News Briefing Top 10 for 29 October 2026

1. Craig McCulloch (RNZ): RNZ-Reid Research poll: National below disastrous 2020 result as Opportunity surges

National is on 24.8% in the latest RNZ-Reid Research poll, below even its disastrous 2020 result. RNZ’s Craig McCulloch reports that Opportunity has climbed 1.7 points to a new high of 7.2%, and on these numbers Labour (30.6%), the Greens and Opportunity would have 64 seats to the coalition’s 54. National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown says the poll is “out of step with most of the other polls that we’re seeing, including our own”.

2. Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Politicians speak at launch of controversial donor Zhang Yikun’s new chamber

Zhang Yikun, who was prosecuted over concealed donations to National and Labour before the 2017 election, has launched a new business chamber, and both parties sent MPs to speak. Newsroom’s Tim Murphy reports that National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown led its delegation. Labour says its MP Camilla Belich didn’t know Zhang was the host. Zhang’s convictions over the National donations were overturned on appeal, and he was acquitted over the Labour one, but neither party will say whether it returned the money. Geoff Wade of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute calls the new body a United Front influence organ.

3. Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Electoral rules shouldn’t depend on who’s in power

Trevor Mallard says the 13-day enrolment cut-off looks like voter suppression from Trump or Hungary, while ministers say they’ve only fixed a slow, error-prone count. I argue the cut-off is a serious mistake that will cost tens of thousands of eligible people their vote, many of them young, but that the Hungary comparison is overblown. Labour introduced election-day enrolment in 2020 against National’s opposition, after officials were told to examine only that option, and so handed the coalition its precedent. Chris Hipkins said in July that significant electoral changes need bipartisan support or a referendum, and I ask how Labour would meet that test if it restores later enrolment.

In the paid “Further Analysis” section, I go through the arguments from left and right. The 2023 count really was a mess, but the figure of 400,000 missing votes is overstated, and nor does the leap from a closed Wainuiomata hall to Orbán’s Hungary. I’m critical of David Seymour’s “dropkick” comments, take a closer look at Richard Prebble’s memories of Labour enrolling voters and at Mike Hosking’s day-one figures, and point out that the official results will never count the people who gave up when they found they were too late.

4. David Fisher (Herald): NZDF resignation: Ex-Chief of Defence Kevin Short reveals 2006 relationship inquiry into Tony Davies met wall of silence (paywalled)

Former Chief of Defence Force Kevin Short has told the Herald’s David Fisher that he ordered an investigation in 2005-06 into rumours that Tony Davies was in a relationship with a junior servicewoman. Nobody would talk, and the allegation, which Davies denied, couldn’t be substantiated. Short concedes it would have been “very hard” for her to speak out against her commanding officer. Almost 20 years later, Davies has resigned and the Public Service Commission is reviewing his 2024 appointment.

5. Henry Cooke (Post): Where are all the manifestos? Labour, National, NZ First defend lack of published documents (paywalled)

Early voting is well under way, yet Labour, National, NZ First, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity still haven’t released manifestos. Only Act and the Greens have. The Post’s Henry Cooke points out that ministers have cited manifesto commitments in six press releases, and that some bureaucratic scrutiny has been skipped for manifesto promises. Chris Hipkins says Labour’s is coming this week, National didn’t answer, and NZ First’s spokesperson shot back: “When are other parties releasing there’s? [sic]”

6. The Overhang: October polling and forecasts

How likely is a coalition that doesn’t need Opportunity? The Overhang puts it at 67%, after running 20,000 simulated elections that factor in electorate results. Using polling up to the 1News-Verian survey ending 25 October, it projects a 131-seat Parliament, with National averaging eight overhang seats and Te Pāti Māori three, and a median result of a bare one-seat majority for National, NZ First and Act. Labour’s chance of governing without Opportunity is just 4%. The modelling predates today’s RNZ-Reid Research poll, which is much better for the left bloc.

7. Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Winston Peters endorses National’s Chris Bishop over NZ First’s Hutt South candidate

NZ First’s Hutt South candidate, Alistair Boyce, backs his leader’s endorsement of Chris Bishop: “We believe in the overhang. If we can get Bish in, it’ll benefit us.” RNZ’s Lillian Hanly reports that Winston Peters praised Bishop’s RMA work while still telling supporters a party vote for National would be wasted. Act and NZ First both stand to gain party votes from the one-tick strategy, at the expense of National’s list MPs, and both have endorsed it. National has rejected it.

8. Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): How can Labour be the most trusted party on the most important issues and still decline in popularity? (paywalled)

In Ipsos polling, 38% of voters think Labour is more competent on health and only 21% trust National, and Labour is also preferred on the cost of living, the economy and housing. So why is it sliding? The Listener’s Danyl McLauchlan thinks polarisation is the likely answer. Voters pick coalitions rather than parties, and the Green and Te Pāti Māori gang-pad visit reminded swing voters who would be at the cabinet table. Peters and Seymour, he writes, are “a known quantity”.

9. Julie Jacobson (Post): Parties set out starkly different visions for the future of the public service (paywalled)

The public service faces further workforce cuts and greater use of digital technology, and the Post’s Julie Jacobson sets out the parties’ competing plans. The coalition is cutting about 14%, or 8700 jobs, by mid-2029, which it says will save $2.4 billion. National wants fewer agencies and more AI. Labour promises to stop the “arbitrary” cuts and rebuild expertise inside government, relying less on consultants, while the Greens would cancel the latest round at a cost of $3.17b and eventually restore roles. Opportunity cares more about what the service achieves than how many people it employs, and Act and NZ First focus on smaller government and removing diversity requirements.

10. Kent Duston (Post): Bank profiteering means the Reserve Bank’s management of the OCR has stopped working (paywalled)

Kent Duston compares bank margins on either side of the Tasman. ANZ New Zealand’s floating mortgage rate sits 3.54% above the OCR, but in Australia the gap is 2.89%. Writing in the Post, the Banking Reform Coalition convener calls that profiteering, citing the Commerce Commission’s 2024 finding that the big four banks are an oligopoly, and argues it is blunting the benefit of a mildly expansionary OCR. Governor Anna Breman has wide powers to act but shows no sign of using them, he says, and a long hard look at the Reserve Bank’s oversight is overdue, with bank profits making life harder for families and businesses.

Below the paywall are 40 more summaries and then 79 further links. They cover Winston Peters’ endorsement of Chris Bishop, whether David Seymour wants to be Finance Minister, who might replace Nicola Willis, voters’ wariness of Swarbrick as Finance Minister, Swarbrick on being National’s bogeyman, Richard Prebble on Labour’s lost enrolment army, the time-off-to-vote confusion, 15% public service cuts being modelled mid-campaign, voters splitting from their parties on tobacco and rates, the coalition red lines, Opportunity as MMP’s next handbrake, the shifting Māori vote, insults at the Māori leaders’ debate, whether the Waitangi Tribunal has run its course, whether the gang saga has cost Labour votes, Anna Breman conceding the election came up, a crowdfunded third supermarket, and an Auckland ICU with sheets on the beds but no staff. Plus today’s cartoons.

