カテゴリー: New Zealand politics
Labour and Ardern were immensely popular during the pandemic but inflation and deepening social inequality has changed their fortunesSupport for New Zealand’s Labour party has dropped to its lowest level since it came into power in 2017, new polling sh…
The New Zealand supreme court’s decision to declare the current age of voting, 18, discriminatory has reignited a debate over young people’s rightsAre today’s teenagers politically aware wunderkinds on the frontlines of the climate crisis, underdevelop…
The newly empowered supreme court has blown up the long-running debate on youth voting, but parliament has shrugged off its interventionNames can be deceiving. While many Kiwis might assume that our supreme court is in fact supreme – able to strike dow…
New Zealand PM tells party conference ‘we are not done yet’ as poll shows Labour’s support at 5-year low ahead of elections in 2023In the darkened amphitheatre of a south Auckland conference centre, a youth choir swayed, as crowds waited for the prime …
New Zealand and the UK both have top tax rates that raise little revenue but lie as potent political traps for parties on the rightGrant Robertson and Gordon Brown have quite a lot in common.Robertson, New Zealand’s finance minister and deputy PM, had …
Influential National party figure said he had never voted ‘anything other than right’, but that some on the right were ‘getting pretty crazy’Former New Zealand prime minister Sir John Key has suggested he would have voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 U…
Many cities chose conservative candidates but the results were less about national trends than local conditionsEvery year between 2008 and 2016, political commentators would reliably announce that former prime minister John Key’s “honeymoon” was finall…
Experts say the progressive vote is disillusioned with incremental changes brought in by Ardern Labour governmentLate in the campaign period of Auckland’s mayoral election came a spate of strange, oddly specific, billboard vandalism. As the race in New…
The rules should not allow an MP to be reading cabinet papers in July and then lobbying former colleagues in OctoberEvery year, New Zealand’s headline writers get a chance to clap the country on the back.There is nothing we love more than being “first …
Sam Uffindell had been stood down after allegations he had bullied a female housemate while at universityA New Zealand MP who has apologised for attacking a fellow student at high school has been reinstated to the opposition National party after an inq…
After a decline in the previous quarter, the economy rebounded on the back of spending on travel and recreationIncreased spending on travel and leisure driven by eased Covid restrictions has helped helped New Zealand dodge recession, with its economy g…
Republicans may think the Queen’s death means their moment has arrived, but they can’t just rely on New Zealanders’ appetite for reformNew Zealand has a strong habit of changing itself.Unlike countries with prescriptive written rules of play, the tangl…
We like to think we help those in need, but the truth is we could and should be doing much more for the world’s displaced peopleOur world is careening into crisis. In May this year, the United Nations’ refugee agency announced that, for the first time,…
Gerry Brownlee says report on human rights violations in Xinjiang recognises China is ‘dealing with a terrorist problem’New Zealand’s shadow foreign affairs spokesperson said a UN report on the human rights abuses of Uyghurs includes recognition that C…
Freshly appointed envoy to Ireland Trevor Mallard did much good in his time in parliament, but never shied from controversy – sometimes to his cost It is hard to find someone in New Zealand who does not have a strong opinion about Trevor Mallard.The ma…