THE OPPORTUNITY PARTY
Matthew Hooton (Post): Right and left are both right about TOP (paywalled)
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Fact-checking Farmer Kev and Landlord Larry: Do Opportunity’s tax tales stack up?
Anneke Smith (Post): Opportunity scrapping board’s veto power over caucus (paywalled)
David Farrar: The all powerful TOP Board
David Farrar: How much land tax will you pay?

ELECTION LEADERS’ DEBATES
1News: Luxon vs Hipkins: TVNZ confirms live election Leaders Debate
Stuff: Two Leaders’ debates; interactive multichannel election night special - Stuff Group launches ‘Aotearoa Decides’
Post: Luxon-Hipkins showdown set for October 20 in The Post and Stuff Leaders’ Debate (paywalled)
Shayne Currie (Herald): Election debates – battle of leaders, hosts; TVNZ wants Breakfast case details kept secret; NZME, Sky, TVNZ results; Air NZ ad account (paywalled)

PARLIAMENT, ELECTION AND GOVERNMENT
Jack Riddell (Herald): Rod Drury accuser questions Prime Minister Christopher Luxon over National’s response to sexual harm
Stuff: Former Xero employee presses Luxon over workplace power and sexual harm
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Te Pāti Māori’s hidden path to major leverage
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Latest Election 2026 charts: Big-name donors come out for National
Stuff: Poll: More Kiwis support restricting voting to citizens than oppose it - across the political spectrum
Audrey Young (Herald): Chris Bishop up, Erica Stanford down after failed leadership coup (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): National enjoys a week of Opposition (paywalled)
Richard Harman: More power to Beehive (paywalled)
Ethan Griffiths (Herald): ‘I think it was an error’ – National MP says there is ‘zero’ logic behind Budget tax change
Giles Dexter (RNZ): National MP Greg Fleming breaks ranks, criticises Budget tax change
Brent Edwards (NBR): Labour’s plan to boost productivity and the economy (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Labour sets target for small business government contracts (paywalled)
Nick James (Post): Labour lays out how it will amend the Government’s RMA reforms (paywalled)
Press: Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb farewells Parliament with call to ‘find those people that need help’ (paywalled)
Martin Van Beynen (Press): The incredible difficulty of being likeable (paywalled)
Anneke Smith (Post): ‘Anything’s possible’: Winston Peters on Russian missile warning (paywalled)
David Farrar: The Attorney-General gets it in one
Stuff: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon heckled at Christchurch meeting
Sinead Gill (Press): ‘Seriously, don’t be rude’ Christchurch protesters told at raucous Luxon meeting (paywalled)
Lloyd Burr (Stuff): ‘Get your hands off me’ says Luxon protester (she was one of six!)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Why winning Māngere is the ‘worst-case scenario’ for the Greens’ Michel Mulipola
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Review: Election Meltdown is the joy we need in the end times
Vihan Dalal (Herald): West Coast-Tasman Greens candidate vague on harvesting of pest animals
Tom Peters (World Socialist Website): New Zealand Greens candidate fought in SAS during Afghanistan war
James Pocock (Herald): Freight industry group pitches Minister of Supply Chain idea in ‘election manifesto’ (paywalled)
Blayne Slabbert (Press): The South Island wants new infrastructure. Neither major party wants to promise it (paywalled)
Metiria Stanton Turei (ODT): Hypocrisy and racism abounds in Parliament (paywalled)
ODT: Editorial: A taxing time ahead on election trail (paywalled)
Mike Grimshaw: The National party and the logic of sacrifice
Bryce Wilkinson (Herald): When is equal unfair and when is it fair? (paywalled)
Murray Rae (ODT): Poverty and the common good (paywalled)

MT MAUNGANUI LANDSLIDE AND TAURANGA COUNCIL
1News: Tauranga chief executive backs himself in top job following scathing review
Stuff: ‘Huge question mark’ over Tauranga council CEO after damning landslide review, MP says
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): Fatal Mt Maunganui landslide: Minister to keep tabs on council after damning report
Felix Walton (RNZ): Former Tauranga mayor says he wasn’t warned about landslide risk amid damning review
Bijou Johnson (Herald): Mount Maunganui landslide: Business owners respond to council’s external review
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): If the Mount Maunganui landslide risk was known, why was nothing done?
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): The damning report on the Mount Maunganui landslide
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Why can’t we finger point over six avoidable deaths?
Erika Harvey: When “Systemic Failure” Becomes a Place to Hide
Peter Williams: When a system fails

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ELECTION 2026: CAMPAIGN, PARTIES AND POLLS
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): Stuff’s Pulse of the Nation: Luxon best National MP to be PM
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Left, right or centre? How voters view the Opportunity Party
Isaac Davison (Stuff): Safe seats and political careers on the line as boundary changes and newcomers shake up election
Anna Whyte (Interest): The seats to watch this election: One in three will be interesting to follow, says pollster David Farrar
Mike Thorpe (Herald): Christopher Luxon Christchurch meeting disrupted by protestors
Adam Pearse (Herald): Polling shows majority of New Zealanders support restricting voting to citizens only
Nick James (Post): ACT and NZ First pull out of left-wing network’s debate (paywalled)
Julia Gabel (Herald): Christopher Luxon teasing ‘surprise’ retirement village policy
Brent Edwards (NBR): The Green Party’s campaign to get the nastiness out of politics (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Politicians deserve our admiration and pity (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): New Zealand First’s mission to make NZ great again (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Act Party pins hope on consistency, effectiveness (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Green Party pitches ‘for us all’ manifesto (paywalled)
Lifang Chen (Herald): New Zealand election: Why my budgie, dog and cat would all vote against me (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Opportunity’s plan to sack public servants would cause generational harm – Public Service Association boss (paywalled)
Lucy Cooper (Post): Wairarapa MP Mike Butterick target of backlash over ‘ute tax’ posts (paywalled)
RNZ: ‘Optics’ and ‘unfunded promises’ - Willis and Sepuloni debate tax
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): In an age of discontent, where is the left?

ELECTION 2026: MĀORI SEATS AND THE MĀORI VOTE
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Willie Jackson expresses doubt Labour can win all seven Māori seats
Graeme Edgeler (Spinoff): Te Pāti Māori will be in risky territory if it tries to engineer an overhang
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Māori Seat Showdown: Te Pāti Māori Strategy Comes Under Fire
Taiha Molyneux (RNZ): Political upheaval drives huge surge in Māori overseas enrolment
Liam Rātana (Spinoff): There are more Māori on the Māori roll than ever. Will they turn out to vote?

NATIONAL, LUXON AND GOVERNMENT
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Luxon the optimist tries to break through
Lloyd Burr (Stuff): Luxon tells cycleway city Wellington: ‘You kinda get what you deserve’
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): Christopher Luxon denies ‘ridiculous’ accusation by Labour’s Chris Hipkins
Post: PM says Molesworth St cycle lanes made it difficult to get to work, blames Wellington voters (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Christopher Luxon accuses Chris Hipkins of having his ‘Chrises mixed up’ (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): I lived: A true story of surviving the cycle lanes of Molesworth Street
RNZ: Urgent debate or urgent farewell: MPs discuss Chris Penk
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): How many portfolios can one minister handle?
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Chris Bishop softens comments criticising FENZ as ‘incompetent’
RNZ: Reviewer appointed to probe second Immigration IT project
Adam Pearse (Herald): Review launched into another MBIE IT project worth $336m

LABOUR AND THE OPPOSITION
Jamie Ensor (Herald): How Labour just gave National a win, and a distraction from its leadership woes (paywalled)
David Farrar: Dear “Chippy”: Why only 15% of voters want you as PM
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Who really believes Labour won’t give us more taxes?
Henry Cooke (Post): Labour emailed Louise Upston about winter payment issue in June (paywalled)

MOUNT MAUNGANUI (MAUAO) LANDSLIDE
Zoe Blake and Michael Morrah (Herald): Mount Maunganui landslide: Davison report prompts calls for action, accountability
Melanie Earley (RNZ): Actions of Mount Maunganui landslide victim Lisa Maclennan, who helped save the lives of others, detailed in report
RNZ: Govt inquiry into fatal landslides ‘will reach its own conclusions’ - chair
Rachel Moore (RNZ): Damning report into fatal Mount Maunganui landslide shows tragedy was preventable
Kelly Makiha (Herald): Mount Maunganui landslide: Review reveals victim Lisa Maclennan’s final hours
Bijou Johnson, Imogene Bedford and Michael Morrah (Herald): Mount Maunganui landslide: Review finds litany of failures
Sam Sherwood (RNZ): Inside the damning Mt Maunganui review and one victim’s heroic actions

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New Zealand is eleven weeks out from an election and the mood of the electorate is unmistakably sour. Many New Zealanders tell pollsters the economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful, that society is broken, and that the country is headed in the wrong direction. And yet the two main parties of the left are offering something conspicuously careful.

In an age of public discontent, the left is running the least discontented campaign in the country. Why?

Tonight I spoke in Wellington on a panel organised by the New Zealand Fabian Society on the topic of “leftwing populism”. What follows is essentially my speaking notes. Or you can watch the video of the meeting here: “Left Populism At Home and Abroad: Possibilities and Problems”

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In an age of discontent, where is the left?

In Ipsos New Zealand’s 2024 populism survey, 65% agreed that “the economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. Another 63% agreed that “the political and economic elite don’t care about hard-working people”, 58% said “New Zealand society is broken”, and 66% agreed that the country “needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”.

Those are extraordinary numbers for a country that still likes to think of itself as egalitarian, moderate and relatively contented.

Yet the political left in that same country is cautious, managerial, respectable — and strangely uncomfortable talking in those terms. That is the puzzle. New Zealand increasingly has the public demand for left populism. What it lacks is the political supply.

Anti-establishment anger doesn’t automatically become progressive. Somebody has to explain that anger, identify its causes and organise it politically. If the left doesn’t do that, someone else will.

What is left populism?

Political scientist Cas Mudde’s influential definition treats populism as a “thin-centred ideology” that divides society between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”, and holds that politics should express the general will of the people.

That is a useful starting point because “populism” has become one of those words that is usually an accusation rather than a description. We use it to mean irresponsible, simplistic, demagogic, authoritarian, nationalism, or sometimes just policies that respectable people don’t like.

But populism itself is about the political division between the people and an elite.

Many of the radical-right movements we now call populist combine that anti-elite politics with nationalism and authoritarianism. They tell people they’re losing control not only because of elites at the top but because of outsiders below: immigrants, minorities, welfare recipients, the culturally alien.

Leftwing populism, in contrast, directs the anger elsewhere: towards concentrated economic and political power. Its targets are monopoly corporations, landlords, the very wealthy, corporate lobbyists, political insiders and institutions captured by vested interests. In that version of populism, the migrant down the road isn’t the problem. The focus is on those who possess disproportionate economic and political power. The political question is therefore not simply whether anger exists, but who gets blamed for the conditions producing it.

New Zealand’s populist mood

The Ipsos results give us a striking combination of attitudes. As noted above, 65% think our economy is rigged for the rich and powerful and 66% want a strong leader to take the country back from them. But only 23% agreed with the proposition that New Zealand would be stronger if immigration stopped. Just 29% agreed that immigrants take jobs away from “real” New Zealanders.

So New Zealand’s populist mood has been much more strongly anti-elite than anti-immigrant. This shows that populism doesn’t have to be rightwing. There is no iron law saying public discontent has to become Trumpism, Faragism or some local equivalent.

Go back to 2016. A UMR poll that I reported at the time put Bernie Sanders on 77% support among New Zealanders, compared with just 8% for Donald Trump. At the very least, it suggested that an appetite for political insurgency in New Zealand didn’t have to take a rightwing form.

More recent evidence suggests something else. There aren’t merely two ideological New Zealands any more. There are increasingly two experiences of New Zealand democracy. If you’re financially comfortable, the system still mostly works. If you’re struggling, it increasingly looks rigged.