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Labour and the Greens are accusing the coalition government of voter suppression. Trevor Mallard says the 13-day enrolment cut-off that occurred on Sunday looks like “the voter suppression you expect from Trump or Hungary”, and Chlöe Swarbrick is “incredibly concerned about this government’s moves to actively suppress voting”. Ministers say they have merely fixed a vote count that was slow and error-prone in 2023.

Neither side’s account holds up. As I argued in opinion piece in the Herald today, the cut-off is a serious mistake that will cost tens of thousands of eligible people their vote, many of them young. The Hungary comparison is overblown, though, and Labour’s hands aren’t clean. It changed the enrolment rules in 2020 without National’s agreement and handed the coalition the precedent it has now used. Whoever holds a bare majority can rewrite the rules for the next election, and both main parties have become far too comfortable doing it.

So, I agree with Labour and the Greens that enrolment should remain open much later. Where I part company with them is over their apparent belief that this is entirely a problem of National’s making. Labour helped establish the precedent the coalition has now exploited.

Self-dealing at the ballot box

We take conflicts of interest seriously when they involve government contracts, ministerial appointments or politicians’ financial interests. Yet we seem remarkably relaxed about something potentially more consequential: governments changing the rules under which they themselves seek re-election.

It’s a form of constitutional “self-dealing”. The politicians competing for power also get to decide some of the conditions under which everyone else participates.

Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis identified the problem in his submission on the coalition’s legislation. It represented “a current governing majority changing electoral law in a way that will benefit their chances of being re-elected”. And Liam Hehir, who has written one of the more substantial defences of the new law, acknowledges that “it would be surprising to me if the Government had given no thought to the political consequences of its decision”.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith isn’t inventing the counting problem. The Auditor-General found serious failures in the handling of the 2023 election, with enrolment processing taking eleven days instead of the five allocated. Important checking procedures were rushed, and errors went undetected. There was a genuine administrative problem to solve.

But why should the answer be to restrict enrolment rather than invest in making election administration more reliable? The Government hasn’t convincingly established that this was the best solution, especially when it was changing the rules for an election it would itself be contesting.

Labour handed over the loaded gun

Labour can’t claim clean hands either. Its Government introduced election-day enrolment in 2020 with NZ First and Green support, passing the legislation by 63 votes to 57 against National’s opposition.

A revealing 2019 Ministry of Justice impact assessment records that officials were directed by the Minister of Justice to examine only the election-day enrolment option, rather than the wider range of ways to improve participation. That’s a remarkably narrow approach to such an important change.

The same document shows that the Electoral Commission supported election-day enrolment in principle but suggested postponing it until 2023. It was worried about the operational pressures, particularly with referendums also being held in 2020. The Commission said implementation that year was possible with safeguards, and the Ministry recommended going ahead. Labour accepted that advice rather than the Commission’s preference for waiting.

Labour effectively handed the incoming Government a loaded gun. National could now argue that if Labour was entitled to change enrolment rules without its agreement, National could do the same. Goldsmith made precisely that argument when defending the coalition’s legislation last December, rejecting suggestions that Labour’s changes were acceptable while National’s were supposedly “terrible”. The bill passed by 68 votes to 54.

The irony is particularly rich given what NZ First’s Darroch Ball said during the original debate. He accused National of not wanting more people to have access to voting. Peters then ended up blaming counting delays on a law his own party had supported throughout its passage through Parliament.

Changing the political culture

Arguably, governments must retain the ability to reform electoral law even when the Opposition refuses to agree. Otherwise, a party could veto the repeal of an unfair rule simply because it suited its interests.

But a parliamentary majority shouldn’t be the beginning and end of the matter. Electoral reforms ought to involve serious attempts at cross-party agreement, independent advice and extensive public consultation. If a government decides to proceed without broad agreement, it should explain why. Major changes should also normally take effect at a later election, rather than immediately altering the conditions of the next contest.

Officials have made a similar argument. A Ministry of Justice aide-mémoire, obtained by Newstalk ZB last year, said changes affecting democratic rights “should be enduring and only occur following careful consideration and a consultative approach”. They should also restrict those rights no more than necessary.

The coalition’s bill did go through formal consultation, with the Justice Committee receiving 2,738 written submissions. The second reading and committee stage then went through under urgency in December, when, as Duncan Garner puts it, “nobody was paying much attention to election rules over the festive season.”

I was concerned about this back in May 2024, when the coalition was considering the change. I wrote that National, Act and NZ First “would be wise to consult widely with society before getting rid of election-day enrolment”. Others, including Geddis, electoral lawyer Graeme Edgeler and the Law Society, subsequently raised serious concerns. Yet the wider political controversy barely registered until the legislation had passed and the election was approaching.

Journalists, academics and civil-society organisations need to take electoral changes much more seriously while the rules are being written. And there’s no golden age of electoral reform to return to. Joshua Ferrer’s research suggests the supposed convention of bipartisan agreement in New Zealand was never nearly as strong as politicians like to pretend. Perhaps it’s something we need to build, rather than rediscover.

Labour is now promising to restore later enrolment if it wins the election. I hope it does. But Chris Hipkins himself said in July that significant electoral changes should have “broad public support through a referendum, or a good degree of bipartisan support”.

Hipkins could start by telling voters, before the election, exactly how Labour would go about restoring later enrolment. Would he consult National and the other parties? Would he seek agreement about how electoral changes should be made in future, even if National opposes this particular reform?

And would National accept those same expectations the next time it takes office?

Until the parties answer those questions, their arguments about electoral principles will continue to look suspiciously dependent on whether they’re in government or opposition.

Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project

The enrolment controversy has produced some extraordinary claims, from 400,000 supposedly lost votes and Trump-style suppression to suggestions that people who miss the deadline don’t deserve to vote anyway. In the “Further Analysis” section below on “The good, bad and outrageous arguments about voter enrolment”, I examine the more revealing arguments from politicians and commentators, including Richard Prebble, Mike Hosking, Gordon Campbell and Martyn Bradbury. Some stand up to scrutiny. Others deserve rather more scepticism.

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News Briefing Top 10 for 28 October 2026

1. Richard Harman: The anti-vaxers trying to skew the vote (paywalled)
Richard Harman reports in Politik that Voices for Freedom is ready to spend nearly half a million dollars promoting the overhang strategy, urging National supporters to party vote Act or NZ First. Rodney Hide, Don Brash and Maurice Williamson are its public faces, but the group supplies the money and organisation for more than a million flyers, newspaper ads and a road show. Founder Claire Deeks says it is “independently funded through ongoing fundraising from our supporters” and subject to the $424,000 third-party spending limit. Harman’s question: where is the money really coming from?

2. Bryce Edwards (Herald): Coalition’s change to voting rules is radical but Labour helped make it possible (paywalled)
I argue that closing electoral enrolments before advance voting begins is a radical restriction, going well beyond reversing Labour’s introduction of election-day enrolment. But Labour helped establish the precedent of changing important electoral rules without cross-party agreement. I call for an independent review of how electoral law is changed, a requirement for more than a bare majority on fundamental changes, and making major changes wait until the election after next. Governments shouldn’t be able to rewrite the rules so readily for elections they are contesting.

