If the election were held today, the three party coalition government would be booted to the opposition benches according to a 1News–Verian poll.
The TVNZ poll, taken between the 20th and 24th of April, showed the National Party down two percentage points from the previous poll at 36%.
Act dropped one point to 7% and New Zealand First fell below the threshold to just 4%. This is the worst poll result for all three governing parties since the election result.
Left leaning political parties gained support in this poll. Labour rose two points to 30%, the Green Party was up by the same amount at 14%, and Te Pāti Māori held firm at 4%.
Together, this would be enough to form a government with 64 seats in Parliament. The National and Act parties would be on the cross-benches with only 57 seats.
Of course, one poll result shouldn’t be taken as gospel. An average of recent public polls still shows the Coalition commanding a comfortable lead.
However, the poll result does demonstrate the new government’s cost-cutting and controversy stirring can rub the public the wrong way.
Polling firm Verian included a list of key events in its report to TVNZ, including Winston Peters’ state of the nation speech which compared co-governance to Nazi Germany.
And that the Government had continued with spending cuts which had resulted in several thousand public sector job losses.
The demotion of two ministers last week happened after the survey had been mostly completed and would not have been captured in this data.
The poll was of 1000 eligible voters, half of whom were contacted by mobile phone and the other half via an online panel. The margin of error was approximately 3%.
Green with envy
While Christopher Luxon remains the most-preferred Prime Minister in the survey, he dropped from an already-low 25% to just 23%.
Chris Hipkins scraped up one point to 16% and new Green Party co-leader, Chloe Swarbrick, rose two points to 6%.
She now ranks ahead of David Seymour and Winston Peters who were on 5% and 4%, respectively.
Other newly-elected governments and leaders have had similarly weak polls shortly after elections but rarely in their first term.
198 Comments
would not surprise me, this has to be the most negative government we have elected in such a long time, they have no real plans but to take us backwards, that and the PM has no control over his partners, and he is letting them run amuck, even today DS said he cannot sack any of his ministers no matter what they do without his say so and i would think WP has told him the same thing.
a lot voted for change but not this change
Both the Greens and TPM have pledged to introduce co-governance across the board alongside other forms of "social justice" reforms.
Also, without Shaw at the helm, expect the Green loonies to go rogue and destroy our entire economy chasing some arbitrary goals on climate change.
Lucky they will never get the chance. Right now the Greens are completely rudderless and their only supporters are the hardcode idiots < 4%, the social justice/racist types, and the rest are just temporary protest voters from Labour, who will eventually leave. Shaw was the last semi-coherent MP they had. The rest are just crazy loons who will bicker amongst themselves making ever larger climate crisis predictions that will never pan out. When they had Rod and Jeannette, at least they had leadership and a point. now they have no-one and nothing.
Apparently a combination old school hippies (the type that believed in the original green cause), 18-22 year old (mostly women) who have been brainwashed into thinking the greens have a point, and believe in the climate crisis and honoring the treaty and other such rubbish, and then there are the middle/upper class white women who think supporting the greens will save the plant (except when there is a cost of living crisis). That and some protest voters from Labour is pretty much their support base.
It’s pretty simple buddy. Labour is useless and their support is decimated. TPM are a bunch of racist crackpots. What is left for the traditional lefty to support. Nothing. So temporary support goes to the greens until such time as Labour pulls their head out of their arse and gets back into the real world and aligns with their actual supporters. True support for greens is about 4-6%
When our faux-right parties are massive welfare exponents for their own voting groups, and their voters the first to line up with their hands out for taxpayer money in hard times or old times, it's no use trying to kid anyone.
Sure, they might advocate rugged individualism and own two feet for the younger or poorer, but it's always a taxpayer hand for themselves.
How is this government taking the country backwards, please explain?. At least DS and WP have the courage to tell it at it is, Chris Luxon might as well be with the labour party, all he cares about is keeping the norm going, he's got slimy business man written all over him, the last government made such of mess of the books its going to take a whole GENERATION to fix.
How is this government taking the country backwards, please explain?
- Subsidising Tobacco industry
- Huge borrowing to provide tax cuts to landlords
- Signalling a commitment to invest in low ROI mega road projects that takes funding away from existing road maintenance and congestion busting projects like public transport and active modes
- Cutting funding for kids with disabilities
- Canning nationally critical projects with no alternative plan (inter-island ferries)
- Passing legislation that will allow them to bypass democratic processes and investing disproportionate power in the hands of 3 ministers to cherry pick projects that benefit their funders
- Ignoring international climate change commitments and directing government agencies to remove climate change targets from their mandate. NZTA will no longer be allowed to consider climate change when developing projects even though transport is one of our highest emitters.