The Helen Clark Foundation’s recent research on social cohesion illustrates this divide starkly. Prosperous New Zealanders are much more likely to trust government, believe elections are fair and feel that institutions work for people like them. Struggling New Zealanders are dramatically less likely to agree.

For example, 56% of prosperous respondents trusted government to do the right thing, compared with only 22% of struggling respondents. And while 62% of prosperous respondents regarded elections as fair, only 35% of struggling respondents did.

At least some of the current populist mood therefore grows out of people’s actual experience of the economy and democracy. It isn’t simply being manufactured by clever politicians or algorithms.

So, New Zealand doesn’t lack a constituency for progressive populism. It lacks political organisations prepared to mobilise it.

Why isn’t the left there?

The first explanation is the decline of class organisation. The traditional left wasn’t simply an electoral brand that periodically offered voters more generous policies. It was embedded in organised labour. It was built through unions, workplaces, local party branches, working-class communities, cooperatives, clubs and a whole ecosystem of institutions in which people understood themselves as members of a social class with common interests.

That world has been hollowed out. Labour gradually ceased to be an organisation embedded in organised labour and became much more professionalised, parliamentary and managerial.

This wasn’t uniquely New Zealand. From the 1970s and 1980s onwards, parties of the left across the Western world became increasingly middle-class political vehicles. The left itself changed class location. Its activists and MPs became increasingly drawn from university graduates, professionals, public servants, NGOs, academia and metropolitan cultural institutions.

Many of those people are themselves insecure or poorly paid. But the change in who makes up the left nonetheless changed its language, priorities and instincts.

The legacy of 1984

In New Zealand there was an especially important twist. The left lost the great economic argument of the 1980s. Except that here, the political left didn’t merely lose the arguments – it actually administered them in the neoliberal revolution carried out by the fourth Labour Government.

That left an enormous ideological scar. The party historically created by organised labour became one of the principal architects of the economic order that weakened organised labour.

Having lost much of the economic terrain, the broader left increasingly concentrated on social liberalism, identity, culture, environmentalism and foreign policy. Meanwhile economic redistribution and class politics receded. You can see the result in how the term “leftwing” is now understood. When I ask university students what being leftwing means, the answers tend to be things like anti-racism, diversity, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, environmentalism and political correctness. They very rarely say working class, poverty, unions, ownership or collective economic struggle.

A slightly provocative way of putting it is this: The right won the economic argument of the 1980s and kept the winnings. The left won the social argument and mistook it for the whole of politics. So although the left in this country became extremely fluent in the language of recognition, representation, procedure and expertise, it became much less fluent in the language of wages, ownership, rents, monopoly and economic conflict.

The answer for the left isn’t to decide that racism, gender, sexuality suddenly don’t matter. It is to reconnect those struggles to a wider politics of material redistribution and class power.

Did MMP absorb the revolt?

There is another explanation for why New Zealand hasn’t experienced the same populist upheavals as Britain, Europe or the United States. We may have had our anti-establishment convulsion early. Between 1984 and 1993, New Zealand tore up its post-war economic settlement, especially in economic reform. Then the public took revenge on the political establishment by tearing up the electoral system. In one sense, MMP was our Brexit.

The analogy only goes so far, of course. But both were rebellions against political establishments that large sections of the electorate thought had stopped listening.

MMP absorbed a huge amount of anti-establishment energy. It opened Parliament to smaller parties, gave discontented voters somewhere to go, and ultimately left Labour and National in much healthier condition than their counterparts in Britain or the United States.

For thirty years, that pressure valve worked remarkably well. I’m not convinced it’s working any more.

Labour’s problem

That takes us to the parties actually on offer in 2026.

Labour now talks more fluently about market concentration, excessive profits and economic unfairness. Chris Hipkins is increasingly comfortable with economic language that would have seemed unusually ideological for Labour a few years ago.

But Labour has two problems. The first is credibility. It had six years in government and, for three of those, an outright parliamentary majority. Yet he supermarket duopoly survived. Housing remained dysfunctional. The banks remained extraordinarily powerful.

The problem of what I call “Broken New Zealand” only got worse under Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins. Yes Labour diagnosed plenty of problems, commissioned inquiries into them, but generally just administered broken markets rather than fixing them.

The second problem is strategic. Campaign strategists and commentators have described Labour’s approach this year as a “small-target” strategy: minimise political risk and controversy while allowing voters to continue judging the Government.

That may be tactically rational. But it is almost the precise opposite of populism. Populism says there is a conflict and asks voters to choose sides. Labour’s strategy says: don’t worry, we’ll manage things somewhat better. Yet in a moment that may require something closer to the radicalism of 1935, management won’t cut it.

The Greens’ opportunity

The Greens have almost the opposite problem. They already possess some of a left-populist policy programme: wealth taxation, windfall taxes, stronger action against monopolies, public ownership, housing intervention and redistribution. And Chlöe Swarbrick herself has put the argument bluntly: “Anything other than material redistribution is tokenism.” But the Greens haven’t consistently organised their politics around that proposition.

Compare what has happened elsewhere. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned relentlessly on an affordability agenda (rents, buses, childcare and groceries) while identifying landlords, corporations and concentrated wealth as political adversaries.

Zack Polanski has pursued something similar since becoming leader of the Green Party of England and Wales last year, combining climate politics with the cost of living and giving the party a much more insurgent, anti-wealth-concentration identity. Since his election as leader, the party has moved from around 10% support into the mid-to-high teens in a number of polls, while membership has more than tripled.

That doesn’t prove eco-populism caused the surge, nor are either Mamdani or Polanski templates New Zealand should simply import. But the comparison shows what can happen when material politics becomes the organising story rather than one policy area among many. If climate politics, inequality, housing and economic insecurity are all parts of the same story about who has power and who pays, the Greens should say so.

What would left populism actually look like?

So what might a New Zealand left populism actually look like? First, attack the broken markets that are ripping off ordinary New Zealanders. These are the structures where economic power allows wealth to be extracted without producing corresponding value: supermarket concentration, the banking oligopoly, electricity pricing, housing rent extraction and firms protected from real competition. Make those structures visible.

Second, democratise the political system. If you tell people an elite has too much power, you need actual remedies:

1. Regulate lobbying

2. Reform political finance

3. Close the revolving door between government and vested interests

4. Increase transparency around political access and influence

Otherwise anti-elitism is just theatre.

Third, a leftwing populism would focus on the following tangible issues:

1. Cheaper electricity.

2. Affordable homes.

3. Cheap or free healthcare.

4. Higher wages.

5. Broken monopolies.

6. Taxing unearned wealth.

These are things people can recognise as improvements in their own lives. Not forty policies and a beautifully balanced fiscal document. A small number of propositions relentlessly explained.

And fourth, chase the non-voters rather than simply obsessing over swing voters. One of the largest political constituencies in this country is the people who don’t participate at all. They are disproportionately younger, poorer and Māori. These are precisely some of the groups recording the strongest levels of political alienation and anti-establishment sentiment. A genuinely insurgent left would ask how to bring some of those people into politics, rather than simply fighting National over the same relatively small pool of swing voters.

The challenge for the left

There are obvious dangers in all of this, because populism simplifies. Not every social problem is caused by a villain. It can also become anti-pluralist. “The people” aren’t homogeneous, and political opponents don’t become illegitimate simply because they disagree with the majority.

And populism can become a substitute for organisation. A charismatic politician, an anti-elite message and a successful election campaign don’t rebuild unions, community organisations or working-class political power. That may be the deepest problem of all.

So I’m not arguing that the New Zealand left needs to become more demagogic. It needs to become more political. It needs to recover conflict over economic power, rebuild a working class constituency, and give anti-establishment New Zealanders a progressive explanation for why the country increasingly doesn’t seem to work for them.

The anger already exists. Yet if the politicians of the left just say the system is fundamentally sound and merely needs somewhat more competent management, while a party like NZ First says the system is rigged and promises to tear it up, we shouldn’t be surprised when the more populist right wins.

So, the opportunity for the left is to offer a different insurgency. And it’s to say that, yes, parts of this system really are rigged but the answer isn’t to turn against migrants, minorities or other people with little power. Instead a leftwing populism would challenge those who actually possess disproportionate power.

Whether the New Zealand left is prepared to take that possibility seriously before somebody else captures this mood is the question.

Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project

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NATIONAL PARTY LEADERSHIP CRISIS AND FALLOUT
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): Stuff’s Pulse of the Nation: 30% less likely to vote National post-coup attempt
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Inside Luxon’s Monday morning therapy session
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): Technically possible: How Paul Goldsmith can fit 11 ministerial roles into his schedule
Claire Robinson: The obstacle is the way out
Anneke Smith (Post): National won’t lose votes over second leadership crisis ‒ party president (paywalled)
Richard Harman: Making up is not so hard to do (paywalled)
Chris Trotter (ODT): Snakes and leaders (paywalled)
Stuff: Simeon Brown says Penk acted alone - but Penk won’t say
Jo Moir (RNZ): Sacked minister Chris Penk likely to return to Parliament next week
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Parliament debates Chris Penk’s sacking over failed National leadership coup
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): National Party rule stopping Goldsmith from running in Penk’s safe seat
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Paul Goldsmith hints at why he can’t stand in Chris Penk’s seat (paywalled)
Nick James (Post): Former minister Chris Penk’s social media account hacked (paywalled)
Lillian Hanly and Russell Palmer (RNZ): Christopher Luxon, Chris Bishop press fondness for Hutt Valley in show of party unity

MMP AND STRATEGIC VOTING
Julia Gabel (Herald): Labour’s Willie Jackson says Te Pāti Māori strategy could threaten integrity of Māori seats
Ani O’Brien: Don Brash & Te Pāti Māori agree on a strategy
Henry Cooke (Post): Gaming MMP: Experts say accidental National ‘overhang’ is possible, and TPM push for one is irresponsible (paywalled)
Post: Editorial: Gaming MMP risks the system itself (paywalled)
Ashley Church: Could an MMP loophole return a centre-right government?

NZ FIRST, WINSTON PETERS AND COALITION TENSIONS
1News: Peters calls harbour crossing report a gross waste of money
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Winston breaks Cabinet ranks over ‘gross waste of money’ on harbour crossing
Jamie Ensor and Adam Pearse (Herald): NZ First leader Winston Peters doubts Christopher Luxon leadership challenge was ‘one-man coup’
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): Winston Peters refuses to say if he has confidence in the prime minister
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): NZ First leader Winston Peters stops short of support for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon

ELECTION 2026 — CAMPAIGN AND POLICY
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): An Opportunity to clean up lobbying
Farah Hancock (RNZ): Opportunity’s $200,000+ donor Alan Wilderland: ‘You have to play the game’
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Why all the angst around the Opportunity Party?
Peter Griffin (BusinessDesk): What a new Government means for science: back to blue skies (paywalled)
Azaria Howell (Herald): Electoral Commission sees fuel availability and price volatility as ‘active election delivery risk’
Herald: Editorial: Election campaign will be a contrast of ideologies and also strategies (paywalled)
Nick James (Post): PM hints at early childhood policy and gives Wellington tick of approval at public meeting (paywalled)
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): His brother is standing for Opportunity in his electorate, but he’ll be voting National
Stuff: Lower beer tax, immigration changes on hospitality sector’s election wishlist
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Winston Peters declines to support Greens’ proposed ban on ‘excessive’ supermarket prices (paywalled)

TAX AND THE STREAMING LEVY
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): National’s tax claims tripped up Labour, but misleading marketing comes with risks
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Hipkins ruled out new levy, but forgot his MP had a bill proposing it
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): Labour blames mixed messaging on streaming levy on ‘administrative oversight’
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Streaming ‘tax’ becomes election-year political football (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Labour quietly ditches streaming tax proposal as National brings it to light
David Farrar: Labour denies a tax it had in the ballot!