3. Chris Knox (Herald): Are electorate wins the coalition’s lifeline? Why local races look set to shape election result (paywalled)
National holds about ten more electorate seats than its poll ratings would give it, Chris Knox calculates in the Herald. That means local races could matter more than in any previous MMP election. A National overhang of just three seats could give the coalition 62 seats to 61 for Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity. Even if Te Pāti Māori wins all seven Māori seats, he says, Labour must take at least four seats from National to stop the coalition returning.

4. Justin Hu (1News): Poll: Coalition has path to power but Labour steady amid gangs row
National has dropped three points to 29% in the latest 1News-Verian poll. But Act is at a term-high 12% and NZ First is up to 10%, so the coalition is in a stronger position than National’s fall suggests, Justin Hu reports. Whether it can govern still depends on electorate results and overhang seats. The right bloc would have 61 seats, enough if Te Pāti Māori falls to one seat, but if it holds four, Opportunity’s eight MPs would hold the balance of power. Labour is unchanged on 27%, and Luxon leads Hipkins as preferred prime minister, 24% to 18%.

5. David Farrar (Kiwiblog): What to do about overhang?
David Farrar calls deliberately engineered overhangs “semi-undemocratic”, and says on Kiwiblog that Te Pāti Māori is the only party pursuing one, though activists on the right are promoting the idea. A second election would be ridiculous, he says. Instead, a prime minister who owes the job to overhang should treat their mandate as somewhat limited and seek support from at least one non-government party. Of four possible reforms, he favours the German approach, where a party’s most marginal surplus electorate seats go to the runner-up.

6. Andrea Vance (Post): ‘Deliberate sabotage’: Health NZ accused of blocking pay-equity claims (paywalled)
Health NZ has refused to let its own scientists, biomedical technicians and hospital dentists be interviewed as comparators for a hospice nurses’ pay-equity claim, the Post’s Andrea Vance reports. That has stalled the claim, and may halt others involving Plunket and Bupa nurses. Health NZ is also a major funder of the hospices, and a successful claim could add to its costs. Hospice nurses say they are paid up to 25% less than their Health NZ counterparts, and a settlement could cost about $15.5 million a year. One nurse calls it “deliberate sabotage”.

7. Andrew Bevin (Newsroom): Online casino bidders pitch sponsored content before legalisation (paywalled)
Andrew Bevin reports that a company linked to two prospective online casino licensees has approached Newsroom seeking a sponsored-content partnership before the regulated market launches. The approach came from Casino Rewards, understood to be Rock Swift Group, which won the right to apply for two licences at $15 million each. The Problem Gambling Foundation and operator Entain warn of an advertising blitz, with 15 brands fighting for market share, and the rules set no limit on ad volume. Winning an auction only gives the right to apply. Internal Affairs will still assess each applicant’s plans and past conduct.

8. Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Scandal fatigue over politicians and gangs
In yesterday’s Democracy Briefing, I argued that it was time for the parties to move on from the gang photographs, which are crowding out almost everything else. The original visits and Kerrin Leoni’s incomplete account deserved scrutiny, but the Labour Weekend photo war rests on guilt by association. The Sensible Sentencing Trust’s “BACKING THE GANGS” billboards follow the Dirty Politics playbook, though there’s no evidence any party commissioned them. In the second column, below the paywall, I explained why Leoni’s return as an independent is bad news for the left. A win would most likely count as a Labour seat under the Electoral Act, costing Labour a list MP, so she should tell voters not to give her their electorate vote.

9. Ganesh Nana: Fiscal plans – spot the difference
Ganesh Nana compares the fiscal plans of National, Labour and the Greens on his Substack and finds National’s and Labour’s remarkably similar, with differences on debt and deficits “microscopic at best”. The Greens’ larger-state approach, holding spending at about 32% of GDP, is less radical than campaign rhetoric suggests, he argues. He says it makes little sense to judge economic competence by debt and surplus forecasts that assume GDP won’t change. A properly equipped Parliamentary Budget Office should look at public assets, poverty, jobs and infrastructure resilience, not just check the sums.

10. Jamie Ensor (Herald): National wants Labour to front up on coalition deals with Greens – but won’t say what it will give Act, NZ First
National is demanding Labour say which Green policies it would adopt, but won’t say what it would concede to Act or NZ First. “The situation is quite different,” Christopher Luxon told the Herald’s Jamie Ensor. Nicola Willis argues the Greens, polling as high as 16%, are now around half Labour’s size and would extract serious concessions. Labour denies it has unfunded promises and says Barbara Edmonds will be finance minister. Chlöe Swarbrick, though, says the Greens will use all the power voters give them in negotiations. Ensor notes Act proposes large spending cuts and NZ First hasn’t published a fiscal plan.

Below the paywall are 45 more summaries, and 70 further links. They cover voters turned away at the booths, Trevor Mallard’s closed polling place, Parliament running out of seats, who’s behind the overhang pamphlets, whether Labour could use the party-hopping law against Kerrin Leoni, a gang member’s plea to National’s Tāmaki candidate, Luxon accusing Labour of “financial vandalism”, Seymour on working with “that clown”, Labour and the Greens’ biggest mistake, Chris Bishop’s fight to survive in Hutt South, the 15 seats that will decide the election, what happens in a hung Parliament, Paul Goldsmith’s Epsom campaign, a poll putting the Greens ahead in Te Tai Tokerau, Peters on the Manawanui sinking, Craig Stobo’s plan to knock on NAB’s door for the BNZ, the lack of scrutiny of NZ First’s promises, the private sector’s 46.4% share of public health spending, the retirement village U-turn, a resignation over medical school admissions, the law ending climate lawsuits, the NZDF’s $53m cyber upgrade, Labour reining in a candidate on China, the expected OCR hike, and National’s $583m Jobseeker cuts. Plus today’s cartoons.

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The billboards that went up this week show Chlöe Swarbrick, Marama Davidson and Chris Hipkins under the words “BACKING THE GANGS”, placed above the Greens’ own slogan, “for all of us”. They are the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s ads and, as RNZ’s Lauren Crimp reported today, were created by the Campaign Company, a firm owned by Taxpayers’ Union boss Jordan Williams. The Greens have complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that the ads impersonate their party, and the billboard owner, JCDecaux, has paused them while it reviews the concerns raised. Asked to respond to Swarbrick’s call for him to condemn the ads, a spokesperson for Christopher Luxon simply referred RNZ to the organisation responsible.

They are the latest low in a fortnight of gang photographs, and with 11 days until polling day the story is crowding out almost everything else. It is time for the parties to move on.

Fair questions at the start

The original controversy deserved scrutiny. When Green and Te Pāti Māori MPs and candidates posed, smiling and giving the thumbs up, with Mongrel Mob members at a gang pad gathering described as a whānau, health and wellbeing election hui, voters were entitled to ask about their judgement and about how those parties would deal with gangs in government.

Labour’s own problem was worse. Its Tāmaki Makaurau candidate, Kerrin Leoni, had publicly criticised her opponents’ visit, and when Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara accused her in a televised debate of doing the same thing, she denied going to the gang pad. That was technically true, but it left out the fact that she had spoken at a whānau fundraiser in Papakura attended by Mongrel Mob members, wearing a Labour jacket and urging those present to enrol and change the government. Hipkins initially said he was taking her at her word. Once the video emerged, and having already condemned his allies, he had little choice but to accept her resignation.