- Worsening our balance of payments by promoting ICE vehicle policies (trucking and personal vehicles) which rely on expensive imported energy and plant.
"the last government made such of mess of the books its going to take a whole GENERATION to fix" - I really don't get how anyone can believe this? If they really were wasting money it would be easy to fix, they could just cancel all the wastage and Nicola Willis would have loads of spare money for tax cuts. Apart from sacking public servants (which saves some money but not much), the coalition have found barely anything, in fact they seem to be promising more spending than Labour were. Sure Labour borrowed a lot of money during Covid, but we weren't the only ones, most countries had to. And National mostly said they would have done the same.
Most of the mess we are in is due to a lack of quality infrastructure spending, and now we have elected a government that cancelled 3 waters, light rail, Lake Onslow, reduced Kianga Ora spending, etc.
Exactly, Luxon is trying to paint it as though the discontent is because he's having to make tough decisions.
I 100% agree he does have to make tough decisions, this is the state of play we're in.
The issue is he's making bad decisions.
I don't dislike Luxon, he's just completely ill-equipped for the task at hand and it way out of his depth.
If they 'just' immediately canceled the wastage due to housing policy it would cause a Japanese-style bust and recession.
Any newly elected Govt. is always changing horses mid-economic stream.
It's not a matter if we get wet when that change is implemented, but how wet. And that depends on timing and time.
The choices seem to come down to which party will be less damaging, I think that the current mob, but totally accept that they have shortcomings. Agree lack of infrastructure spend goes way back and cuts across party lines.
In my eyes the "generation to fix" comment relates to the debt burden we now carry, with no productivity improvement to leverage in order to pay it back. About a third is Covid related, I can't really tell you what the rest achieved and that's the problem. We're a small country, the debt burden is harder to rectify than it is for larger more productive economies. The last time we were in a similar mess the 1984 Labour government slashed costs, restructured the economy and sold assets to sort it out. We can't sell the assets again.
Piggy Luxon has no vision that's a real problem and why we are back to the 1970.
At least Muldoon had vision and we still have his think big projects.
Luxon just John Key and Winston,s whipping boy.
Just another corporate fake stroking his own ego he will soon be moving onto the next thing.
Polls mean little, NAct will have to come up with polices people think will put $ in there pockets... there are not enough landlords to win NAT another term, more thinking is required.
We need transformative here, not tit for tat tinkering.
3rd 100 days
- Take decision on policies that will help NZ
- Take decisions on policies to control the cost of living
- Take decisions on more affordable housing
in a few years people will indeed take decisions on who should govern again.
Polls are irrelevant this far from an election. It is a fallacy to say if an election is held today this result or another would happen. The electorate takes elections far more seriously than polls. For instance there was much crowing by Labour die hards when Hipkins became PM over the positive blip then in the polls, but come October, another story. National though does have a problem. I ventured to suggest when Luxon displaced Collins that he was unproven politically and was virtually devoid of charisma. Rightly or wrongly the electorate is judgemental on the personality that a PM exudes. It is now obvious that Luxon is not a natural politician, which in the real world is hardly a fault quite honestly, but in this game it is a severe drawback in terms of favourable public perception. Attempts to inject some life into the image are about as convincing as Labour desperately having PM Palmer blowing his trumpet around the beehive in 1990. My pick is National will need to have a new leader before the next election and if they do that messily and select unconvincingly, they may well be a one term government.
Given they've inherited such a bad situation across the board from the last government there has to be some tough decisions, which aren't the popular nor easy decisions but designed to improve things over the long term. I'm enjoying the improved calibre of the ministers to be honest.
more likely
casey costello, shane jones, nicole mckee
all pushing through their own agenda's no matter what anyone says or advice given, and all three not seasoned enough or clever enough to frame an argument as why we need to follow them down the path they are laying out.
I quite like Bishop. Hate Brown with a passion.
Stanford has done OK but there is so much more that could be done in education. Our primary kids are basically being taught by devices these days, as if most of them don't have enough device time at home. I would ban all devices from Primary and Intermediate school full stop, make the teachers teach the three Rs again.
As someone who voted against National based on their property policies, I have been impressed that Bishop seems to be genuinely interest in making improvements to housing supply. Though I expect their donors to be whispering in his ear to make sure he doesn't go too far and actually make housing more affordable.
I agree, I think Bishop would like to increase housing affordability, he gets how this is a massive drain on our economy. I hope he's able to put in place the right policies. My fear is that he will be forced to open up land on the periphery to create more sprawl to pay back the big National land-banking donors. Hooton knows the story here, he's hinted at it but someone needs to follow the money trail and daylight it. It's verging on outright corruption.
Yip - the good news is that if Nats continue to stuff it then the greens may be able to force Chippy to introduce a GapGainsTax... and reverse the landlord centric tax policies.