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New Zealand has a recurring problem with broken markets. Electricity, banking, supermarkets, insurance, building materials and housing are all dominated by a small number of large players. Governments investigate them, the Commerce Commission writes reports, ministers express concern, and remarkably little changes.

Part of the explanation doesn’t take much detective work. These are also the sectors with the strongest lobbying operations in Wellington. While the Commerce Commission was running its grocery market study, the PR firm SenateSHJ was working from inside the Commission, on Commission email addresses and Commission computers, at a time when it also held clients in the grocery sector. It was paid more than $300,000 across two years. Whether any of that shaped the outcome is unknowable, which is rather the point. Nobody outside had a way of finding out at the time.

New Zealand places almost no rules around that activity. There is no compulsory register of lobbyists, and no requirement to disclose who is paying whom to influence ministers. A minister or senior Beehive staffer can leave office and start work for an industry they were dealing with the week before, with no stand-down at all. Political donations are regulated, however imperfectly; nothing comparable applies to the business of getting in front of a minister in the first place.

So if we want to understand why governments can identify obvious market failures and still struggle to act against powerful incumbents, lobbying deserves much more attention than it gets.

On Sunday, the Opportunity Party put forward the most substantial attempt so far this election to do something about it. Its “Clean Up Politics” package would regulate lobbying, cap political donations and establish an independent anti-corruption body with significant investigative powers.

The announcement was quickly overwhelmed by accusations of hypocrisy over Opportunity’s own donors. Some of those questions are legitimate, and I will come to them. But they should not obscure the larger development. I can’t remember another party with a plausible shot at post-election leverage putting forward an integrity package this ambitious.

The OECD gives New Zealand a zero on lobbying

The OECD’s new Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026 has recently assessed the safeguards member countries have against corruption and undue influence. On lobbying, its assessment of New Zealand runs to a single sentence: “New Zealand does not have a regulatory framework or implementing measures for managing risks around lobbying.”

Behind that sentence is a finding of essentially nothing: no legal definition of lobbying, no register, and no regulator with anything to enforce. On the scorecard, New Zealand gets “zero” for both the rules and their implementation.

It isn’t that New Zealand is incapable of regulating political activity. The OECD gives us respectable marks on political finance, access to official information and integrity strategy, which makes lobbying an odd hole in an otherwise reasonable set of arrangements. Canada, France, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Australia and the United States all have some formal machinery for monitoring lobbying, and we have none of it. We regulate political money but not political access.

Danyl McLauchlan reaches much the same conclusion in his Listener feature this week, giving New Zealand’s lobbying guardrails a “zero” as well, having got there by a completely different route.

Opportunity’s lobbying law

The register is the part of Opportunity’s package that would do most of the work. Paid lobbyists would have to name their clients and file quarterly returns setting out which ministers and officials they had approached and what they were pushing for. Ministers, senior political staff and public sector chief executives would face a one-year stand-down before moving into lobbying work. A statutory code of conduct would allow sanctions for lobbyists who conceal clients or conflicts of interest, with penalties running from public censure to fines and deregistration.

The provision I’d single out is the ban on contingency fees for policy changes, which has had almost no attention. Paying a lobbyist only if they successfully secure a government decision is about as close to a price list for political influence as you can get without printing one.

Opportunity would also require lobbying communications with ministers to go through official systems, making them more likely to fall within reach of the Official Information Act. If somebody is being paid to influence government, the rest of us should have a reasonable chance of finding out who they work for and what they want.

The timid parts

Some of the package could be stronger. The revolving door is the clearest case. Opportunity proposes a one-year stand-down before ministers, senior staff and officials can move into lobbying, which sounds like progress only if you measure it against the nothing we have now. Australia imposes 18 months on former ministers and Britain two years. Canada, at the far end, goes to five. Facing Up To Our Future, the Helen Clark Foundation’s new book, settles on three.

More awkwardly for Opportunity, the party itself campaigned in 2023 under Raf Manji for an 18-month stand-down. Its new policy has gone backwards, and it would be useful to hear Qiulae Wong explain why.

Quarterly disclosure is also too slow. Three months is a long time in politics, and a lobbying campaign around a live bill, a major procurement decision or a regulatory change could be over before the public knew it had begun. Monthly disclosure would be better, and in particularly sensitive cases disclosure within days should be on the table.

Immediately after its criticism of New Zealand’s lobbying regime, the OECD points out that we lack a public beneficial-ownership register showing who ultimately owns and controls companies. Helen Clark essentially makes the same point in McLauchlan’s Listener feature: “Where does the money really come from, and who benefits from government decisions?”

A lobbying register is of limited use if the company hiring the lobbyist can still conceal who ultimately owns it, and the same problem arises with political donations. Opportunity has left beneficial ownership alone, which is a strange gap in a package otherwise built around following the money.

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ELECTION 2026, POLLS AND PARTY POLITICS
Farah Hancock (RNZ): RNZ political donations tracker: Billionaire Nick Mowbray puts $250,000 into National Party’s campaign
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): The six days Christopher Luxon took Defence Force planes while attending National fundraisers (paywalled)
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): National and Labour just achieved something unprecedented across 50 years of polling
1News: Most Kiwis still back MMP despite Luxon stance - new poll
Anna Whyte (Interest): Greens go after groceries, Helen Clark goes after Qiulae Wong and Christopher Luxon holds firm
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Labour rules out streaming, ute tax after National ‘desperation’
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Chris Hipkins calls National ‘hysterical’ over Labour’s plans
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Time to go back to the bigger picture for the election
The Standard: How to Ensure Power Shifts
Tom Hunt (Post): Attorney-General Chris Bishop ordered to remove rule-breaking billboards (paywalled)

TE PĀTI MĀORI
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): The Lesotho Option
Peter Williams: Should Nats follow the TPM Method?
Zoe Mills (Herald): Te Pāti Māori launches election campaign at Gisborne marae
Stuff: The Hui: Te Pāti Māori leaders defend their election strategy
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Eyes on the Prize: Tamihere says Te Pāti Māori is moving past the noise

NATIONAL PARTY LEADERSHIP FALLOUT
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Coup collateral: New defence minister cancels lucrative meeting with Japan, Australia
Jonathan Killick (Post): Chris Penk on his sacking, regrets and ‘unfinished business’ (paywalled)
Tara Ward (Spinoff): ‘I’m grossly imperfect’: Luxon in reflective mode for Monday morning media round
Joel Maxwell (Stuff): National’s failed coup shows a party that can’t even execute a takeover
Stuff: ‘I take them at their word’: Luxon accepts Bishop and Stanford’s assurances on leadership
1News: Luxon confident in backing from Stanford, Bishop
RNZ: ‘I know I have her full support’: Christopher Luxon says Erica Stanford backs his leadership
Herald: Prime Minister says he’s taking key ministers linked to failed coup at their word, sure Penk acted alone

THE OPPORTUNITY PARTY
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): I wouldn’t be surprised if TOP peaks at 8 percent
Post: Editorial – Opportunity: Just a trendy avatar for the status quo? (paywalled)
RNZ: Helen Clark dismisses Opportunity Party’s tax plan as ‘fantasy posing as policy’
Zar Lilley (Stuff): Helen Clark: Opportunity Party leader’s interview a ‘train wreck’
Tom Rose (Herald): Labour’s Barbara Edmonds rules out Opportunity Party land tax but remains coy about funding public service, pay equity

GREENS’ SUPERMARKETS POLICY
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): Greens propose fines up to $10m for supermarkets charging ‘excessive prices’
Julia Gabel (Herald): Green Party to campaign on banning supermarket price gouging
Newstalk ZB: ‘Stop excessive price gouging’: Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick on their proposed supermarket crackdown
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): ‘Food is not a luxury’: Greens unveil supermarket price plan
1News: Greens propose fines for supermarkets charging ‘excessive’ prices
Rob Stock and Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Greens propose Australian-style ban on ‘excessive’ supermarket prices (paywalled)
Steven Cowan: Why isn’t the Green Party campaigning for publicly-owned, low cost grocery stores?

AUCKLAND HARBOUR CROSSING
Katie Bradford and Adam Pearse (Herald): Auckland second harbour crossing: Meola Reef study to cost taxpayers, ratepayers $1m
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): Government delays Auckland harbour bridge decision
Stuff: Auckland harbour crossing: $100m spent and still no plan
Justin Hu (1News): Auckland harbour crossing decision deferred to at least 2027
Nick James (Post): Government lays out steps for next Auckland harbour crossing - but still more water to flow under the bridge (paywalled)
RNZ: Another business case for Auckland harbour crossing confirmed despite recent NZTA study
Adam Pearse (Herald): Government delivers update on second Auckland Harbour crossing progress\
Amelia Wade (Post): Chris Bishop calls Wayne Brown’s bluff on his Auckland harbour crossing pet project (paywalled)

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OPPORTUNITY PARTY: TAX, DONATIONS AND LOBBYING
Chris Trotter (Interest): If nobody moves, then nobody, or at least nobody in the top one percent of income earners, is going to get hurt
RNZ: Opportunity Party vows to ‘clean up politics’ with lobbying and donations reforms
Harriet Laughton (Post): Opportunity Party want to ‘clean up politics’ with new policy (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Opportunity promises reform of lobbying rules and political donations
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Kiwis left $17,000 worse off by Opportunity tax plan should ‘look at the bigger picture’, Qiulae Wong says
Justin Hu (1News): Opportunity leader defends taking big donations she wants outlawed
Chris Lynch: Helen Clark calls Opportunity leader’s interview ‘train wreck’ as donation contradiction revealed
Stuff: Seymour attacks Opportunity’s donation limits as double standard
Gareth Morgan (Newsroom): Who’s the fiscal blowhard, Mr Luxon?
Gareth Morgan (Newsroom): How to understand Opportunity’s big tax and spending restructure
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Q & Q & A – Jack Tame Puts TOP Under the Blowtorch (paywalled)

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP TURMOIL
Verity Johnson (Stuff): Chris Bishop was National’s last hope for November
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Does Erica Stanford deserve the backlash?
Francesca Rudkin (Newstalk ZB): Luxon needs to rediscover the version of him people voted for
Simon O’Connor: Rinse, Repeat, Revolt
Julia Gabel (Herald): Erica Stanford denies role in Penk leadership challenge against Luxon
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Erica Stanford denies involvement in coup plot against Christopher Luxon
Justin Hu (1News): Stanford denies National coup role, wants education job ‘for nine years’
RNZ: ‘I didn’t challenge for the leadership’, Erica Stanford says in first media appearance this week
Harriet Laughton (Post): Stanford denies any involvement in National leadership bid (paywalled)
Stuff: ‘I don’t know’: Minister unsure if Penk acted alone in coup attempt

TE PĀTI MĀORI CAMPAIGN LAUNCH
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): Te Pāti Māori reveals election strategy as campaign launches in Gisborne
Julia Gabel (Herald): Te Pāti Māori to campaign for candidate vote only
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Te Pāti Māori Launches 2026 Election Fight From Tairāwhiti
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Candidate Vote, Candidate Vote, Candidate Vote: Te Pāti Māori Reveals Its Election Strategy
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Te Pāti Māori Has the People Power — Now Comes the Test at the Ballot Box

GOLDSMITH AND THE KAIPARA KI MAHURANGI SEAT
Herald: Paul Goldsmith considering switch from Epsom to Kaipara ki Mahurangi seat after Chris Penk’s exit
Harriet Laughton (Post): National MP Paul Goldsmith flirts with run in Chris Penk’s seat (paywalled)
Justin Hu (1News): Goldsmith weighing a run in sacked challenger’s ‘beautiful seat’
Justin Hu (1News): Goldsmith rules out Kaipara ki Mahurangi run, will stay in Epsom

PARLIAMENT, ELECTION AND GOVERNMENT
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): What Kiri Allan tells us about power and influence
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Form Guide: August
Anna Whyte and Mandy Te (Interest): The ingredients for election 2026: The cost of living, a message of hope and what National needs to do
Stuff: ACT pledges to end ‘race-based hiring’ in public service ‘reset’
Stuff: A busy Sunday of policy announcements from Act and TOP
Bella Bates (Critic): Politicians Make Their Pitch to Students at OUSA Leaders Debate
Kirsten Wise (Herald): The growing gap between MPs and everyday Kiwis (paywalled)
Ryan Bridge (Newstalk ZB): Hey Labour, NZ is not Australia
Ashley Church: Has New Zealand permanently moved to the left?
Amelia Wade (Post): More than $106m spent on Auckland’s harbour crossing, with no decision in sight (paywalled)

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There’s a lot to be learnt about political power in New Zealand from Kiri Allan’s new book and her media appearances. However, not all of it is what the former politician would like us to see.