These judgements were always going to be awkward. Many Māori politicians have whānau in gangs, and today’s editorial in The Post is right that those connections “cannot simply be severed along party lines”. Even so, campaigning at gang events, and being straight with your own party about it, were fair subjects for scrutiny.

The weekend photo war

What followed over Labour Weekend was different in kind. The Otago Daily Times imagined campaign operatives spending the holiday “trawling through the social media feeds of their political opponents” for pictures of them with gang members. On Saturday Stuff published a photo of Tama Potaka with patched Mob members at a Kīngitanga hui in 2024. National’s strategists responded by texting journalists a photo, posted by Harry Tam, of Hipkins with a man Tam says is a gang member. Tam then posted one of Luxon alongside Black Power members at the Crown’s apology to survivors of abuse in care.

Photos of Erica Stanford and Matt Doocey also surfaced. The Post has since reported that National’s Tāmaki candidate, Mahesh Muralidhar, told a youth podcast that a self-described gang member approached him at a street-corner meeting and told him, “I need you to get in.” By Muralidhar’s account, the man drove past, “took a U-turn” and came back to talk to him, and Muralidhar insists it was a plea for law and order and better schools rather than an endorsement. Almost none of these later episodes shows anything improper. As The Post said of the Doocey photo, it is “less evidence of scandal than of a minister doing his job”, and the same goes for a Prime Minister at the state’s apology to abuse survivors.

The ODT put it simply: “context is everything.” It also noted the irony that many of the people in the photographs aren’t identifiable as gang members “thanks to the ban on public wearing of patches introduced by this government.”

Labour must take some responsibility for the escalation. Hipkins set a hard standard to put distance between Labour and its likely partners, and then demanded that Luxon apply it to Potaka, whose case doesn’t come close to meeting it.

National has been more opportunistic still. Last Friday, Luxon’s answer on engaging with gangs was “No, no, no, no, no, absolutely no.” By Saturday, his police spokesperson Mark Mitchell was explaining, in Potaka’s defence, that politicians are photographed with thousands of people and “We don’t know their background.” On Sunday Luxon told a rally, “In two weeks’ time, the gangs will be voting for Labour,” and when asked if there was room for a more nuanced conversation about gangs, replied: “Absolutely not.” As I put it on Newstalk ZB on Monday, Luxon said there was no room for nuance in this debate, and is now finding that there is.

Guilt by association

All of this rests on guilt by association. The Post calls the weekend’s exchanges “something like McCarthyism”, and the comparison has some force. Avoiding gang members entirely, the editorial says, “would demand our politicians ask everyone they meet whether they are or have ever been in a gang.” As Anneke Smith wrote in the Sunday Star Times, in a country this small it makes sense that politicians have “only one or two, and sometimes zero, degrees of separation” from gang members.

Mike Hosking went furthest on Newstalk ZB this morning, declaring that all three parties of the left bloc now, “in some way, shape or form, associate with the gang culture, like and support the gang culture, or are not averse to funding the gang culture.” Hosking might be surprised by National’s own history. As The Press reported this week, Robert Muldoon met 20 to 30 Black Power members at a Wellington tavern in 1976 and carried on the discussion at a gang pad, and in 2009 John Key defended Pita Sharples’ meeting with Black Power and Mongrel Mob leaders.

The billboards

The billboards take the controversy further again. They come from a lobby group, and they borrow a rival party’s slogan to attack it. According to RNZ, the Sensible Sentencing Trust and the Taxpayers’ Union run a shared website called “We can’t afford Labour”, although the Taxpayers’ Union says it did not create these ads and the Trust’s spokesperson insists “We certainly aren’t TPU at all.”

The Advertising Standards Authority partly upheld a complaint about the Trust’s similar “Defund the police” billboards last year, ruling that the advertiser needed to make its identity clearer. The Trust’s response this time: “We’re not going to make any apologies for that at all.” Labour, which also features on the billboard, calls it “nasty and untrue” but says it is unlikely to complain.

Campaigning of this kind deserves public contempt. It comes straight from the playbook Nicky Hager described in Dirty Politics in 2014, and again in Dirty Work this year, in which a nominally independent group does the attacking and the politicians that stand to benefit keep their distance. But it should be pointed out that there is no evidence in this reporting that National or any other party commissioned or coordinated the ads.

A convenient distraction for National

I spend a lot of my time arguing that integrity scandals matter, so I am wary of calling any of them a distraction. But this one is now pushing aside the issues voters care about most. The Post/Freshwater Strategy study found that only 3% of New Zealanders rate law and order or related issues as their top concern. The ODT, borrowing from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, puts it this way: “it’s the cost of living, stupid”.

National has an obvious reason to welcome a campaign dominated by gangs. It gets to question the judgement of a prospective Labour-led government while spending less time defending its own record on household costs, health and the economy. As Thomas Coughlan has pointed out in the Herald, law and order is one of the few policy areas on which the public “unambiguously rates National’s competence over Labour’s”. Even Chris Bishop told supporters in a newsletter, quoted by Graham Adams, that the controversy has “definitely distracted attention from what should be the major focus of the election”, before adding that it has “probably focused attention on just how crazy a Labour/Green/Māori Party government would be.”

It could still backfire on National. Voters worried about rent and power bills may tire of a governing party that would rather talk about other people’s photographs, especially when some of its attacks are so plainly disingenuous. Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong called the exchanges “tit for tat”. And when Leoni resigned, Winston Peters struck a different tone from his coalition partners, saying NZ First would not be “gloating” or “salivating over somebody else’s misery”.

Time to move on

The bigger danger is scandal fatigue. At least 200,000 eligible voters were still unenrolled when the electoral roll closed on Sunday. An election remembered for gang photos and lobby-group billboards risks persuading many of those who are enrolled that politics is a grubby business best avoided, and some of them may not bother voting at all.

The Post’s plea to Luxon and Hipkins this morning is to “quit the gang issue for now, and the quasi-McCarthyism of the weekend, and get back to explaining how they plan to tackle the issues that matter to most.” Both leaders should take that advice, and so should the lobby groups paying for the billboards.

Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project

In the “Further Analysis” section beneath the paywall below: Kerrin Leoni resigned as Labour’s candidate saying the last thing she wanted was a National government. Three days later she was back in the race. Why her decision is bad news for Labour and the left, why the Māori electorates make an upset possible, what her win would do to the arithmetic of the next Parliament, and why she should tell voters not to give her their electorate vote.

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News Briefing Top 10 for 27 October 2026

1. Rachel Pannett (BusinessDesk): How Woolworths and ministry intervention torpedoed strict flour dust limit (paywalled)
WorkSafe dropped a plan to cut its recommended flour-dust exposure limit from 1mg/m³ to 0.2mg/m³ after lobbying by Woolworths and an intervention by the Ministry for Regulation in 2024, BusinessDesk’s Rachel Pannett reports from documents released under the Official Information Act. WorkSafe has kept the 1mg/m³ level, despite previously judging it inadequate to manage health risks. Internal emails suggest ministry officials formed their view from a basic internet search, and secretary for regulation Grainne Moss told staff: “The right result – well done team. We did a thing!” Woolworths says its existing controls are effective, the ministry stands by its view that the lower limit would have been unworkable, and WorkSafe says its review considered industry feedback alongside technical evidence. New Zealand is now set to lag Australia, which introduces a mandatory 0.5mg/m³ limit on 1 December.