I find it really interesting that both the Nats and the Maouri communities both have now had the chance to do something really great.. and then they both went so overboard on specific policies that only suit a small portion of the population and that gets everyone elses backs up. Cant they see they need to make sure they carry the majority with them?
The survey results recently have proven to have a large variation for the minor parties so I'm not convinced this is correct. Either way the current Govt has had to focus on reversing the previous Govt's stupidity prior to getting a better plan rolling. Yes it could have been smoother, but they are generally heading in the right direction. How anyone could continue to vote for the left given their members actions post election is beyond me.
I'm actually really pleased with the current government. In the last month we have seen
$1.7B more for Pharmac -which is vital as advanced medicine is a key to controlling ongoing healthcare costs and NZ productivity
I'm in favour of the moves with education - especially truancy and mobile phones - an educated workforce is the key factor to our future living standards
Luxons trip to South East Asia is important if we want to diversify our export markets - China is looking very wobbly and having so much of our export market concentrated is highly risky. We also need to be wary of the current "anti-globalisation" movement, hence why telling everybody we are "open for business" is a good strategy.
My only warning for the government would be - this years public service cuts need to be a once off. They need to be done once and then things need to move forward. The talk of people losing jobs creates fear not just for those affected but for those unaffected. The result is everybody stops spending and we get this current atmosphere of doom and gloom. Hence it needs to be a one trick pony and not an ongoing austerity measure.
Yep. They are doing great. Big mess to clean up, and it’s going to be painful for many. Public service cuts whilst necessary, will cause a lot of pain for a lot of families and private companies as the flow in effect of the removal of wasteful spending is felt. Needed to be done at the start of the term and as quickly as possible, and it is. This is the ripping off of the bandage (so to speak). Drop in polls would be expected hence Winstons reaction. Will be long forgotten as a result of much improved encoding once election rolls around.
I love what Erica Stamford is doing in education and Mark Mitchel looks to be doing a good job on crime. Im not keen on cosying up to the USA or Shane Jones killing the frogs and Kiwis. This combined with David Seymour’s glee at making people redundant, allowing kids to keep smoking, bringing back automatic weapons, and taking benefits away from disabled kids parents - gives an impression of a coalition of cruelty. Where is the hope for young people. NZ just looks mean and greedy under this lot.
There is every reason to accept that good work and prospects therefrom are underway but it still needs someone to sell it all to the public and without any exception that is usually the Prime Minister’s role. Don’t know that Luxon can even sell himself in the first place.
Is doing?
Bit premature for that.
This lot are at the beginning of the wave-break, and I doubt any of them are aware. They're lucky there are people partisan enough - and stupid enough - to swallow the 'blame the last lot' line. The last lot suffered from the same delusion this lot do - but they had more empathy. Doesn't matter though, where we're headed - the world we have known is disintegrating, and NZ won't be immune.
Typically, the incumbents get booted out in a depression/recession - add resentment (of arrogance) into the mix...
I agree almost word for word with this, educations stuff = great, real, swift action. However to your point on crime - police deserve so much more than they are currently being offered, it's short-sighted and embarrassingly mean. 101 of good management, do everything in your power not to lose decent employees as they are harder to replace and will cost you more in the long run.
She was well versed when she got there. She had bided her time and shrewdly let Mike Moore take the fall in 1990. The previous government was a dreadful concoction under PM Shipley and Helen Clark offered, and by and large delivered initially at least, stability and leadership to right the boat so to speak. No hardly much charisma but gravitas in its place that at least instilled some confidence plus a yappy deputy but clever about it.
Are there really that many people out there who chop and change political intention this rapidly? The mind boggles. At the very least you'd think someone who was "on the fence" and voted National 6 months ago might at least be willing to wait a bit longer to see what impact (if any) their choice had. I'd be saying the same if Labour had won and then crapped the bed after 6 months too.
FWIW I think polling this far out from an election is really more a vote on the "mood of the nation" than an accurate reflection on what would transpire on election night, and a hell of a lot could happen over the next two and a bit years.
There is growing uncertainty with public sector job losses (some of these seem a bit blown out of proportion as its only taking us back to where we were just pre-election, right?) and in my own business I'm noticing many of my wholly private sector clients experiencing declining sales and weak forward work bookings. Retail seems to be on its arse.
In personal circles, I am noticing more people pulling back on spending, e.g. at the quiz night I attend weekly more punters just buying a drink instead of dinner ... even my wife's 'mum group' are not doing presents for all the ratbag toddlers this year, instead it's bring a plate of fairy bread, play pass the parcel, and go home with horrific norovirus.
In other words, a general malaise that - irrespective of where blame should be apportioned - is inherently going to stink up the joint for the current government. Not that they aren't doing their best in some instances to make the stink worse.