The most revealing scene in Kiri Allan’s new memoir, Go Hard or Go Home, isn’t the car crash. It happens in a hospital, where Allan, then a Cabinet minister, was receiving treatment for cervical cancer. As she recounts in the book, and as Danyl McLauchlan reports in his excellent Listener profile earlier this month, an outgoing chief executive of one of her own departments made a special visit and spent at least half an hour discussing the government board positions he hoped to occupy after leaving his post.

“Imagine being plugged up to chemotherapy,” Allan writes, “and a very senior public servant making a special trip to the hospital to lobby you for board positions.” Her conclusion: “It says something about where power and patronage actually sit in Wellington… and who feels entitled to it.”

If it happened as Allan describes it, it is pretty shabby. It is also a remarkable glimpse into the less formal workings of Wellington: the networks and expectations that run alongside the official machinery of government. And then she declines to name him. The book tells readers something is rotten in the way appointments and influence work here, and then declines to say where.

The revolving door from minister to consultant

The government appointments story also looks more interesting alongside Allan’s own life after Parliament. She now runs a consultancy firm which has clients she lists as “including iwi entities, Māori collectives, central and local government and private business”. Her website describes the firm as a “professional hustler for clients and entities who do good things for great people”.

Much of that work is in climate adaptation, emergency management, natural hazards and related areas. These are not random subjects: Allan was herself Minister for Emergency Management and Conservation.

Allan’s post-political work is presented as consultancy rather than lobbying. Yet the activities she has publicly described include strategy, helping organisations understand legislative and regulatory processes, using networks and assisting clients to get projects across the line with decision-makers. Doesn’t this sound like “lobbying”?

None of this suggests wrongdoing. The point is that New Zealand has no lobbying register and no stand-down period for departing ministers, so there’s no way for anyone to tell.

That question became especially relevant this week when Allan wrote an opinion piece for the New Zealand Herald on Thursday about the National Iwi Chairs Forum hui in Queenstown. The piece was a mixture of reportage and opinion, titled “Party leaders met NZ’s most influential iwi figures: Te Pāti Māori tanked and Luxon didn’t show”.

The Herald told readers that Allan was a former Labour minister who “now runs the KLA consultancy firm”. What it did not disclose was Allan’s advisory relationship with the National Iwi Chairs Forum itself. The Forum lists Allan as lead adviser to its Disaster Recovery ILG, and Allan has publicly described facilitating climate-adaptation work associated with the Forum. But if you write a political column about an organisation’s meeting, shouldn’t readers know that you also work in an advisory capacity with that organisation? It simply gives readers useful information.

The Herald piece also required an awkward clarification after Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere posted on Facebook that the piece told “outright lies”, especially because he wasn’t at the conference. Allan had reported that Tamihere was there, and the following: “In my view, Te Pāti Māori tanked. You could feel the room – packed with people waiting for a clear vision for te ao Māori – pull back. Instead they got, what sounded to me like, a defensive account of the party’s internal troubles from president John Tamihere, including a claim that no one but him had built an organisation serving Māori the way Waipareira Trust had.”

The above section was later amended to refer to co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi instead. But there’s still no acknowledgment that Allan was reporting on an organisation she works for. This should be a basic requirement when an ex-minister, political insider and consultant wants to be a media commentator.

Going hard on the public service

Allan’s biggest intervention during the promotional tour has been her attack on the public service — one that potentially aligns with the interests of the sectors she now advises.

Allan writes in her book that she came to agree with the Act Party that the state service “was overpaid, bloated and slow”. This was first reported on by McLauchlan in his Listener piece. He writes that Allan “came to loathe the Wellington bureaucracy: the officials who left her unbriefed, the ‘yes, Minister’ that meant nothing” — and the highly paid senior people who, in her view, dodged the hard issues.

Then on Friday on RNZ she doubled down on all this in an interview with Guyon Espiner: “What I found with senior bureaucrats is that they’re often more political than politicians. They know they’re going to out-survive politicians. And they just sometimes need to bide their time, say ‘Yes minister, absolutely minister.’”

PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons was furious with the former Labour minister. In a Facebook post she accused Allan of taking a “cheap shot” at the public servants who had worked for her, calling the comments “unjustified, gross and unbecoming”. Fitzsimons says: “She knows that the people and agencies she is criticising can’t answer back.”

She also argued the remarks feed “a far-right narrative that leads to privatisation of important public services”. Of course, Allan was pushing an agenda of devolution of roles and funding to communities, iwi and private entities – sectors that overlap with the client base she describes on her own website – with stories about her time as Minister for Conservation.

Allan’s narrative is that she became aware that the centre gatekeeps resources that should flow to communities: getting millions of dollars of Jobs for Nature money out to community groups was a “ridiculous process” that took a couple of years, and settling cultural rights over whale bones took four. She told Espiner: “I do think we need to have a good think about how tax dollars get put back into communities, having our communities steward those resources ... is something I’m a big advocate for.”

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 limits of Allan’s candour”, “Allan stands by her treatment of staff”, “Selling the policy her soul rejected”, and “Reckoning, not redemption”.

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THE OPPORTUNITY PARTY
Andrea Vance (Post): The lanyard class has found its political party. Now what? (paywalled)
Sam Smith (Stuff): The ‘worm’ worked for Peter Dunne, but that ‘sudden’ surge not the Opportunity way, Qiulae Wong says
Vernon Small (Post): Opportunity knocks, but who has the door open? (paywalled)
Liam Dann (Herald): How compulsory KiwiSaver could lead to an Opportunity-National deal (paywalled)
1News: What are the Opportunity party’s land tax and ‘citizen’s income’?
Chuan-Zheng Lee: Assorted thoughts on the Opportunity Party

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP CRISIS
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): National has made their chances of re-election much worse (paywalled)
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Post): The media didn’t create Luxon’s leadership woes. Does he finally get it? (paywalled)
Audrey Young (Herald): Blood on the floor: Best and worst leadership coups and the ones that backfired (paywalled)
Damien Grant (Stuff): Ex-Navy officer Chris Penk can see the iceberg ahead, yet National threw him overboard
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Luxon leadership coup: Why surviving the confidence vote is only a reprieve (paywalled)
Bruce Cotterill (Herald): Christopher Luxon leadership: National caucus coup attempt overshadows election issues (paywalled)

ELECTION AND CAMPAIGN
Philip Matthews (Press): The age of outrage: Are we becoming more polarised? (paywalled)
Emily Simpson (1News): ‘National say they’re fixing the basics - here’s what I think about that’
Glenn McLean (Post): Taranaki’s political hopefuls say cost of living still at the forefront of voters’ minds (paywalled)
David Fisher (Herald): From the battlefield to the ballot: NZSAS veteran Josh Jacobsen stands for Green Party (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Act’s public service ‘reset’ includes removing ‘good employer’ requirements, enshrining ‘need, not race’
Max Rashbrooke (Post): If I was PM: Power to the people, respect for planet (paywalled)
Shane Te Pou (Daily Blog): Max Harris in Tāmaki Wonderland

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NATIONAL PARTY LEADERSHIP CRISIS
Adam Pearse (Herald): National’s penance begins as Bishop and Stanford’s claims pose election headache (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Erica Stanford dodges media after conference, as Christopher Luxon won’t say whether he thinks she tried to roll him
Steve Braunias (Newsroom): The secret mission of .. Chris Penk
Ben Thomas (Post): Piecing together the strange tale of two confidence votes (paywalled)
Duncan Garner (Listener): How can the National Party run the country if they can’t manage themselves? (paywalled)
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): ‘Relentlessly optimistic’: Luxon looks past coup attempt as election campaign resumes
Henry Cooke (Post): Chris Penk had to leave Cabinet. Did he have to leave politics? (paywalled)
Lloyd Burr (Stuff): Flights for National’s failed coup likely cost taxpayers $35k+
RNZ: ACT Minister labels National’s failed leadership coup a ‘shit show’
1News: Former National minister calls Luxon coup attempt ‘shambolic’
Nicholas Pointon (NBR): Construction industry mourns ‘exceptional listener’ Penk’s exit (paywalled)
Herald: National MP Paul Goldsmith doesn’t shut down suggestion he could run in Chris Penk’s seat
Brent Edwards (NBR): National’s leadership woes, and Labour’s Opportunity (paywalled)
Andrew Gunn (Press): When leaders throw their team under the bus (paywalled)
Andrew Dickens (Newstalk ZB): The story of the scapegoat

ELECTION 2026 — CAMPAIGN, POLLS AND PARTIES
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Why isn’t Labour doing better?
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Poll: National down and out of Government in new Talbot Mills poll
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): How to win the election
Simon Wilson: Opportunities lost: Learnings from a big political week
Nick James (Post): Another poll puts Opportunity in kingmaker position (paywalled)
Jo Moir (RNZ): Winston Peters has a choice to make
James Nokise (Post): When the clowns start looking like the serious candidates (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor and Azaria Howell (Herald): How Paul Henry resigned from TVNZ to stand for Act - the letter he sent Government (paywalled)
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Post): Paul Henry praised TVNZ as ‘indisputably valuable’ in letter after joining party that wants to sell it (paywalled)
Justin Wong (Post): Wellington councillors run for minor parties (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Napier without Nash: The bellwether seat struggling to feel normal again (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Qiulae Wong on learning the political art of restraint
Keith Rankin: An Opportunity For Cautious Radicalism
No Right Turn: National channels Orban
Susan Botting (Herald): Far North councillor Davina Smolders could trigger $100,000 byelection

PARLIAMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE AND GOVERNMENT
RNZ: Ex-politician Kiri Allan says public service bloated, slow and overpaid
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): New Zealand First, Chatham Islands second
RNZ: Kiri Allan: ‘It took a really long time to find that crack of light to pierce the dark’
André Chumko (Post): Parliament is changing. So is what it wears (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Apology, MMP referendum, small businesses and ignoring retailers (paywalled)

RNZ CUTS AND THE MEDIA
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): RNZ prepares to cut 10 percent of jobs
Shayne Currie (Herald): RNZ to cut 25-30 roles in major cost-cutting move
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Post): Leaked RNZ email reveals proposed 10% cut to workforce (paywalled)
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): Cuts, court, and a $130m sale: NZ’s changing media landscape
David Cohen (Herald): Provocative UK journo Rod Liddle’s death reminds me what NZ’s political discourse lacks (paywalled)
Shayne Currie (Herald): Kamahl Santamaria v TVNZ in Employment Court; $130m sale: MediaWorks’ new owner opens up; Matthew Hooton and a newsroom flare-up (paywalled)
Shayne Currie (Herald): MediaWorks’ new owner, Sports Entertainment Group, opens up on its $130m acquisition - and why sport plays a pivotal role in growth (paywalled)

FREE SPEECH, THE BSA AND THE BRADBURY CASE
Ani O’Brien: I took Martyn Bradbury to court & still think the HDCA needs reform
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Free Speech, Apparently — But Only When the Free Speech Club Says So
Matthew Tukaki (Waatea News): Free Speech Fight Turns Inward as FSU Board Member Revealed in Bradbury Case
David Harvey (LawNews): A regulator overreaching on its way out: What the BSA got wrong in WK v The Platform
Neil Sands (LawNews): Doomed regulator makes last-gasp finding against online broadcaster
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Free Speech Union extends influence at InternetNZ after Douglas Brown elected (paywalled)
Peter Williams: The BSA’s digging its own grave

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There is something strange about this election campaign. National has just put itself through another leadership crisis, Christopher Luxon looks weaker than ever, and Labour still doesn’t look like a party storming towards victory.