2. Matt Nippert (Herald): Late Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Kemp faced investigation over $12,800 Manurewa Marae charity funds spent on political campaign (paywalled)
Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Kemp was under investigation by Charities Services when she died in June 2025, over Manurewa Marae funds spent on the party’s campaigns while she was the marae’s chief executive, the Herald’s Matt Nippert reports from Official Information Act documents. The regulator found the $12,800, including $8800 for a musket and korowai at a party fundraising auction, breached charities law but did not amount to “serious wrongdoing”. Investigators also found that the conflicts between her roles as marae chief executive and political candidate were inadequately managed. Party president John Tamihere, whose Waipareira Trust has faced its own investigation over funding the party’s campaigns, replied with two unpublishable words.

3. Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Business leaders give lobbying reform a welcome boost
Business leaders are more open to rules on lobbying than many would expect, according to the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey, which rated Opportunity’s proposed one-year cooling-off period for ministers and senior officials about as highly as National’s no-new-taxes pledge. With strong public support as well, I argue the next government has fewer excuses for avoiding a reform most of the developed world made years ago, and business groups that favour it should say so before coalition talks begin. In the second, paywalled part of the newsletter, I look at how business groups are campaigning in this election and the big money behind them, most of which never has to be declared, because the biggest players stay off the promoters’ register and rely on manifestos, open letters and direct access to ministers. And voters may never learn who is paying for RCR Media’s newspaper campaign urging National supporters to give their party vote elsewhere.

4. David Fisher (Herald): The inquiry ahead into the Chief of Defence Force - who knew and when did they know it? (paywalled)
The Herald’s David Fisher argues that the inquiry following Tony Davies’ resignation as Chief of Defence Force needs to examine institutional accountability as well as his conduct. Fisher connects those questions with the Auditor-General’s findings, just two months before Davies resigned, that misconduct can go unrecorded and people responsible for harmful behaviour can still advance, despite a decade of Operation Respect reforms. Davies has acknowledged an inappropriate relationship dating back two decades that he failed to disclose, and accounts of it had been passed to the Herald several times since 2024. Fisher asks whether the Inspector-General of Defence will examine who knew, and whether that information was considered as Davies rose through the ranks.

5. The Overhang: The Overhang 2.10 – Side splitting
National is on course for at least four, likely eight, and as many as ten seats over its proportional entitlement, according to The Overhang’s modelling of the candidate vote, potentially changing the parliamentary arithmetic substantially. Its central estimate gives National eight overhang seats and Te Pāti Māori two, producing a 130-seat Parliament. The analysis explains how incumbency, vote splitting and minor-party campaigns shape those forecasts, stresses their uncertainty, and notes that its calculations preceded Kerrin Leoni’s withdrawal as Labour’s candidate.

6. Richard Harman: Why Erica Stanford is National’s big star (paywalled)
Erica Stanford’s education reforms and standing with business have made her one of National’s strongest performers, fuelling speculation she could replace Christopher Luxon as soon as early next year, argues Politik’s Richard Harman. She again topped the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom ministerial poll, ahead of Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop and Luxon. Stanford says she has focused on parents and classroom results rather than winning over teacher unions, and regards education as the main driver of future prosperity. On immigration, a portfolio Harman says leaves her marking her own homework, she defends migrants’ contribution and expresses interest in returning to a points system, while stressing she hasn’t yet made that decision.

7. The Post: Editorial – Gang-pic row descends into McCarthyism (paywalled)
Only 3% of New Zealanders rate law and order or other potentially gang-related issues as their top concern, notes a Post editorial, yet the gang-photos row has “descended into something like McCarthyism”. It argues Chris Hipkins was right to accept Kerrin Leoni’s resignation after she was not straightforward with her party, but wonders whether he and Christopher Luxon should have taken more nuanced positions, given many Māori MPs have whānau connections to gang members. It urges both leaders to drop the tit-for-tat and return to the issues that matter most.

8. Anneke Smith and Tom Hunt (Post): Long queues and closed polling centres fire up critics as advanced voting begins (paywalled)
The Electoral Commission had 207 voting places open on Labour Day, but opposition parties complained of long queues and closed doors as advance voting began, the Post’s Anneke Smith and Tom Hunt report. Voters waited up to 25 minutes in Aro Valley, and Trevor Mallard found Wainuiomata’s booth shut. Christopher Luxon called Mallard’s comments “intemperate and disappointing” and defended the earlier enrolment deadline as speeding the count, while Chris Hipkins changed position to promise a Labour-led government before Christmas. In 2023, coalition deals were signed 41 days after voting day.

9. Nick James (Post): Think smarter and harder: how to fix and build the country’s infrastructure (paywalled)
New Zealand’s infrastructure problem involves spending priorities and maintenance as well as funding, the Post’s Nick James reports. The Infrastructure Commission says the country ranks fourth last in the OECD at maintaining its infrastructure, the average hospital building is 47 years old and some agencies lack asset management plans, while the parties differ over how to respond despite broad support for its national plan. National emphasises better investment decisions, Labour maintenance and project certainty, the Greens public ownership, and Act private partnerships. Opportunity proposes putting the plan into law, directing 60% of future infrastructure funding to maintenance and creating a $60 billion fund over 10 years.

10. Marc Daalder (Newsroom): What happens if Labour bars Swarbrick and extra taxes in coalition talks
Newsroom’s Marc Daalder argues that Labour could face unusually strong pressure from the Greens and Opportunity over tax and spending if it forms the next government, with at least 40% of any coalition likely to come from the minor parties. Their aligned fiscal ambitions would make it harder for Chris Hipkins to resist demands while retaining Barbara Edmonds as finance minister and limiting new taxes to Labour’s capital gains tax. If Labour holds those positions, Daalder suggests the Greens may need to pursue regulatory and social reforms requiring little additional spending, potentially disappointing voters attracted by their larger promises.

Below the paywall are 35 more summaries, and 47 further links. They cover a new poll of Māori voters, 74 voters on the cost of living, the record Māori roll, Trevor Mallard’s voter suppression claim, Chris Trotter and Graham Adams on the left and the gangs, the backing-the-gangs billboards, Kerrin Leoni fighting on as an independent, Winston Peters on racism and religion, Act’s $22b in cuts, threats against MPs, NZDF telling Parliament an IT upgrade was delivered, Cabinet blocking an NZTA board reappointment, MBIE’s supermarket consultants, a state abuse survivor’s wait for redress, the expected OCR hike, Costco and the supermarket duopoly, retailers’ rising profits, LNG in the Marlborough Sounds, the housing market’s new norm, the private sector’s share of extra health funding, Wellington’s Town Hall blowout, National shielding its Palmerston North candidate, and the surge in online racism against candidates. Plus today’s cartoons.

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Business leaders are more open to rules on lobbying than many would expect, according to the Herald’s latest “Mood of the Boardroom” survey. Big companies are among the heaviest users of the country’s unregulated lobbying industry, so this undercuts the assumption that business will always resist reform. It also leaves the next government with fewer excuses for avoiding a reform that most of the developed world made years ago.