I think it shows how close the last election actually was. The right did really well taking the swing voters by spreading the idea that Labour couldn't achieve anything (yet they had a big list of achievements to wind back), and NZF came out of nowhere as usual.
We seem to be missing a proper centre party. It feels like National have gone too far right, Labour too far left, and we are flip flopping between the two. I am very surprised to be saying this, but bring back the JK/BE National party we had 10 years ago...
Those who trot out couplets like 'financial lala land' are the ones in lala land.
The planet which underwrite the brief - Bretton Woods until about 1975 - period of real growth, cannot support the attempt any more. I find it absolutely astounding that so many people remain ignorant of the Limits to Growth - and their political implications, so many decades on. Try doin some reading:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jiec.13442
Nothing to do with effing left or effing right - it's the rate we're all depleting the effing planet.
Sigh.... Oh, btw - money is keystroke-issued debt - somewhat worthless if there's nothing left to buy, or if there's nobody alive to do the buying. Just sayin... Finance? Schminance...
How about they don't give landlord the tax break and invest the same amount of money into a new computer science school were every student that is smart enough to enter gets their education for free but they have to stay in NZ for 5 years after graduating.
I've always thought this could have been a great outcome from the knowledge wave conference in 2001. Imagine how many more successful tech businesses we'd have by now.
Nice.
Simpler would be to do that for all subjects where we need people qualified.
Nursing, doctors, software developers, engineers.
And maybe they borrow to pay for eductaion as now but the longer they stay and work here post their qualification in a related job... the more of the loan is written off. Starting point of 5 years.
100% wrong again John.
We're facing systemic challenges which require leadership to change the system, focusing on individual's actions cannot solve it for us. The best actions individuals can take is educate themselves on the actual challenges (climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, over consumption) and vote for parties/individuals that are focussed on addressing these issues first and foremost.
The cutting of 'fat' cannot outpace entropy, from here on in.
They're on a hiding to nothing - this term was the poisoned chalice of all poisoned chalices; nobody who knew what was coming, would have wanted it. Not while the populace is still being fed the 'growth' bullsh-t.
What I find interesting, is that the more the false - and it is false - agenda gets pushed, the more religious types seem to appear. Belief - as in the need to - seems to have multiple uses...
Massively increased coal imports, closed madden point resulting in a doubling of emissions related to energy procurement (report out last week) procured and then let millions of trees die….that is but three…..and the employed an additional 15000 people that did nothing except consume resources…..
How is massively increasing coal imports Labour wasting resources? The Labour party didn't consume the coal, we did.
Madden point - again how is that Labour wasting resources?
Procured and then let die millions of trees die - source? Need more information on this please so far your 0 for 2 with 1 possible pending actual evidence/data
Please on intellectually mighty Jeremy, educate us poor plebs by providing some evidence Labour wasted resources. My poor little brain is not up to the task and given your assured reckons and hot takes I can only assume this is super easy for you to do. Be generous old chap
Well, the easiest one is the 15000 extra public servants, providing NO value for the extra WASTED resources. Its in the news all the time and hardly a secret. Is that clear enough for you ? How much did that cost and how much was wasted. I know you will come back with a stupid argument that it is not waste because those 15000 people were required to perform the extra admin required to perform the same services and deliver worse outcomes because of the extra red tape introduced by the wasteful Labour government, and so in your echo chamber this waste really isn't waste at all. I know you are getting all excited since you have this dream that you will have your useless lefty racists back in no time. But, sorry buddy, it isn't going to happen. The coalition will be elected again next time with an increased majority and you will have 3-6 years of moaning to go (possibly 9 even) following the 2026 election. What we are going through now is Labours recession. It happens after every Labour government and this time is no different (except for being worse). I have no idea how old you are, but it may be you may not even be around when the next Labour government is elected. So, celebrate if you like, but the Coalition is not going to lose the next election.
Lets say those 15,000 do nothing (I'm sure at least some are frontline), and lets say they are paid on average $100k, that is $1.5 billion a year wasted, or $5.70 per week per NZer. Sure I wouldn't mind that $5.70 a week back if they are indeed doing nothing, but it isn't really a top priority for me compared to the big areas where National are doing really badly - infrastructure and climate. If National weren't such utter numpties when it comes to those two they would get my vote, but axing the clean car discount, public transport, walking and cycling, 3 waters, etc is crazy stuff. National's slogan should be "Wrecking our future for people living in the past".