Luxon survived his second confidence vote in four months on Wednesday. Chris Penk lost his ministerial portfolios for launching the challenge that caused it. National MPs spent much of the week talking about themselves. All of this sits on top of the Government’s real problems: unemployment is high, living costs are still painful, public services are stretched, and a lot of voters think the country is heading in the wrong direction.

You would expect the Opposition to be cleaning up. Instead, the 1News-Verian poll released that same evening had Labour on 30%, down two points, with National just behind on 29. Luxon was still ahead of Hipkins as preferred prime minister, 17% to 15.

Labour reached 37% in the Verian poll taken in mid-April, its highest since Hipkins’ first poll as leader in January 2023. By June it had dropped five points to 32. It has kept sliding since.

Forget for a moment whether Labour is a point ahead or two points behind in any particular poll. The more interesting question is why it is not ten points ahead. For months the coverage has concentrated on what is wrong with National and Luxon. It is time to turn some of that scrutiny on the party that wants to replace them.

The small-target strategy

Labour has been running a deliberately boring “small target” strategy (say little, offend no one, let the incumbent implode). There was a very good reason for such a cautious approach. After the 2023 election the party was in a terrible position. It had fallen from 50% in 2020 to 26.9% three years later. Auckland had turned against it. Labour was associated with Covid, inflation, projects that didn’t work, Three Waters, co-governance battles and ministerial scandals.

Hipkins’ first job in Opposition wasn’t to excite anyone. It was to make Labour safe again. He has largely done that. There was no civil war after the defeat. He stayed in control, moved Barbara Edmonds into a central economic role, refreshed the candidate list and slowly rebuilt support. Labour no longer looks like the party voters were desperate to throw out in 2023. That is not nothing. It doesn’t follow that voters are desperate to put it back in.

Almost every recent analysis of Labour reaches for the same description: a small-target or “Ming vase” strategy, borrowed from Australian Labor in 2022 and UK Labour in 2024. Writing in The Spinoff this week, Joel MacManus asked whether it has begun to backfire. He quotes the lobbyist Georgina Stylianou, who describes Labour’s announcements as “tangible little droplets – they’re all good retail policies but they don’t have an overarching pitch”.

So, Hipkins has done the first part of the job: Labour is electable again. But it is much less clear that it is compelling.

An extraordinarily weak Government

Labour’s position becomes harder to understand when you look beyond the headline party numbers. The latest Ipsos Issues Monitor, reported by Stuff’s Emma Ricketts, found Labour was the most trusted party on all five of the issues voters ranked most important: cost of living, healthcare, the economy, housing and unemployment. National no longer leads on any of them. That is quite an advantage for an Opposition to hold.

Labour is ahead on so many issues, Sam Sachdeva wrote in Newsroom, “yet still seems unlikely to form government in most current polling”, which suggests “the party is failing to fully capitalise on its potential advantage”.

The Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll at the start of the month was worse again, putting Labour at 27.8%, essentially back at its 2023 result. Hipkins dismissed it as a rogue poll, and he may be right, since other polls have Labour higher.

But there is enough here to say Labour has lost momentum. Its support has softened from the mid-30s it was reaching earlier in the year, and the energy in this campaign is going to other parties.

The Herald’s Jamie Ensor made the point after the Curia result. All the attention on Luxon’s mistakes should be producing a much bigger dividend for Labour by now. His conclusion is hard to argue with: “When others are coming for your vote, waiting for Luxon’s next faux pas just isn’t enough.”

National is doing almost everything an Opposition could reasonably ask of it. But you still have to put the ball in the net.

Former Labour adviser Vernon Small asked the question that ought to be uncomfortable inside Labour headquarters: “If Labour and the Opposition can’t open a significant lead in these times, when can they?”

The Opportunity problem

This is why the rise of the Opportunity Party should concern Labour. Opportunity reached 6.1% in the Curia poll and 8% with Verian this week, which on those numbers would give it nine seats.

We shouldn’t assume all of that has come out of Labour. Opportunity’s constituency looks more complicated than that. What matters is why people are going there. The party has one big, clearly stated idea: a land value tax funding a universal basic income. You can think that bold or barmy. Labour would reject most of the programme and plenty of people will find it frightening, but nobody is confused about what it is trying to do.

Danyl McLauchlan argued in the Listener in June that National’s KiwiSaver changes and the Greens’ tax package both have serious flaws, but that both parties are at least trying to fix something real. Labour has offered nothing on that scale. His conclusion was that the minor parties have been “more courageous with their policy proposals this year”. McLauchlan’s description of the larger contest is savage but difficult to forget: “The impression is of two leaders who have no plan except that each should be prime minister instead of the other.”

There is a second story in the Curia numbers. The combined National and Labour vote fell below 60% for the first time since that poll began five and a half years ago. On preferred prime minister, Toby Manhire wrote in The Spinoff, “neither Chris is inspiring hearts and minds”.

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: “Has Hipkins got another gear?”, “Where is the economic fight?”, “Who would Labour actually govern with?”, “Winning by default”, and “What this all means”.

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NATIONAL LEADERSHIP CRISIS: CHRIS PENK AND THE FAILED COUP
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Anatomy of a failed coup
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): National’s reluctance to jettison CEO PM locks us into an election of targets, delivery and KPIs (paywalled)
Audrey Young (Herald): Only 1 possible explanation behind Chris Penk’s attempt to launch a leadership coup (paywalled)
Matthew Hooton (Post): Facile Labour on track to be as bad as failing National (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Chris crossed: Everyone feels sorry for Penk
Tom Day (1News): Luxon survives, but how long for?
Amanda Gillies (RNZ): Luxon’s survived, but ‘the fundamental issues are still there’
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Luxon had belief and came out a winner
RNZ: As it happened: Christopher Luxon won’t release count of confidence vote after failed coup
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Christopher Luxon insists he took ‘decisive action’ with Chris Penk’s leadership challenge
Nick James (Post): Christopher Luxon says ‘decisive action’ was taken after Chris Penk moved against him (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Erica Stanford denies having leadership ambitions when refusing to express confidence in Christopher Luxon
RNZ: Erica Stanford gives full backing to Christopher Luxon after failed leadership challenge
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Luxon, fresh from inexplicable caucus coup attempt, insists everything is normal
Poppy Clark (Stuff): How National’s secret vote works after Chris Penk’s failed leadership bid
RNZ: Who is Chris Penk: Instigator, numbers guy, fall guy, or nice guy?
Stuff: Chris Penk’s constituents weigh in on his exit
Nick James (Post): National working ‘as quickly as possible’ to find new candidate for Chris Penk’s seat (paywalled)
Post: Chris Penk might be on the outer with MPs, but will be missed by construction sector (paywalled)
Stuff: Luxon survives, Penk exits, and the memes write themselves
Samantha Gee (RNZ): Nelson voters provide Christopher Luxon with a welcome respite
Henry Cooke (Post): Aren’t kamikaze pilots supposed to sink ships? (paywalled)
Ryan Bridge (Newstalk ZB): Centrist voters will be confused so far this election
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Luxon can’t do what he should do

ELECTION 2026: PARTIES, POLLS AND CAMPAIGNING
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Racism and coalition belligerence are double-edged swords for NZ First
Farah Hancock (RNZ): The National Party’s 92 political ads seen by only men
Thomas Coughlan and Chris Knox (Herald): Poll of polls: Likelihood of coalition forming a Government tumbles – Opportunity soars (paywalled)
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Has Luxon made a mistake ruling out Opportunity?
Herald: Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong on confidence-and-supply and bottom lines as poll puts party at 8%
1News: Opportunity Party leader on poll surge, working with Winston Peters
Adam Pearse (Herald): Labour’s ‘door open’ to Opportunity, senior roles for Te Pāti Māori ‘unlikely’ as Chris Hipkins clarifies vague remarks
Julia Gabel and Adam Pearse (Herald): Te Pāti Māori responds to Labour’s Chris Hipkins saying senior Govt roles unlikely in future coalition
Kiri Allan (Herald): Party leaders met NZ’s most influential iwi figures: Te Pāti Māori tanked and Luxon didn’t show (paywalled)
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Luxon’s botched MMP call is a chance to fix Parliament with STV
No Right Turn: Why I’m not voting for Opportunity
Liu Chen (RNZ): Political parties eye Asian mental health progress in bid for votes
Atereano Mateariki (RNZ): ‘Voter suppression by stealth’ - NZ govt accused of locking out Pasifika vote
Robert MacCulloch (Post): Ten exhibits exposing the PM’s preference for big corporations over SMEs (paywalled)\
Martin Van Beynen (Post): Are we still the Passionless People? (paywalled)
Reynold Macpherson (Herald): Will New Zealanders be better off? (paywalled)
Jonathan Ayling (Herald): When Government funding weakens community (paywalled)
Mandy Te (Interest): ‘The economy really is going to be the big thing that’s going to be fought out’: John Key on 2026 election

POLICE, MARK MITCHELL AND THE RAKESH NAIDOO AFFAIR
Adam Pearse (Herald): Police apologise for spreading incorrect information about Rakesh Naidoo party candidacy
Sam Sherwood (RNZ): Police manager sorry for ‘confusion’ over Superintendent Rakesh Naidoo’s bid to stand for Labour
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Police apologise to Rakesh Naidoo after spreading ‘incorrect information’
Justin Hu (1News): Police clear senior officer turned Labour candidate after review
Stuff: Mark Mitchell stands firm over police candidate notice row
Sam Sherwood (RNZ): Mitchell held ‘pre-existing concerns’ on sensitive briefing attended by Superintendent Naidoo
Henry Cooke (Post): Top cop apologises after incorrect info given to media about Labour candidate (paywalled)

FREE SPEECH, ANI O’BRIEN AND THE BRADBURY CASE
Katie Harris (Herald): Free Speech Union board member Ani O’Brien revealed as complainant accusing blogger Martyn Bradbury of ‘ridiculing’ posts
Paula Penfold (Stuff): She champions free speech – then went to court over what a blogger said about her
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Post): ‘Not a free speech absolutist’: FSU board member Ani O’Brien defends using legal action to take on high-profile blogger (paywalled)

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A day after Christopher Luxon survived the latest attempt to remove him as Prime Minister, we are finally getting a clearer idea of what happened. It is still murky. There are competing accounts of what occurred inside National’s three-hour caucus meeting, and almost everyone involved now has an incentive to minimise their role. But enough pieces have emerged from the accounts of Liam Hehir, Ani O’Brien, Jo Moir, Thomas Coughlan, Richard Harman, Jenna Lynch and others to reconstruct the basic story, even if some crucial details remain disputed.

According to Hehir and O’Brien, Chris Penk had been canvassing support for a possible Erica Stanford–Chris Penk leadership ticket, with Stanford as leader and Penk as deputy. Chris Bishop, meanwhile, remained one of the other main names being discussed as a replacement for Luxon. Before anything had been properly settled, someone spoke to the Herald. The story went public on Monday night, Luxon immediately called MPs back to Wellington, and what had been an attempt to quietly establish whether the numbers existed became an emergency leadership crisis.

At least for a while on Tuesday afternoon, the numbers appeared to be moving against Luxon. By that evening they were moving back. Stanford and Bishop appear to have been competing rather than combining their forces. Some MPs who had expressed dissatisfaction with Luxon were evidently not prepared to vote him out. And when caucus finally met on Wednesday, Luxon changed the terms of the contest by putting his own leadership to a confidence vote before any alternative candidate emerged.

There may have been a broad appetite for change. There was plainly no majority for any particular alternative.