The boldest statement on lobbying and business influence came in the report from Sam Stubbs, founder of the non-profit KiwiSaver provider Simplicity. Asked to name the top issues facing the country, he listed “too many lobbyists and easy access to influence in Wellington”, along with “the ongoing impost of bank and other duopoly oligopoly cartels”.

A pass mark for lobbying reform

The survey asked business leaders to rate election policies from 1, “very poor”, to 5, “very good”. Opportunity’s proposal for a one-year cooling-off period before ministers and senior officials can take lobbying roles scored 3.33/5. Recording all lobbying communications with ministers in official systems, subject to the Official Information Act, scored 3.09/5.

Both exceeded 3, halfway between the scale’s two extremes. Only 34 of the 99 policies rated reached that point. Interestingly, the cooling-off period scored about the same as National’s pledge of no new taxes, on 3.30/5.

Of course, these are averages, and they could conceal sharply different views. And because the survey hasn’t asked about lobbying before, it can’t tell us how far business opinion has moved. Even so, the fact that it asked about a cooling-off period for lobbyists at all shows the issue has become part of mainstream election debate.

Why business is open to reform

Business leaders have good reasons to take reform seriously, and one is public opinion. In a national survey by Emma Shields and colleagues, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in August, 88.6% of respondents expressed some level of support for mandatory rules for lobbyists, and 74.4% backed a one-year cooling-off period before politicians and their staff can become lobbyists. Support for mandatory rules was above 80% among the voters of every party. Most of the parties are on board too. Opportunity and the Greens have detailed plans, and Labour, which proposed only a voluntary code when it was last in government, now promises a mandatory register of lobbyists and a code of conduct.

National has gone the other way. In government its Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith, halted officials’ work on lobbying reform, even though Nicola Willis supported a register and a cooling-off period for ex-ministers when National was in opposition, as Newsroom has reported. Willis has since complained that she “felt the full force” of supermarket lobbying, calling the supermarkets “one of the most well-resourced entities in New Zealand when it comes to lobbying”.

I suspect many business leaders also understand that their own political influence depends on public trust. When access to ministers looks like something only the best-connected can get, the reputation of business suffers along with that of politicians, and its social licence is put at risk. And plenty of firms simply don’t gain from the current unregulated lobbying system at all. Most businesses don’t employ lobbyists, and business challengers in concentrated markets, like Stubbs’ Simplicity competing with the bank-owned KiwiSaver providers, often find the incumbents already have the ear of ministers, so backing reform is the smart move for them too.

A long time coming

I’ve been arguing for rules on lobbying and the revolving door for more than a decade, while governments of both colours found reasons not to act and former ministers moved into lobbying within months of leaving office. Researchers such as Max Rashbrooke and Lisa Marriott, Health Coalition Aotearoa, Transparency International and Tex Edwards’ Monopoly Watch have also started adding to the pressure, and I’d like to think my own columns, including LobbyistWatch, have helped too. So it’s satisfying to see business leaders now recognising the case for reform.

Not everyone is convinced

Business is far from united, though. Opportunity’s proposed cap on donations of $30,000 per donor, per party, per electoral cycle scored just 2.35/5, about the same as Labour’s capital gains tax (2.38/5).

Some in the industry are sceptical as well. Lobbyist Mark Unsworth told NBR’s Brent Edwards in September that “Everybody lobbies”, and said of the lobbyists he sees at the Beehive, “I have no problem with that. It is democracy.” He has a point. Ordinary contact with an MP shouldn’t become a compliance exercise. But professional and corporate lobbying can be made transparent without preventing anyone from making their case.

New Zealand still has no mandatory lobbying register or cooling-off period for former ministers. The OECD’s 2026 assessment confirms that we lack a framework for regulating lobbying. Three-quarters of OECD member countries have cooling-off rules for public officials; New Zealand is outside that group. We’ve tolerated this wild west for far too long.

What the next government should do

Whoever forms the next government should be pressed to act early in the term, with legislation, a timetable and independent enforcement. Opportunity has made regulating lobbying and capping donations one of its five bottom lines for supporting a government, so if it holds the balance of power, it should insist that a lobbying register and a cooling-off period are written into the coalition agreement.

Business leaders who favour reform should also say so before coalition talks begin. BusinessNZ’s own manifesto says “Government decision-making must be open”, and praises the Ministry for Regulation’s “open-door policy” with business. The next step is to be open about who walks through that door. It would help if BusinessNZ, the EMA and the chambers of commerce said publicly that they back a mandatory register and cooling-off periods, knowing the rules would cover their own lobbying too. After more than a decade of delay, the tide may finally be turning on lobbying reform.

Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project

In today’s “Further Analysis” after the paywall below, I look at how business groups are campaigning in this election, and at the big money behind some of the campaigns. Most of this activity never has to be declared. I also compare business with the unions, and with past elections.

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News Briefing Top 10 for 26 October 2026

1. Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Democracy Briefing: What business thinks of the politicians and parties

Business leaders are hard to impress this election. In my column, I look at what the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey of 150 business leaders reveals about the relationship between business and politics. Politicians across the spectrum get poor or middling ratings, several among the lowest in the survey’s history, even though business optimism about the economy is at its highest since 2016. I argue National has lost standing in the boardroom, and that any government willing to challenge powerful business interests should expect to be marked down for it.

2. Te Rina Kowhai (Te Ao Māori News): Kerrin Leoni to stand as an independent in Tāmaki Makaurau if elected

Kerrin Leoni has decided to stay in the Tāmaki Makaurau race, just three days after resigning as Labour’s candidate, and will sit as an independent if elected, Te Ao Māori News’ Te Rina Kowhai reports. It is a defiant stand against the party she represented until Friday, when a video showed her in Labour gear at a whānau fundraiser attended by Mongrel Mob members, after which Chris Hipkins said campaigning alongside gangs was unacceptable. Her name stays on the ballot beside Labour’s logo, and she remains on Labour’s list. “The decision now belongs to the voters of Tāmaki Makaurau,” she says.

3. Derek Cheng (Herald): David Seymour has no issue with Māori customary rights - just ‘activist’ judges (paywalled)

David Seymour tells the Herald’s Derek Cheng that constitutional reform, not lower taxes, is Act’s next big move, because challenges such as productivity, housing and infrastructure stem from “insecurity about who we are as a country”. He says he has no issue with Māori customary rights in specific instances, only with judges he says have interpreted them too widely. Otago law professor Andrew Geddis counters that Act’s plan to instruct courts on interpreting statutes contradicts the Regulatory Standards Act that Seymour himself secured.

4. Andrea Vance (Post): Fix what we’ve got: Voters put hospitals ahead of big builds (paywalled)

A Post/Freshwater Strategy poll funded by Infrastructure New Zealand, the industry body with a direct stake in how much is spent on infrastructure and how, finds 50% of voters favour fixing bottlenecks and maintaining existing assets even if it means fewer new projects, the Post’s Andrea Vance reports. Just 22% want large developments funded by significant borrowing. Hospitals dominate, with 72% putting health facilities among their top three priorities. Only 7% back more government borrowing and 7% higher general taxes. Infrastructure New Zealand’s chief executive, Nick Leggett, uses the same results in a Post opinion piece today.