Yeah, OK, 1.5 billion per year, x 6 + the amount required to remove them again is a lot. National cant fix infrastructure in six months. The national roading system is a mess, it will take years to fix, not six months. 3 waters was fatally flawed. We should not be forced to subsidize poorly managed councils though a nationalized system. The rate payers that elect those councils need to learn their lessons and pay up. It's pretty simple. Then of course you had the racist element of three waters, so no matter what system was proposed it was a dead duck anyway. That was a classic own goal by Labour.
OK so still no actual evidence of physical resources being wasted. Just a hypothesis that the public service is a waste of time and now you've changed your statement from being about Labour wasting physical resources to human resources. So it seems that your massive intellect is still not capable of identifying one single example of Labour wasting physical resources.
Where is the link to the easy to obtain evidence they procured millions of trees and then let them die.
What evidence, he's just stating the number of public servants. No evidence of Labour wasting resources as he first claimed and yet he also said it was super easy to find for anyone with half a brain.
Why can't he find it? ... Oh I see ... He needs at least half a brain?
The joke is that the public service is a zero-sum game. They spend all they get.
It just happens that some folk - usually selfish types - want the proxy for themselves, and resent others.
To justify themselves to themselves, they can't say 'I'm selfish', that wouldn't do at all, so they blame other for wasting 'their' proxy.
Doubly funny, many of them only lay claim to rentiered proxy anyway - they have done nothing productive.
More like no gas to burn. You can't turn a coal mine on and off every few months so very limited in what Huntly coal mine can provide as far a coal is concerned. If Labour Greens weren't such hypocrites that would have shut down Huntly or stopped it using coal and implemented rolling blackouts or load shedding. The Nats and ACT would have picked up a few more votes and probably not have to worry about Winston.
Yes, it's true that gas from Kupe would be preferred, however as you likely know that is a dwindling reserve and according to NZO's quarterly release today it is having ongoing issues. Labour didn't stop any permitted extraction, just new exploration which wasn't a popular activity around here anyway.
It's true that the ban on exploration sent out very bad signals to anyone keen to look for gas here, but I think it's a stretch to say that it had any effect at all on gas production in 2017-2023. The lead times are generally longer than this.
Not in this form :)
Yes, but we will be much more local, as globalism collapses. Asterix, Obelix and a small village in Gaul come to mind. Some local communities will be inspired-ly led, others will be led by less enlightened folk (imagine Luxon trying to lead a real community - one which turns away from a pourer-out of verbal diarrhoea).
My big fear is that we don't get smart enough to discuss the implications, before the implosion. An enlightened populace would be preferable...
The level of copium is astounding. This government is failing, badly. So far they have done nothing more than cancel everything the last lot did and pay back their sponsors like the tobacco lobby, real estate lobby and road trucking lobby. Thrown out some culture war clickbait (cancel the Maori bit of public bodies names), meaningless education soundbites which sound good to wrinkly old codgers (ban mobile phones because back in my day we didn't have mobile phones, make them read and write even though this was exactly what the schools were doing anyway)
It's becoming apparently clear to more and more people that they have no plans, no ideas and no prospect of dealing with the most pressing issues we're facing as a country.
the phone ban is laughable, they all have laptops and chrome books now logged into the school wifi so if you are trying to stop them on social media good luck, also a lot of the kids now wear smart watches so can still text each other, oops boomer politicians not up to date with technology
apple watch Call, text, get notifications and listen to music from almost anywhere. With a carrier plan, you can do it all without your phone while jogging or running an errand.
It just makes it that much harder for them to access it though, how many kids honestly have an Apple i watch to stand in the playground fiddling with or will carry their laptop out to lunch with them? For 90% of kids it will have a positive affect, and that's good enough.
Have you been to a playground recently? What age group do you think is standing around looking at their phones at break time?
It's a policy which sounds good in principle and in principle I agree with it but ask some teachers whether the government ban is having an effect or likely to have an effect (I'm not even sure what the effect is that they are seeking or how it's being measured). My partner is a teacher and they think the phone ban and reading and writing maths initiatives are window dressing, schools are already managing and doing these things.
Contact your local primary school and ask them how they are implementing the government policy, what are they doing differently. I'll say most will come back with not really doing anything differently because they were already teaching reading, writing and maths.
It's like bringing in a policy for the police to wear a uniform in order to reduce crime. They are already doing it.
Shared class spaces (to save money on building) and large class sizes haven't helped.
Phones, persuasive psychology etc are probably a problem but not necessarily in terms of anything affected by a ban in class. Recent coverage (including students' ability to easily circumvent bans) raises the worry that the ban may be mere virtue signalling when we need more of the first type of effort (above).
Young people's happiness? Teacher happiness? Growing inequality? Cell phone use is not just a NZ thing albeit I agree social media is likely to be a contributory factor.
Here is an article on what Estonia is doing and being successful. Note free lunches and happy teachers. Teachers are struggling in NZ due to the high cost of housing compared to incomes.