The Stanford-Penk option

The clearest new account came from Liam Hehir on RNZ’s Morning Report today. Hehir is a National Party member and a close friend of Penk, but says he had deliberately not pumped Penk for information because he would “rather be a bad pundit than a bad friend”. So Hehir was explicitly not presenting this as an account extracted from Penk himself.

His understanding is that Penk was not originally trying to make himself Prime Minister. Instead, he was fronting a possible change involving Stanford as leader and himself as deputy. Hehir thought there was a fairly obvious political logic to the combination: Stanford as one of National’s more liberal ministers, Penk as a well-liked conservative, giving the caucus a ticket that crossed some of its internal divisions.

The intention, according to Hehir, was to do the numbers properly to initiate a clean coup. Penk would canvass support, “get the names on paper”, and then, if the numbers were there, go to Luxon and tell him it was time to step aside.

Ani O’Brien, another commentator with strong National contacts, reported much the same thing last night: “This evening I have learnt that what Chris Penk was actually canvassing was support for an Erica Stanford–Chris Penk leadership ticket. To be clear that is: Stanford for leader and Penk as her deputy.”

O’Brien is careful on one important point: she has not established how much Stanford herself knew about or approved the exercise. That distinction matters. Hehir and O’Brien have both reported that Penk was canvassing a Stanford-Penk option. It does not follow that Stanford personally sent him out to organise it.

On O’Brien’s account, the exercise had not progressed much beyond initial discussions when it lost control of its timetable. She describes the next moment in three words: “Then somebody talked.”

Someone who knew what was happening spoke to the media. Hehir says people who had been canvassed, or had heard about the canvassing, went to the Herald. Thomas Coughlan’s story then broke and everything changed.

Suddenly journalists were ringing MPs asking whether they supported Luxon. Stanford and Bishop were being asked whether they wanted his job. What had been a relatively private exercise in testing whether an alternative leadership was viable became an immediate public crisis.

As O’Brien puts it: “The story was out, journalists were ringing MPs, MPs were being asked to declare allegiances, and Luxon had every incentive to force the issue immediately rather than allow his opponents time to organise properly. The coup, if you want to call it that, had been triggered far too early.”

We still don’t know who leaked to the Herald or why. It may even have been somebody sympathetic to Luxon. What is clear is that the leak helped him. Without it, Penk and others might have had another day or two to settle the numbers and work out which leadership option could command a majority. Instead Luxon had his MPs flying to Wellington.

The numbers fall apart

Even then, Luxon was apparently in real danger. Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan reports that before the 6pm television news on Tuesday, the numbers were “firming up for a change”. Some of Luxon’s usual supporters were noticeably quiet, and the atmosphere around Parliament was that a leadership change might genuinely be happening.

Heather du Plessis-Allan says Stanford and Bishop (“or at least both people who thought they were contenders”) were reasonably confident on Tuesday afternoon that they had the numbers. By about 8pm, however, she was being told the coup was falling apart and MPs who had moved away from Luxon were “defecting back”.

Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter helps explain how that could happen so quickly. His reporting suggests that much of the operation was remarkably loose. Rather than securing written commitments, the plotters appear to have relied heavily on verbal assurances. Some backbench MPs told Harman they had not been approached at all.

The obvious question is: how do you get close to rolling a Prime Minister without being absolutely certain you have the votes?

An MP telling a colleague privately that Luxon is doing a poor job, or that Stanford might be better, is one thing. Actually voting to remove a sitting Prime Minister shortly before an election is quite another. Harman says some MPs may even have indicated support to more than one camp.

His historical lesson is straightforward. Serious National Party coups have traditionally involved hard counts and commitments that could not evaporate at the last minute. Harman writes: “The plotters might reflect that rolling a Prime Minister is a more serious affair than casual conversations on mobile phones”. His advice is even simpler: “get it in writing.” The plotters, as Brent Edwards put it at the NBR, “had not bothered to do a proper head count.”

There was another problem. Even if enough MPs could be persuaded that Luxon should go, there was still no agreement over who should replace him.

Lynch reports one account from inside National in which Stanford and Bishop were “locked in a battle over who should get the top job”. Du Plessis-Allan says something similar, although more bluntly: “the coup fell apart because of egos”. Her information is that the two needed to coalesce around one candidate, but “neither Chris Bishop nor Erica Stanford was prepared to go second on the ticket”.

Matthew Hooton takes this argument much further. In an interview with The Post’s Andrea Vance, he named Stanford, Bishop, Nicola Willis, Simeon Brown and Mark Mitchell as “the real villains of today”. Hooton’s charge is that all five knew a leadership change was necessary but none was willing to put their own ambitions aside. The attitude, in his telling, was: “if it can’t be me then we’ll stick with Luxon”.

The Post editorial today makes essentially the same accusation, concluding that National’s five touted leaders “are not leaders, but, like Mr Luxon himself, mere careerists”.

Hooton may be laying it on a bit thick. There were perfectly rational reasons for MPs to hesitate before removing a sitting Prime Minister this close to an election. But the basic problem stands. Without agreement on Stanford, Bishop or somebody else, there was no viable coup.

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LUXON, NATIONAL AND THE FAILED COUP: COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Luxon leadership challenge: In the end, they didn’t have the numbers (paywalled)
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): What just happened? A total mess is what
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): National’s in a worst of all worlds situation now
Janet Wilson (Post): National is now marooned in the worst of all political worlds (paywalled)
Richard Harman: How not to organise a coup (paywalled)
Anneke Smith (Post): Rebellion in the ranks leaves National firmly on back foot (paywalled)
Jo Moir (RNZ): Christopher Luxon’s leadership victory: You come at the King, you best not miss
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): Can National put the leadership questions behind them?
Anna Whyte (Interest): Luxon’s leadership: What on earth just happened and what happens next?
The Post: Editorial: A circus controlled by clowns (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Christopher Luxon’s very downcast victory (paywalled)
Audrey Young (Herald): Christopher Luxon leadership challenge: Did the Prime Minister do the right thing? (paywalled)
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Yesterday Luxon won, again. Who lost?
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): Nothing to see here: Christopher Luxon has the full support of his caucus
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): What will voters take away from Luxon’s chaotic two-day caucus crisis?
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Luxon remains National Party leader
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Hang in there, Chris Penk!
Ani O’Brien: Chris Penk took the fall, but here’s what I know
Brent Webling (Herald): Luxon’s comms team need to step up, and the PM needs to listen to them (paywalled)
Dileepa Fonseka (BusinessDesk): The limits of the CEO Prime Minister (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Luxon wins second confidence vote as plotters can’t count (paywalled)
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Confidence only gets you so far: Undefeated, PM Christopher Luxon is still on the ropes
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Luxon is born again, again – but can he resurrect National?
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Labour’s dream and National’s nightmare: Luxon down but not out
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): All the times Christopher Luxon said ‘fix the basics and build the future’ in one 76-second press conference, ranked
Mandy Te (Interest): National MPs probably weighed up opportunity vs risk in leadership vote, political commentator says
Grant Duncan (The Conversation): Luxon survives. But why do National and Labour both struggle with effective leadership?
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): Those trying to roll Luxon are a pack of fools
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): What does National hope to achieve?
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Here’s what the National Party needs
Peter Williams: National’s Bad (Really Bad) Day
The Overhang: Putsch comes to shove
Steven Cowan: Christopher Luxon is just a symptom of a much deeper problem

NATIONAL PARTY LEADERSHIP: REPORTING
Justin Hu (1News): Luxon wins confidence vote, claims his caucus is united
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): PM Christopher Luxon survives another confidence vote with ‘full support’ of caucus
Stuff: Luxon survives second caucus challenge as Penk stripped of portfolios
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Luxon clings on as PM after surviving second confidence vote
Post: ‘A big mission and purpose’: Luxon turns focus to election after winning confidence vote (paywalled)
Julia Gabel, Thomas Coughlan, Jamie Ensor and Adam Pearse (Herald): PM Christopher Luxon sacks Chris Penk from Cabinet, strips portfolios after leadership challenge
Henry Cooke and Nick James (Post): Christopher Luxon sacks Chris Penk, says he mounted campaign against him (paywalled)
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): National MP Chris Penk announces retirement after failed leadership plot against Christopher Luxon
RNZ: Chris Penk says he will not seek re-election after losing ministerial portfolios
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): The scene inside the National caucus room

ELECTION 2026, POLLING AND THE CAMPAIGN
Justin Hu (1News): Poll: Opportunity Party surges as NZ First slides amid Luxon saga
Zeb Tupa’i (Herald): Labour leads National as Opportunity Party hits 8% in new poll
RNZ: The Opportunity Party could decide next government, new poll shows
Nick James (Post): New poll shows Opportunity rising to kingmaker position (paywalled)
Julia Gabel (Herald): Poll: Christopher Luxon drops in preferred Prime Minister rankings
Adam Pearse (Herald): Labour’s ‘door open’ to Opportunity, senior roles for Te Pāti Māori ‘unlikely’ as Chris Hipkins clarifies vague remarks
Kelly Makiha (Herald): Chris Hipkins’ regret over Rotorua’s emergency housing crisis (paywalled)
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Make it make sense: Fact-checking National’s tax claims
Fox Meyer (Newsroom): National uses nonsensical AI website to attack Labour’s tax policy
Anneke Smith (Post): Labour quietly ditches promise to set out who it could work with (paywalled)
Sam Sherwood (RNZ): Rakesh Naidoo told police boss two weeks before his Labour Party candidacy selection
Tara Ward (Spinoff): Eight parties vie for students’ votes in raucous Dunedin election debate

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In a few minutes time National MPs will gather at Parliament for an extraordinary caucus meeting that could end Christopher Luxon’s time as Prime Minister. Luxon may still survive. MPs who complain privately about a leader do not necessarily vote against them when they finally get into the caucus room, especially when the leader is also the sitting Prime Minister.

But things look significantly worse for Luxon than they did yesterday. The bigger change is that his opponents may finally have worked out what comes next. Until now, plenty of National MPs seem to have wanted Luxon gone, but they haven’t been able to agree on a replacement. This morning Erica Stanford increasingly looks like the person around whom enough of them might coalesce.

The tide has turned

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan is normally fairly careful about predicting leadership contests, but his assessment last night was unusually strong. Asking whether Luxon could survive this second round of caucus discontent, Coughlan wrote: “That looks incredibly unlikely.”

He reports that Luxon may effectively have been forced to call this morning’s meeting because he knew the party whips were getting close to presenting him with evidence that he was losing the support of caucus anyway. “If that’s the case,” Coughlan writes, “the question may not be whether Luxon’s leadership can be saved – it may actually be how long has it been over for?”

That fits with what Richard Harman is hearing at Politik. His newsletter this morning says: “It seems that numbers yesterday firmed against him.” Harman reports that one minister told an MP from another governing party that Luxon’s opponents believed they had enough votes to defeat him.

Stuff political editor Jenna Lynch is even more pessimistic about Luxon’s position. She argues that those trying to remove him have already “mortally wounded an already bruised and limping prime minister”. Having to call another emergency caucus meeting to settle questions about his leadership, just four months after the last confidence vote, is, she says, “beyond damaging”.

Lynch’s conclusion is blunt: “There is only one path forward from here. And that is a caucus consensus on leadership, which probably means the leader cannot be Christopher Luxon.”

National MPs could still get into the room this morning, look around at the alternatives and decide once again that Luxon is the least bad option. That essentially happened in April, when Luxon surprised his detractors by calling a confidence vote before they were properly organised. He won, came out afterwards, declared the issue closed and refused to take questions. But it plainly wasn’t closed.

Newsroom’s Marc Daalder writes that “for MPs to once again come to the brink of change before backing away would strain credulity”. Even another narrow survival would leave Luxon badly damaged, because voters would know his own MPs had seriously contemplated removing him twice in four months.

