller explanation of how he verified the allegation, without requiring him to identify the woman or expose confidential sources.

Hager says the dispute is distracting attention from the book’s wider findings, and he’s right that those findings deserve more attention. But he published a serious allegation about Williams, and explaining how he verified it is part of defending the book.

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections:
The database and the invoice
The other disputed claims
Why not ask before publication?

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NICKY HAGER’S DIRTY WORK
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): What’s in Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): Everyone is talking about Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Work – but is it any good? (paywalled)
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Nicky Hager and Dirty Work, 24 hours on
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Nicky Hager book Dirty Work fascinating but light on evidence (paywalled)
David Fisher (Herald): Nicky Hager to Jordan Williams – I’ve checked, and I’m right=
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): You can’t read Nicky Hager’s new book without being struck by bias
Adam Pearse, Thomas Coughlan, Julia Gabel, Jamie Ensor and David Fisher (Herald): Nicky Hager’s new book, Dirty Work: Taxpayers’ Union’s Jordan Williams responds
Giles Dexter and Lillian Hanly (RNZ): ‘No claims’: Taxpayers’ Union ‘categorically denies’ sexual harassment payout claim in Nicky Hager book
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): ‘1000 percent wrong’, ‘hilarious’: How David Farrar reacted to Nicky Hager’s new book
David Farrar: The Hager story implodes even more
Hannah Filmer (Herald): Nicky Hager’s new book Dirty Work: Claims of ‘constant’ discussion of women’s bodies within Taxpayers’ Union
Herald: Christopher Luxon rebuffs questions about Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Work
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): ‘NZers do not care about this topic’ - PM on new Nicky Hager book
Henry Cooke (Post): Green Party pulls out of Taxpayers’ Union debates following Nicky Hager book (paywalled)
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): Nicky Hager’s new book paints a picture of the Taxpayers’ Union’s influence
Glenn McConnell and Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Dirty Work: What Nicky Hager says, and how his latest book captivated the capital
Henry Oliver (Spinoff): Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work: Taxpayers’ Union, Three Waters and a ‘rotten stench’
Gordon Campbell: On The Nicky Hager Book, Political Donations, And Another Fine Mess From Chris Hipkins
Richard Prebble: Nicky Hager’s new book reminds me of my shameful mistake
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): The Filthmeisters Are Back — and New Zealanders Should Care

OIA SCANDAL AT THE EDUCATION MINISTRY
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Chief ombudsman requests urgent meeting with head of Education Ministry after OIA subversion
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Chief Ombudsman has ‘significant concerns’ after education official’s leaked OIA comments
Harriet Laughton (Post): Chief Ombudsman seeks urgent meeting with secretary of education over OIA conduct (paywalled)
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Ombudsman calls for urgent meeting, considers further action, over ministry’s OIA meeting
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Education Ministry whistleblower claims OIA subversion not an isolated incident
Ian Taylor (Stuff): Before we hang Catherine Law out to dry
Steven Price: A few notes on the OIA scandal
ODT: Editorial – OIA row flash in the pan (paywalled)

ELECTION CAMPAIGN AND PARTIES
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): This is an election unlike any other, and it’s all on
Janet Wilson (Post): This election, let’s rule in transparency with voters and rule out ‘strategic’ games (paywalled)
The Post: Editorial – Let’s not treat the election like a national shutdown (paywalled)
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Hipkins defends Labour’s ambition – even on tax – to Wellington supporters
Herald: Chris Hipkins on lack of advertisement budget, says party doesn’t have ‘multimillionaire’ donors to help
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): How a National election win could wipe out Luxon’s top ministers
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): A candidate of the Left turning heads in the Right places
Hanna McCallum (Newsroom): Act’s Paul Henry eyes local govt portfolio to slash extravagance
Audrey Young (Herald): Lawrence Xu-Nan reflects on Winston Peters’ comments condemned as racist (paywalled)
Ricardo Simich (Herald): Real Housewife of Auckland Gilda Kirkpatrick hosts Winston Peters for NZ First Event at her Paritai Drive mansion (paywalled)
Nicholas Pointon (NBR): Opportunity holds the key to Labour’s retirement village reforms (paywalled)
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): New Zealand city centres have an empty shop problem. Do the Greens have the answer?
Jonathan Ayling (Herald): NZ politics may not need another Bob Jones, but we could use a circuit breaker like him (paywalled)
Michael Swanson: The fragmentation election: why 2026’s best electorate races are civil wars
Chris Trotter: Shrinking Options (paywalled)
Listener: Where to see and hear the biggest political debates of Election ’26 (paywalled)
Linda Hall (Local Democracy Reporting): Political candidate bitten while campaigning – what he’d change about the dog control act

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections: OPINION POLLS; PARLIAMENT’S FINAL DAY; FIRE AND EMERGENCY; MBIE’S BOTCHED IT PROJECT; PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE; MĀORI AFFAIRS; SUPERMARKETS; ENERGY AND LNG; ECONOMY AND BUSINESS; HEALTH; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DEFENCE; CARTOONS

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