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/27/free-lunches-brain…
About halfway down this article are some charts on our PISA scores. The decline in achievement we're seeing started in 2010, about the same time National Standards was introduced. Probably a coincidence?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/pisa-report-nz-school-students-p…
I have kids, I am worried about phones rotting their brains and my partner is a teacher. So my kids don't have a phone.
I asked my kids teacher at the beginning of the year how they would be changing what they were doing to enact National's flagship education policy. They said we will not really be doing anything differently. We already do all the things that the government is mandating. The government policy was performative. To appease grumpy old white guys who reminisce about the good old days.
In terms of phone ban, I literally have not seen a single kid on a phone when I've been to drop them off/ pick them up or on any of the day events I've helped out with. The only time the school has mentioned phones was to tell parents to make sure they had them put away when they were supposed to be looking after the kids.
They use iPads in the classroom and I feel like they are becoming much more addicted to games on the iPad. I believe schools and teachers should be empowered to deal with phone issues not a one size fits all socialist mandate from central government.
What are schools saying about the ban?
In August 2023, Secondary Principals' Association president and principal of Papatoetoe High School Vaughan Couillault told RNZ the plan was not necessary.
"[There's] not a whole lot of students walking around at interval and lunchtime, banging into lamp posts and buildings because they're totally distracted by their cellphones.
"Actually what's best is to empower schools to make decisions that are right for them and their community.
"I don't think central [government] controlling banning is the way forward."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/515550/school-cellphone-ban-what-y…
Hilarious. You a boomer, K.W.?
Many kids are sufficiently tech savvy that the school administrators stand no chances whatsoever.
The only approach that stands any chance of 'success' would be to prohibit access to anything that isn't school approved. And that is a level of censorship that would be completely unacceptable. To say nothing of the cost of coming up with the 'approved list' and the fact that many web sites borrow stuff from other websites and would fail if those websites weren't also approved.
You realise that there are actual companies that do that as a business service they sell to schools? What, you think schools just hand out internet connected laptops so kids can watch porn all day?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/96121280/schools-hire-privat…
Phone ban works. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/school-mobile-phone-pupils…
An analysis – which looked at the responses from 162 secondary schools in England – suggested a “clear correlation” between an effective phone ban and better school performance.
The think tank found that secondary schools in England with an “effective ban” were more than twice as likely to be rated outstanding by Ofsted as the national average.
Children at schools in England with an effective ban achieved GCSE results that were one to two grades higher compared with children at schools with “laxer policies”, the study suggested.
Yes, I expect our government to have a plan. I'm not sure why me being upset about our government not having a plan surprises you. I guess when your only metric for a government's success is that it is a National Act NZ First one then you must be happy.
My expectations are for the government to try to make the country a better place.
I have seen the cancel everything Labour plan. What next?
And I'm not anti-National, I am anti this version of National and the NACTNZF coalition's policies. It's precisely because I am not anti-National that I am so furious as to how this version under Luxon is behaving. He's literally trashing their reputation for competent economic management.
I'm surprised, and not surprised, that more people who vote National don't at least attempt to hold them to a higher standard. Instead it's the usual deflect and point out how incompetent Labour is. Giving their preferred political party a free pass to be just as shit, and undermines the voters.
Would be like a die hard Crusaders fan scowling every time the Hurricanes fumble the ball, and then being chill about a few conceded turnovers because the Hurricanes had a few of their own. Doesn't happen.
It's this polarisation that is harming us. Labour should not be given a free ride because they are not National and National should not be given a free ride because they aren't Labour. And Act, Greens, NZ First, TPM, should be critiqued based on their own policies not accepted just because they support your team.
Reward for all the fundraising from real estate she did pre-election. Lot's of big landowners on the city fringe are looking forward to their land being re-zoned so they can get their investment in NACT repaid.
Keep an eye on who owns the land that gets freed up and the links the owners have to big donations to National. Pure corruption.
This was a great article on the donations situation. It seems people don't see any issue with them using their money to have influence over how other people vote at a large scale. It's hardly a democratic system. And yes beyond getting other people's votes, some likely get other perks down the line.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350208676/richlisters-speak-out-why-th…
These polls are stupid. We are in the middle of a recession, caused by the last Labour Govt. Hard decisions have to be made to correct the over borrowing, the over spending, the over taxing, and the absolute absence of quantifiable outcomes from all of the above. As if this is going to be fixed in the space of a few months, a few years if we are lucky.