And then there is John Key. Reported to be hitting the phones for Luxon, Key told the Herald the reports were “untrue”, and refused to say anything further. Coughlan’s conclusion is the quote of the day: “If Luxon has lost Key, one of his biggest backers, and something of a living saint to the modern National Party, then the game is truly up.” Last night the world’s largest prediction market was indicating an 80 percent-plus probability that Luxon is rolled (trading on it is illegal in New Zealand).

The circumstances are therefore quite different this morning. Luxon’s opponents have had more time to organise, and there now appears to be much more serious discussion about an alternative leadership.

Why Stanford?

The problem for Luxon’s opponents has always been that unhappiness with the leader isn’t enough. They need somebody else who can get a majority.

The April confidence vote, widely believed inside National to have been around 27–22, suggested that Luxon already had a large number of colleagues prepared to vote against him even without an actual challenger. But there was no agreed replacement. Bishop had supporters. So did Stanford. Willis, Mitchell and others were also talked about. As long as no alternative could attract enough support, Luxon had a reasonable chance of staying where he was.

Andrea Vance reports in The Post that senior MPs have been discussing a possible arrangement involving Stanford as leader and Prime Minister, Mark Mitchell as deputy, and Chris Bishop taking over finance. Vance is careful to stress that none of this is settled and no challenger has formally declared. She reports that Stanford initially lacked sufficient backing but that her position strengthened substantially yesterday.

Later in the evening, a senior minister texted The Post describing the proposed Stanford–Mitchell–Bishop ticket as “nonsense”, while declining to explain which part of the report was wrong. The Post says it stands by its reporting.

Heather du Plessis-Allan, who has good sources within National, is also hearing that MPs have moved. Yesterday she said: “I have counted by myself three loyal Luxon MPs who have left him. Two of them have joined Erica Stanford’s camp. One of them has joined Chris Bishop’s camp.”

“I don’t think this is looking good for him at all,” she said.

The Herald is also reporting this morning, citing an outside source linked to National, that Defence Minister Chris Penk has been engaging MPs on Stanford’s behalf to test whether she has the numbers. Penk has publicly expressed confidence in Luxon and has not confirmed that account, so it should not yet be treated as established fact. But if it is correct, it matters.

Stanford is on the more socially liberal side of National and cannot win the leadership simply with support from that part of caucus. She needs conservatives to be comfortable with her too, and Penk could be important in making that happen.

There are electoral reasons why MPs might decide Stanford is now worth the gamble. Harman points out that National is struggling particularly with women and in Auckland. Stanford is the MP for East Coast Bays and, he writes, “would be likely to attract more female and Auckland votes than Bishop. That may make her the favourite.”

Her ministerial record also helps. Education is one of the areas in which the Government has been able to point to a reasonably coherent programme of change, and Harman notes that Stanford consistently performs strongly in the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom assessments of Cabinet ministers.

Stanford also looks more like a genuine change from Luxon than the other obvious contenders. Willis is tightly associated with the Government’s economic performance. Bishop has been linked to leadership manoeuvring for so long that any move by him would immediately look like the culmination of a coup. Stanford, by comparison, has managed to keep herself relatively separate from the destabilisation.

Stanford ruled herself out at the weekend; her people were counting numbers by Monday. She has refused to express confidence in Luxon when directly asked. At Wellington Airport yesterday she simply did not answer. And The Post reports that Murray McCully, the former East Coast Bays MP she worked for for four years and is reported to have called her political mentor, has been seen in Wellington and is believed to be advising her. The apprentice of National’s most storied backroom operator appears to have learned the first lesson: never be seen holding the knife. Stanford has said nothing all week.

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LUXON’S LEADERSHIP: THE CAUCUS SHOWDOWN
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Luxon’s enemies are counting
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): National coup chat has mortally wounded PM
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Christopher Luxon’s power ebbing away – who will replace him? (paywalled)
The Post: Editorial: Search your conscience, Mr Luxon (paywalled)
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Things are not looking good for Chris Luxon
Anneke Smith (Post): Make or break for Luxon’s leadership: Is this his final takeoff? (paywalled)
Jo Moir (RNZ): The Luxon dilemma: Should he stay or should he go?
Nick James (Post): Who could replace Luxon if he is rolled? (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Weighing the risks and rewards of rolling Christopher Luxon
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): The last time a New Zealand prime minister was booted by their own party
Henry Cooke (Post): Christopher Luxon looks to rumble the rumblers - but can he play the same trick twice? (paywalled)
Josie Pagani (Post): In National’s leadership race, self-interest is streaking ahead (paywalled)
Andrea Vance (Post): National MPs line up potential Erica Stanford leadership ticket as Christopher Luxon faces caucus test (paywalled)
Richard Harman: Numbers firm against Luxon (paywalled)
Thomas Manch (BusinessDesk): Luxon breaks the emergency glass again, calls urgent caucus meeting on leadership (paywalled)
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): Christopher Luxon’s leadership on the line as he fronts do-or-die caucus meeting
Paula Penfold (Stuff): So confident. So awkward. How did Christopher Luxon end up here?
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Twice bitten, twice hopeful
Ryan Bridge (Newstalk ZB): Luxon’s leadership in question, yet again
Henry Cooke and Anneke Smith (Post): National MPs go quiet as Luxon leadership questions renewed (paywalled)
The Overhang: The Overhang 2.7: Putsch comes to shove
Peter Williams: National’s Big Day
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): National MPs face brutal maths as Luxon fights for survival
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): The National ministers who could dethrone Christopher Luxon as PM
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Luxon’s hard-luck story not really that hard
RNZ: With Luxon’s leadership under pressure, who could be lined up to take the top job?
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): National leadership rumours: Is Luxon really under threat?
Justin Hu (1News): Luxon’s headline-grabbing fortnight: Opportunity, small business, MMP
Veronica Schmidt (Spinoff): Groundhog Day: Christopher Luxon calls a meeting about his leadership – again
Grant Duncan (The Conversation): Luxon’s leadership on the line – again. Neither National nor Labour stand to benefit
Keith Rankin: The Problem For National
No Right Turn: Shaking it up?
Jamie Ensor, Thomas Coughlan, Julia Gabel and Adam Pearse (Herald): National MPs to gather at Parliament to discuss Christopher Luxon’s leadership
Lauren Crimp, Lillian Hanly and Giles Dexter (RNZ): Christopher Luxon refuses to speak to media as he arrives in Wellington ahead of urgent leadership meeting
Henry Cooke and Anneke Smith (Post): Christopher Luxon calls urgent meeting about leadership (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor, Thomas Coughlan, Julia Gabel and Adam Pearse (Herald): Election 2026: National MPs set to decide Christopher Luxon’s leadership in caucus meeting
Jamie Ensor, Thomas Coughlan, Adam Pearse and Katie Bradford (Herald): Election 2026: National leader Christopher Luxon calls urgent caucus meeting amid ‘speculation about my leadership’
Jo Moir (RNZ): Christopher Luxon calls urgent meeting to resolve ‘increased speculation’ about leadership
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Luxon calls urgent caucus meeting amid leadership speculation
1News: Senior National MPs consider telling Luxon it is time to go
Herald: National leadership challenge: Heather du Plessis-Allan says Luxon has lost three loyal MPs
RNZ: Speculation over National Party leadership ‘divisive and corrosive’ says former MP
Ricky Wilson (Stuff): This National MP backs Luxon 150%: ‘He’s the man and he’s the boss’
Stuff: Speculation over Luxon’s leadership returns
The Post: National Leadership Timeline: From Luxon blunders to unity ticket? (paywalled)
Herald: Election 2026: A timeline of events that led to Christopher Luxon’s National Party leadership showdown (paywalled)

PARLIAMENT, ACCOUNTABILITY AND LOBBYING
David Williams (Newsroom): Power Play: The industry’s lobbying takes shape
Andrea Vance (Post): DIA warned Ombudsman over mass extensions to missing lobbyist memo requests (paywalled)
Harriet Laughton (Post): Labour calls out Customs’ secret meeting with industry-linked adviser (paywalled)
Rebecca Stevenson (BusinessDesk): FMA chair James Miller quits Vista, Ryman boards amid conflict concerns (paywalled)
Julia Gabel (Herald): What Shane Jones said during controversial Waitangi Tribunal review (paywalled)
Ian Llewellyn (BusinessDesk): Business of Government: Comity, calamity and contrition (paywalled)
David Farrar: We may have a census after all
Peter Watts (Law News): Terminating Smith v Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd and its ilk: a response to The Law Association submission on the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill

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Coup stories about replacing Prime Minister Christopher Luxon are circling again, initiated it seems by his enemies within the National Party. A showdown is reported to be occurring tonight.

The story was broken last night by the New Zealand Herald’s political editor, Thomas Coughlan, who reported that “discontented National Party MPs hit the phones on Monday” after Luxon’s talkback radio captain’s call for a referendum on MMP caught many of his own MPs unaware last Thursday. One unnamed MP confirmed fielding “several” calls about a leadership change and delivered the quote that will define Luxon’s week: “There’s going to be change in the top job. It’s just a question of who is going to be it.”

That MP named senior ministers Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford as the front-runners. Three caucus sources told the Herald both are potential contenders despite their public pledges of loyalty. Stanford has ruled herself out. Bishop, fronting media in Auckland this morning, notably declined to deny there is an appetite within the party for change.

RNZ’s political editor Jo Moir has reported this morning that National’s caucus is indeed meeting online tonight (Parliament is in recess this week), with Luxon’s leadership hanging over the agenda. Bishop appeared to dampen down the rumours of a coup this morning, telling media: “It’s not an emergency caucus meeting – it is a regular caucus meeting in the recess week, so that we can get together and talk about, you know, what we talk about in caucus.”

Yet the news reports have also received unusual reinforcement from figures associated with National and the political right. On X, commentator Ani O’Brien says: “I am clearly hearing the same thing as him” and “I know the reporting to be accurate in this case.” Taxpayers’ Union co-founder Jordan Williams posted an image of a coffee cup being tipped over — a visual joke about a leadership “spill”. Liam Hehir, who opposes replacing Luxon, says he highly doubts Coughlan is simply making the story up. It’s clear that the coup talk has now spread well beyond the press gallery.

However, the Post reports this afternoon that “National MPs have largely gone to ground amid renewed speculation about the leadership of the party.” They report no obvious signs of discontent: “The Post has contacted more than two thirds of the caucus attempting to ascertain how widespread the reported discontent is. Just five National MPs have offered any comment – Shane Reti, Melissa Lee, Carlos Cheung, Miles Anderson, and Ryan Hamilton all told The Post they backed Luxon entirely and were not sure where the speculation had come from.”

Is Chris Penk the stalking horse?

Richard Harman at Politik reports that National caucus members have been pushing for a special meeting on the leadership, with MPs bringing forward a caucus meeting that was previously scheduled for tomorrow. Multiple sources told him the leadership “had been discussed in phone calls all through Monday”.

Harman adds one explosive but unconfirmed claim today. He reports that Monday’s calls appeared to have been initiated by Defence Minister Chris Penk. One source told him the plan was for Penk to act as a “stalking horse” for a wider contest involving Bishop, Stanford, Nicola Willis, and possibly Simeon Brown.

The stalking horse is an old device, most famously used against Margaret Thatcher in 1989: someone organises the challenge, flushes out the numbers and absorbs the damage so the real contenders can keep their hands clean. Stanford, remember, ruled herself out only at the weekend. Bishop and Stanford both pledged support for Luxon earlier this year. If a stalking horse is indeed in the field, those pledges are already being treated as disposable.

Three votes in it: The 27–22 problem

When Luxon called a confidence vote on himself on 21 April, he won it, read a short statement, took no questions, and declared the matter closed. Nicola Willis said afterwards that only the scrutineers knew the tally. The refusal to say more was the whole manoeuvre.

While nobody knew the margin, “I have the support of my caucus” could not be tested. More to the point, no MP contemplating a move could tell whether they were one of a handful of malcontents or one of half the room. Everybody was counting blind.