5. Ethan Manera and Katie Bradford (Herald): The 10 battleground electorate races to watch

The Herald’s Ethan Manera and Katie Bradford profile 10 general electorates that could shape the result: Tāmaki, Auckland Central, Mt Albert and Epsom in Auckland, plus Wairarapa, Kāpiti, Hutt South, Nelson, West Coast-Tasman and Wigram. Helen White held Mt Albert by 18 votes in 2023, Chris Bishop could leave Parliament altogether if he loses Hutt South, and in Epsom National’s Paul Goldsmith is now campaigning for the candidate vote against David Seymour. National pollster David Farrar says about 15 National ministers have campaigned in Tāmaki.

6. Richard Harman (Post): Simon Bridges boosts NZ First (paywalled)

Former National leader Simon Bridges praised NZ First’s “very clear, very explicit focus on growth” at an Auckland Chamber of Commerce event with Shane Jones, adding that not all in Parliament have been that focused, the Post’s Richard Harman reports. Harman argues that business frustration with energy prices, a concern for 80.4% of executives in a BusinessNZ survey, is reopening questions about the state’s economic role that the major parties have largely avoided during the campaign. While National and Act want to leave prices to the market, Jones rejects the idea of the state as a neutral referee, and Harman says NZ First in a National-led Cabinet would keep asking the question Grant Robertson raised in 2020 and then forgot: what is the role of the state?

7. Adreanne Ormond (Post): Voting from the margin: Forgetting the anxiety and continuing the struggle without end (paywalled)

Adreanne Ormond, a Māori academic at Victoria University, reflects in the Post on the tension between feeling compelled to vote and distrusting institutions she believes repeatedly fail Māori. Her example is the Government’s August law change ending Mike Smith’s climate case against Fonterra, Genesis Energy and Z Energy, after documents showed Fonterra and Z Energy had met the Prime Minister’s office; the Prime Minister said he had no record of the meetings. She sees it as another case of the rules being changed after Māori gain ground through the courts, like the foreshore and seabed. Drawing on bell hooks’ writing about the margins, she argues for participating without pretending that voting is sufficient or surrendering the wider struggle for change.

8. Elliot Crossan: Have the Greens Capitulated to the Logic of Austerity?

The Greens promise $30bn for health over four years, double Labour and National, but Elliot Crossan argues their fiscal plan still accepts the logic of austerity. He says scaled-back tax changes, raising just $5.35bn in net new revenue in 2028/29, and a return to surplus would squeeze welfare and other public services as health, superannuation and financing costs grow. Crossan welcomes the party’s cost-of-living campaign but criticises its retreat from major welfare reform, arguing that its fiscal limits undermine its redistributive ambitions and that programmatically the party has “shifted sharply to the right”.

9. Claire Robinson: Christopher Luxon may be the sharpest tool in the shed after all

Opportunity’s average across six October polls is 6.26%, so a fall of a point or so on election night could keep it out, writes Claire Robinson. She argues Luxon’s repeated ruling-out of Opportunity may help National, perhaps not by design. If Opportunity misses, the soft Labour votes it attracted vanish and the coalition’s 49% becomes more than 51% of votes that count; if it gets in, National is likelier to get Qiulae Wong’s first call. She sketches how Luxon could govern with Opportunity abstaining.

10. Listener: Dear PM: What should be top of the next PM’s to-do list? 40 Kiwi thought leaders offer ideas (paywalled)

The Listener asked sector leaders and newsmakers for the next prime minister’s top priority in 100 words. Common themes are children, health, the cost of living and the environment. Federated Farmers’ Colin Hurst wants 10 national standards to replace farm consents, Auckland mayor Wayne Brown wants no more “interference from Wellington”, economist Shamubeel Eaqub asks governments to publish who wins and loses from each decision, and Monopoly Watch’s Tex Edwards proposes a policy office in Copenhagen, Oslo or Brussels.

Below the paywall are 26 more synopses and 24 further links. They cover Labour’s Starship visit, Christopher Luxon’s messages to state abuse survivors in gangs and the gang-photo row, National dropping a volunteer with a sexual offending conviction, Opportunity’s Future Generations Commissioner and its blue-green Nelson candidate, the flip-flop electorates, National’s 100-day plan, the enrolment deadline and young voters, household financial resilience, tax in the campaign, KiwiSaver compulsion, Infrastructure New Zealand’s case for maintenance, Kiri Allan on what the two Chrises lack, and business leaders’ verdicts on supermarket policies and the pension age. Plus today’s cartoon.

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Business leaders are hard to impress this election. In the Herald’s annual “Mood of the Boardroom” survey, they give poor or middling marks to almost the whole political class, including the two former business executives running the Government’s economic policy, and several ratings are among the worst in the survey’s records. Competence and delivery obviously count, but the comments also show some respondents marking politicians down for taking on business interests.

This year’s survey, released on Thursday, of 150 business leaders (130 chief executives, 12 company chairs and the heads of eight business organisations) ran from 21 September to 16 October. They rated politicians out of 5 and answered questions about coalitions.

Two former executives, lukewarm marks

Writing from the big-business right, the New Zealand Initiative’s Oliver Hartwich points out that Christopher Luxon ran Air New Zealand and Nicola Willis was a senior Fonterra executive before they entered politics. “Rather than cheerleading for the National leadership,” he writes, “the business community gave them a mixed, even lukewarm, evaluation.”

Just 11 of the 27 ministers score 3/5 or more, led by Erica Stanford (4.38) for the third year in a row and Todd McClay (4.12), credited with the India trade deal. Luxon ranks 13th, on 2.93/5, after coming 15th last year. In the survey’s results back to 2014, no other prime minister has ranked lower than Jacinda Ardern’s 12th in 2022, although her score of 2.30 was lower than Luxon’s. Willis ranks ninth, on 3.17/5. Finance ministers are usually the boardroom’s favourite or second-favourite minister, and Willis’ placings over the last two years are the lowest for a Finance Minister in those records.

Luxon does best for promoting New Zealand business internationally (4.31), but scores only 2.12 for his ability to unite the country behind a national ambition. Willis does better on other measures. Some 74% say she is a credible Finance Minister, and 60% named her as someone they would trust to manage the economy through another global shock, narrowly ahead of Luxon on 57%.

Marked down for taking on business

The low marks come even as business optimism about the economy is improving, with the survey’s measure at its highest since 2016. One company chairperson was blunt about Willis: “Beating up on the banks, gentailers, Foodstuffs and other successful New Zealand businesses is cheap politics and not in the country’s interests.”

Hartwich links better marks to both better ministers and “fewer anti-business policies”. But his own examples of what irritates business include Willis’ moves on banks, power companies and Foodstuffs, and those businesses and their customers do not necessarily want the same things. A minister could receive a worse survey score for a reform that benefits the public. Hartwich, of course, heads a think tank funded by its business members, and its chair, Roger Partridge, has disclosed that these include Foodstuffs and Woolworths.

Labour: Edmonds and McAnulty stand out

Business leaders still prefer Luxon by a wide margin. Asked who would best drive growth as Prime Minister, 65% chose Luxon and just 3% Chris Hipkins. Luxon also leads on trustworthiness (3.49 to 2.57), although Hipkins beats him on political management, by 3.23 to 2.31.