All this Govt has to worry about is the poll the week of the next election day in 2026. Hopefully by then there will be a light at the end of tunnel. If not, then my trip over to the Gold Coast next month to see if I would like to live there one day will not have been for naught.
but are they are not stopping the over spending, they still intend to increase the debt and borrow to fund tax cuts and tax rebates,
and as for the weasel words from the finance minister and PM that they are not, most people are not that stupid they are showing they are as bad as the last lot when it comes to handling the finances of the country. it is no different from people topping up their mortgage to buy that new car or boat. they should have deferred the tax cuts and rebates until the books were in better shape which most people would have accepted at this time, but it is coming across as a HUGE payback to their donors, and smells super fishy in fact for certain things from certain minsters to certain sectors it down right stinks and is making the last lot seem like angels with the back handers they were doing.
The last Govt already did that.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/04/new-zealanders-slapped-…
We already have a shortage of critical skills in this country, with 15,000 less skilled workers arriving than before Covid. Combined with a mass exodus of skilled workers to Australia. Just how quickly do you want this country to turn into Zimbabwe?
The article is only about personal income tax. Our tax system, and our 'redistribution' system, are far more complex.
And might I draw your attention to the fact that NZ is in a Recession. Who made that Recession? Why none other than our Reserve Bank. They actually said they would and they have.
And I seem to remember you love to say the RBNZ is doing a great job and they should raise interest rates even higher. So even more young, skilled people leave? That's what you want, right?
Do try and consider the facts more thoroughly before spouting nonsense.
I don't need other people's wealth to be redistributed to me, obviously you do. But when all of us leave, who are parasites like yourself going to scrounge off? Thats the problem with taking more and more of other people's money off them, eventually you run out of people with money.
Time to stop the redistributionist pension eh, and the $5 billion to property speculators per annum, and the handouts to property in wet or shaky times, and take back the $11 billion of taxpayer money the Reserve Bank spent of taxpayer money on stimulus of the property market.
It's too expensive for productive working Kiwis to be subsidising these parasites that don't pull their own weight.
If you're wittering on about the 'economy', in terms of your 'light at the end of the tunnel' - I've put up enough research on this site, for you to know better.
There is zero chance 'things will be better' in 2 years' time. The Limits to Growth impact exponentially, on attempts at exponential growth. It cannot be any other way, within a Bounded System. So accelerating pressure...
This lot are a waste of 3 years - and we don't have many left. Perhaps none.
@KW "Hard decisions have to be made to correct the over borrowing, the over spending, the over taxing,"
No one is disputing hard decisions need to be made, the issue is bad decisions are being made.
They are still borrowing, they are committing to spending more and they are continuing to overtax working people at the expense of asset owners.
Funny, I called him "one term" Luxon here last week. They have tried nothing economically and they are already appear out of ideas.
Nicola "O for Osterity" Willis is using scorched earth budgets but what is she actually achieving? You actually need an economic plan to run a country, you have to put a pound in the ground to grow your economy. Austerity is not a goal.
And polls suggested just before the last election that labour was in with a chance at winning. How did that turn out. Actually all the polls leading upto the last election for several months said labour had a chance. All wrong. Most probably with this poll they went around the media outlets for their opinions. Anyhow as the media says a week is a long time in politics so 2 and half years is a life time. As it is this govt has survived and gone on longer than what the media predicted in the first place
Christopher Luxon needs to lose his big ego,I have worked under him,he will be gutted that everyone hasn't fallen in love with him.He is a 53 yo short,bald 'dad',no amount of tik tok & instagram posts will make him cool.He is coming across as un-authentic,he says he doesn't care,trust me,he does.
The election is years away,but this will put pressure on the coalition as ACT(7%) & NZF(4%) will have to go harder for their voters and double down on their policies to remain relevant.In doing so,the more moderate Nat voters & Luxon will feel uncomfortable about the direction we are heading.Add in the change of Deputy PM and the competing factions will go even harder....The reality it is all about the economy,if we are all feeling better about the world in 2 years time,all good for the government...if they don't implode before hand.Basically it is about timing and the sh*t sandwich that you have to eat at the time.Labour got the covid sandwich,and looking globally,most govt's that went to the polls soo after covid got turfed out,left for right,right for left.If the Nats were in power at the time with Collins in charge,they in all likelihood would have been turfed out as well.
At the moment,folks are dealing with job losses,geopolitical uncertainty,inflation,high mortgages,ram raids haven't gone away,the average punter isn't feeling confident,so they will look to who's in charge and say "you said you will fix this..." so best they do.
I say this knowing that who ever was in charge right now would be in the same boat.
Agree, whichever side was in power, it was always going to be a hard slog.
But the election is not years away, it's 2 1/2 years. That's only 2 years till they go into election mode.
If you take the business saying, run a business like your going to sell it, then you run a party like the elections next month. Not in terms of not doing the hard stuff,and offering voter bribes, but in the manner of conduct.
Agreed. Had Labour won last election (assuming that the economy had deteriorated to a similar position as now) they'd be facing the same issue.