That protection has gone. It appears a score sheet from the vote may be circulating. Coughlan says that the Herald has been told by MPs that they believed the margin was 27 to 22. The Post reports that the widespread view within the caucus is that April was very close, around 27-22, which as the paper puts it is just three votes in it – only three MPs switching sides would reverse it to 24–25.

Harman was given a slightly different version, 28 to 21, requiring four votes to shift. He points out that the only people who genuinely know are the two tellers, party president Sylvia Wood and Chief Whip Stuart Smith, but adds that “a score sheet can be kept, and it would seem that is what may be doing the rounds.”

If a score sheet is circulating, whoever released it plainly wants National MPs to know how close the April vote may have been. The number is useful because it makes a change look achievable. Harman asks the question that matters, which is why the numbers have suddenly started appearing four months after the event. Nobody leaks a stale vote count for the fun of it, and every wavering National MP now knows how short the walk is.

There is an observation in the Post’s reporting that has been almost entirely overlooked. Within the caucus, a margin that narrow with no declared challenger in the field is itself read as a sign of Luxon’s weakness. If the 27–22 account is correct, 22 of Luxon’s colleagues voted against him even though there was no declared replacement.

There has been no shortage of opportunities for MPs to change their minds since April. Luxon has made a succession of unforced errors, culminating in an MMP referendum announced on talkback radio that his own ministers could not agree was party policy. The party’s attempt to re-establish its fiscal credentials has also been poorly received.

The April ballot was meant to demonstrate that the leadership question had been settled. If the reported numbers are accurate, it showed instead how little support Luxon had to spare.

Bishop or Stanford?

If Luxon goes, two names recur. Bishop is the safer caucus choice: quick on his feet, combative and experienced in political management. But he could be seen as replacing one middle-aged man with another.

Stanford offers the larger public reset. She is less closely identified with the Government’s economic record and probably the candidate Labour would have more reason to fear. She connects more easily with the public and appears less manufactured. But she is much less tested.

The Post also reports today, based on talking to sources within National, “One suggested that the long-unanswered question of whether Chris Bishop or Erica Stanford would take over had been put to bed through some kind of deal, but this remains unconfirmed.”

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 two-women option”, “The revolt on the right”, “The case against the coup”, and “What happens tonight”.

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NATIONAL PARTY AND LEADERSHIP
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Luxon leadership: National MPs hit phones on possible change after MMP captain’s call
Richard Harman (Politik): Unconfirmed reports say Nats want to vote tonight on Luxon’s leadership (paywalled)
Chris Trotter (Interest): Losing the room
Stuff: Luxon ‘sorry for colleagues’ after MMP referendum commitment on talkback
Gordon Campbell: On National’s abusive, co-dependent relationship with Christopher Luxon
RNZ: Christopher Luxon suggests fuel excise tax rise, accommodation levy if National re-elected
Herald: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon eyes fuel excise, accommodation levy and banks for possible tax change

LABOUR PARTY
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): ‘Minimum viable opposition’: Is Labour’s election strategy backfiring?
Anneke Smith (Post): Labour MPs appear unrattled by low poll result (paywalled)
Grant Duncan: Hipkins’s pathway to another defeat
Thomas Coughlan and Julia Gabel (Herald): Chris Hipkins definitively rules out governing deal with NZ First
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Chris Hipkins officially rules out working with New Zealand First in any government he leads
Justin Hu (1News): Labour rules out NZ First, Hipkins says caucus call was unanimous
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Hipkins finally rules out NZ First over ‘overt racism’ — and gets a scathing response from Peters
Mandy Te (Interest): Labour leader Chris Hipkins officially rules out working with NZ First, says party’s behaviour ‘bad for social cohesion’
Sam Smith (Stuff): Labour MP reveals she is recovering from ‘unplanned’ surgery
RNZ: Labour MP Ayesha Verrall recovering from unplanned surgery

ELECTORAL SYSTEM, ENROLMENT AND VOTING
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Here’s what the 2023 election would look like if we used FPP
Dave Armstrong (Post): We should bend over backwards to get voters enrolled (paywalled)
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Electoral Commission campaign looks to educate voters after enrolment changes
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Voters’ digest: Election 2026 by the numbers
Julia Gabel (Herald): New enrolments from Māori more than double
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Labour MP among 115,000 NZers currently on dormant electoral roll

ELECTION 2026 AND PARTY POLITICS
Fox Meyer (Newsroom): Calls for tighter rules as ‘misleading’ ads stack up
Gamaliel Ramos (Post): How New York’s ‘socialist’ mayor could be the NZ left’s best campaign ad (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): ACT kills off PM’s possible new bed and bank taxes as poll suggests National voters want ‘no new taxes’ (paywalled)
Herald: Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki vows to take firearms ban to court after licence revoked
Stuart Nash (Herald): Check your phone, there’s probably a text on it that you also wouldn’t want public (paywalled)

ECONOMY, FISCAL POLICY AND THE BUDGET
The Post: Editorial: National’s Budget rules are fiscal theatre (paywalled)
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): Rules without consequences: Can National’s Budget plan be trusted?
Cameron Bagrie (BusinessDesk): New Zealand’s political parties face an impossible fiscal trilemma (paywalled)
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Opportunity willing to see debt breach 50% of GDP if that was for infrastructure (paywalled)
Dita De Boni (Post): Privatisation of key NZ assets made life more expensive for Kiwis, says new group (paywalled)
Alexia Russell (RNZ): The $55 million drain from Kiwi pockets
Kevin Norquay (Post): The heavy price of being young in Aotearoa (paywalled)
Kevin Norquay (Post): Crypto ATMs: The machines almost nobody knew we had (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: ENERGY AND ELECTRICITY; HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT; EDUCATION; HEALTH; LOCAL GOVERNMENT; BUSINESS, FINANCE AND REGULATION; MĀORI AFFAIRS AND TE TIRITI; LAW, RIGHTS AND SURVEILLANCE; ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE; CARTOONS

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NATIONAL’S FISCAL RULES AND TAX POLICY
Jamie Ensor (Herald): National challenges Labour on fiscal rules – but why can’t it rule out new taxes?
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): National’s debt reduction target lacks ambition - economist
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): National promises Budget Responsibility Rules if elected
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): National commits to no new taxes for working people, won’t go further
Jordan Williams (Post): National risks standing for nothing and getting run over (paywalled)
Justin Hu (1News): National lays down three budget ‘rules’, challenges Labour to match
Stuff: Nicola Willis promises no new taxes for “working people”
Mandy Te (Interest): National pledges no new taxes for working people
Stuff: National’s new budget rules to balance the books
Anneke Smith (Post): National renews pledge of Budget surplus, less Crown spending; Taxpayers’ Union says ‘nothing new’ (paywalled)
Anneke Smith (Post): National’s fuss over fiscal rules more of the same - economists (paywalled)
Christopher Luxon (Post): We must end era of debt and deficits (paywalled)

ELECTION 2026
Verity Johnson (Stuff): Why don’t political parties address the only question that matters?
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): A National party PM insulting businesses is akin to a Green MP punching a dolphin (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor and Chris Knox (Herald): Left-wing Opposition’s chance of forming Govt tiny as Opportunity rises in Poll of Polls (paywalled)
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): A more NZ First-influenced govt will be baby boomers’ last throw of political dice
David Harvey (Herald): What the MMP party vote really decides (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): The 20 most popular MPs, ranked by other MPs
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Is Qiulae Wong the new Peter Dunne? (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): National has broken some promises. It wants Labour to start doing the same (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Welcome to the Herald’s policy grid (paywalled)
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): Labour promises small businesses easier access to government contracts
Anneke Smith (Post): Parliament in recess as election campaign heats up (paywalled)

LUXON’S LEADERSHIP AND NATIONAL PARTY
Justin Hu (1News): Here’s why National’s campaign chair argues Luxon’s an ‘absolute asset’
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): National presses fiscal attack as questions over Luxon leadership remain
Richard Harman: Luxon, living dangerously (paywalled)
Claire Robinson: Thursday 6 August 2026: A tale of two leaders
John MacDonald (Herald): South Island businesses seek Government action after Luxon remarks (paywalled)
Ani O’Brien: National’s list and the quirks of MMP

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND COUNCIL AMALGAMATION
James Ball (1News): Who’s merging with who? Councils reveal their amalgamation picks
RNZ: Deadline for local council amalgamation plans arrives
Charlie Dreaver (1News): ‘Very alarming’: Tiaki Wai bills causing upset for Wellington ratepayers
Tom Hunt (Post): Wellington’s 11m housing intensification showdown: Residents fight developer’s plan (paywalled)
Tom Hunt (Post): Wellington City councillor Tony Randle dies unexpectedly (paywalled)
Herald: Wellington City councillor Tony Randle dies at 65
RNZ: Wellington city councillor Tony Randle dies suddenly
David Farrar: RIP Tony Randle
Ryan Bridge (Newstalk ZB): Tony Randle is the sort of brain needed around the council table

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: GOVERNMENT AND REGULATION; ENERGY AND ELECTRICITY; AI AND DATA CENTRES; ECONOMY AND BUSINESS; EDUCATION; MĀORI AFFAIRS AND TE REO; SOCIAL ISSUES AND AGEING; INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRANSPORT; DEFENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; JUSTICE AND CRIME

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NATIONAL PARTY LIST
Jamie Ensor (Herald): The National MPs at risk of losing their seats after party list revealed (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Who’s up, down and in the danger zone as National releases its election party list
David Farrar: National’s 2026 party list
Anneke Smith (Post): Winners and losers: New National list sees Nancy Lu climb to Cabinet-level rank, Melissa Lee tumble (paywalled)
Craig McCulloch (1News): National reveals election line-up: Which MPs were thrown a list lifeline?
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): National reveals party list for election, former minister plunges from 13th to 30th
Stuff: National reveals new list, but leaves one member blindsided
Stuff: National happy with female list candidates
Brent Edwards (NBR): National pitches ‘energised team’ with no surprises party list (paywalled)
Mandy Te (Interest): National releases election candidate list
Jack Tame (Newstalk ZB): The pressure over National’s list rankings
Cecilia Robinson (Herald): Why the candidates behind the party leaders matter this election (paywalled)

LUXON, LEADERSHIP AND THE MMP REFERENDUM
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Luxon is saved by a poll, damned by the verdicts
Damien Grant (Stuff): One blunt speech, one apology, and a Prime Minister losing control
Henry Cooke and Anneke Smith (Post): Erica Stanford rules out run as National leadership talk returns (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): The trouble with revisiting MMP
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): MMP is best, even with the yahoos and numpties

ELECTION, PARLIAMENT AND GOVERNMENT
Simon Wilson: Everything everywhere all at once
Shane Te Pou (Daily Blog): Why the seats matter this election
Vernon Small (Post): Luxon is blundering, but when will Labour reap the benefits? (paywalled)
Herald: Editorial: Our next Prime Minister is already unpopular and that is a problem for New Zealand (paywalled)
Andrea Vance (Sunday Star Times): Education watchdog under investigation over conduct concerns (paywalled)
Phil Smith (RNZ): The House: Luxon and Peters - who are you today?
1News: Time’s running out: What’s left on the Govt’s to-do list?
Henry Cooke (Sunday Star Times): Labour keen to see 15% of Government procurement go to small business (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Some political operators want to undermine your future
John Braddock (World Socialist Website): NZ First Party youth leader linked to neo-Nazi groups
1News: Govt announces shakeup of how parent resident visas are approved
Herald: Chronological selection process for Parent Resident Visa confirmed
Mandy Te (Interest): Despite funding concerns, Statistics NZ is expected to carry out a 2028 census after proposed reforms are put on ice

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 OPPORTUNITY PARTY; ECONOMY AND BUSINESS; HOUSING; HEALTH; EDUCATION; JUSTICE, LAW AND POLICING; TECHNOLOGY, DATA AND PRIVACY; MEDIA; LOCAL GOVERNMENT, TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURE; ANIMAL WELFARE; CARTOONS

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