General feeling of "malaise" in economy/society, whoever is running the show gets the blame.
If it is worse in two years, possible one term government. If it's better, they'll be home and hosed for a second term at least.
Luxon doesn't help as he is fundamentally so unlikeable ... then again Chippy was hardly likeable based on the polling data.
I don’t think his stature, lack of hair or parental status are the reasons people don’t like him. He seems to be detached from the reality of everyday life for most people. His “entitled” attitude to public money and shameless promotion of housing policies that benefit his own personal finances are two areas that put me off him. He gives the impression of being in it for himself and his mates and not the rest of us. He also has the air of a Victorian capitalist. I can imagine him in a top hat and striped three piece suit, sucking on a cigar whilst watching the workers coming out of the mill, to go home to their one bedroom houses and survive on a pound a week, because they would only waste any excess money on luxuries.
What a ridiculous headline and assertion Dan - that’s the sort of click bait rubbish I’d expect to see from the Herald or Stuff, not interest.co.nz. Why don’t you come up with a more constructive and objective article - e.g the governments performance relative to its pre-election promises. Something that genuinely informs rather than this nonsense.
I have to say this is the most agitated I remember opponents of a govt being after an election.
It seems some are genuinely unable to cope with not getting their own way for a minimum of three years.
How would you lot prefer the election was decided? You are clearly not coping with the way it works now.
Eh, both those posts look like a case of Confirmation Bias.
"Not even close" hardly works when a coalition could've been formed by either major party, had not one major and minor already ruled out working with each other.
And yes, folk on here were ranting for years about the 2017 election "stolen" from poor Bill English. Very bitter indeed.
Personally I'd have a third of MPs from electorates, a third from party lists and a third from random selection (like a jury process). Randomly selected people would do a better job of moderating extreme policy and would have no incentive to chase votes and popularity, they could vote in parliament on the best policies. Would require much more collaboration across the board.
Interest idea. So long as the random selected pool was carefully selected, that is.
Let's not forget that half the population have a below-average I.Q. and many of the issues politicians must decide on are quite complex.
Without careful selection we'd run the risk that the randomly selected pool simply couldn't keep up and they'd end up voting on soundbites and personalities in much the same way as too many in general elections do. (Come to think of it, these randomly selected politicians might actually be a smarter group than the other politicians.)
We should give this a try.
If it works, maybe we should do away with elections entirely?
But the other half of the population is smarter so balances out. Anyway it isn't smarts that the random sample provided it's balanced representation.
I wouldn't do away with local reps as we need a conduit to raise local issues. I would also keep the list as there are very talented people who are great at understanding complex issues and providing good direction but lack the charisma and superficiality to become a politician.
A 3 way split balances it out and doesn't leave us beholden to what we had with Labour and NACTNZ coalition, where once you win you push through stuff unilaterally.
I sit in the centre and it winds me up that we have to accept only right policies when the right gets in and only left policies when the left gets in. It would be good to get more balance.
National and ACT brought up the idea of mandates well before COVID.
They were keen to create second class citizens, apparently. Although it's okay because their voters in too many cases already thought of the folk they wanted to mandate as second class citizens anyway. Accusations were confessions.
The excitement of the radical left media is palpable. A poll usually contains quite a bit of noise, but a poll this far out from the election...? it's like zero-point fluctuations in the quantum aether. What a joke. Keep going National/Act/NZF. You guys are doing a great job.
Just to clarify, the 2022 "Worlds of Journalism" study found that 81% of NZ journalists classified their views as left of centre.
Interesting, but he also draws a long bow and illustrates the point further that perceptions of bias are inversely correlated with depth of engagement with content.
He nowhere engages with content, only going after the journalists and asserting that them having any political stance means they'll report with a bias, and only cites perception of bias stats. Nowhere does he actually cite data that journalistic work is actually biased.
So why are vociferous right wing journalists not offering an alternative view to the wider public?
Oh wait, the message needs to be clear, consistent and concise - not something most right wing journalists are good at. That said a significant number of journalists from both sides of the spectrum could take the 3Cs on board.
The only factor that will determine if this government will be in for one term or not is the state of the global economy. Everything else, beyond some major incompetency, is just noise. If the US continue to export inflation to the rest of the world, our local economy will continue to suffer and people will continue to vote out the current government. This government just need to hope the tide turns before the next election.
Yes, global events will override all local issues.
No, things won't get better - we've hit the Limits, as long foretold. The math has been reviewed for 50 years, and stacks up as the longest-running correct posit on the planet. Left all financial/economic warblings in its wake, decades ago. And it looks like collapse by 2030, or war (the usual way politicians of all stripes cling to power; otherise others, then tell the young to go fight them).
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