Hipkins scores 2.14 for his performance as Labour leader, after 2.01 last year, the lowest for a Leader of the Opposition in those records. The biggest gap is on economic management, where Luxon scores 3.5 and Hipkins 1.86. No main party leader scored lower in the five earlier election surveys with comparable figures, going back to 2005. The previous low was Phil Goff’s 1.96 in 2011, and Jacinda Ardern scored just 2.08 in 2017, weeks before she became Prime Minister.

Voters see Hipkins differently. In a Post/Freshwater Strategy poll, 41% trusted him to make the right decisions about the economy, compared with 32% for Luxon. But only 12% of business leaders think he has built the cross-party relationships needed for a cohesive alternative government.

Barbara Edmonds and Kieran McAnulty are the exceptions. Edmonds tops Labour’s frontbench on 3.39, with McAnulty close behind on 3.31. Some 55% regard Edmonds as a credible Finance Minister, little changed from 53% last year, and she told the survey launch: “Credibility should be earned, not assumed. So let me earn it.” Business has rated a Labour finance minister highly before: in 2020, during the pandemic, 91% judged Grant Robertson credible. But as Graham Skellern reports, some respondents doubt she could resist pressure from further left, which suggests part of her appeal is as a possible brake on the left.

The smaller parties

Act is business’ second-favourite party, with 30% saying it has the best policy mix, and 59% say David Seymour has made the Government more business-friendly. But its Treaty politics draws criticism, including from Hayden Wilson of Dentons, a sponsor of the report. Winston Peters falls from second among ministers to seventh, and only 13% think he should have a stint as Prime Minister if NZ First holds the balance of power. “Winston is now in the Trump-Biden twilight zone. He needs to gracefully step aside,” wrote one respondent.

The Greens have lost ground. Just 26% think Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson have positioned the party as a credible partner in a Labour-led government, down from 47% for James Shaw and Davidson in 2023, and no respondent says it of Te Pāti Māori’s co-leaders. Opportunity gets a better hearing. Some 41% think Qiulae Wong has positioned it as a credible coalition partner, and 46% think Luxon was wrong to rule it out.

A warning for the next government

National likes to think of itself as the party of business, but it has lost much of its standing in the boardroom. Its leaders’ rankings have fallen since 2024, and the share of business leaders saying it has the best policy mix has dropped from 70% in 2023 to 53%. Comments like the chairperson’s suggest some of this comes from the times National took on business, over supermarkets, banks and power companies.

Yet the supermarket plan has more public support than opposition. A Talbot Mills poll commissioned by Foodstuffs itself found 45% in favour and 38% against. Whoever forms the next government will face the same choice, and politicians who challenge business interests can expect to be marked down for it in next year’s survey.

In today’s “Further Analysis” below after the paywall (“What business thinks of the parties’ election policies“), I look at the 99 election policies business leaders scored in the Mood of the Boardroom report, the opposition ideas they like, and why the country’s biggest companies rate National’s supermarket plan below Labour’s capital gains tax.

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News Briefing Top 10 for 25 October 2026

1. Katie Harris and David Fisher (Herald): The Chief of Defence, the alleged affair and the letter he read before he quit – the inside story of the women who shook up our military (paywalled)

Days before Air Marshal Tony Davies resigned as Chief of Defence Force, 26-year RNZAF veteran Kate Staunton wrote to him about his alleged 2006 relationship with a junior woman he commanded at 40 Squadron, the Herald’s Katie Harris and David Fisher reveal. The woman confirms the letter’s account that she was investigated and later left the service. Staunton says NZDF also failed to act on her 2019 fraternisation complaint, though the pair involved deny any breach. Defence Minister Paul Goldsmith calls it an “integrity matter”.

2. Jenna Lynch (Stuff): Resurfaced photo of Luxon latest in tit-for-tat gang members saga

Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam has posted a photo of Christopher Luxon with Black Power members at Parliament’s abuse-in-care apology, the latest tit-for-tat move, Stuff’s Jenna Lynch reports. Stuff also obtained a photo of National minister Tama Potaka with patched Mongrel Mob members at the January 2024 Hui ā-motu; Potaka says one was a school mate. Luxon, who said on Friday “I am not tolerant of gangs at all”, admitted he had not spoken to Potaka about it. Labour wants the same standard applied.

3. Vernon Small (Sunday Star Times): The disturbing sense this year’s election might be illegitimate (paywalled)

In 40 years of covering elections, Vernon Small writes, this is the first time he has had a “disturbing sense that the outcome might be illegitimate”. The former Labour advisor blames two developments, neither illegal: closing enrolment two weeks before polling day, which he says will hit young voters assumed to favour the left, and blatant gaming of the MMP overhang. He argues Te Pāti Māori’s overhang would be limited to seven seats, but split-voting by some on the right could push it to a dozen or more.

4. Matthew Hooton and Julie Jacobson (Sunday Star Times): Will the ‘bureaucratic priesthood’ let the next government deliver its promises? (paywalled)

About 20% of policy advisers and their managers apparently aren’t prepared to accept voters’ verdict or the coalition deals that follow, according to an unpublished New Zealand Initiative study seen by the Sunday Star Times’ Matthew Hooton and Julie Jacobson (which will be released tomorrow afternoon). The think tank’s survey of 718 officials, run by Curia, which also works for the Taxpayers’ Union and National, found only 60% agreed ministers should decide policy. The Public Service Commission says the real test is conduct, not personal views, and former ministers offer advice on delivering reforms.

5. Joel Kulasingham (Herald): Hundreds of thousands of Kiwis still not enrolled to vote ahead of enrolment deadline

As at October 23, 307,991 eligible voters were still not enrolled, 43% of them aged 18-24, the Herald’s Joel Kulasingham reports from Electoral Commission figures. Only 69.9% of young people were enrolled, about seven percentage points below 2023, and overall enrolment was 92.2% against 94.7% last election. Under December’s law change, enrolment closes at midnight on Sunday. Chris Hipkins calls it “the most draconian restriction to people’s right to enrol to vote that we have ever seen”, while Christopher Luxon says it will cut special-vote counting.

6. Andrea Vance (Sunday Star Times): The trouble with telling voters to be thankful (paywalled)

Annual inflation has eased to 3.7%, but rates rose 6.2% and electricity 9.3%, and banks expect a rebound to between 4.5% and 4.7%, the Sunday Star Times’ Andrea Vance writes. A Post/Freshwater Strategy poll finds only 25% expect their household finances to improve, Labour leads by 19 points on easing the cost of living, and just 35% pick National’s economic plan against 33.8% for Labour. She argues Luxon talks up numbers but tells strugglers how to feel, as when he told a dairy farmer to “be thankful for something”.

7. Herald: Editorial – White-collar crime and gangs: Do we have a moral blind spot over crime? (paywalled)

Fewer than 1% of the roughly 1000 white-collar crime complaints the Serious Fraud Office receives each year end in prosecution, though such crime costs about $10 billion a year against $1.4b-$2.2b for gang crime, a Herald editorial says. It asks whether New Zealand has a moral blind spot over crime, arguing the week’s gang focus distracted from serious issues. It condemns gang violence but notes the Royal Commission found 80-90% of men in Māori gangs had been boys in state-funded care.

8. Jonathan Killick (Sunday Star Times): Two political careers on the line in Mt Albert’s four-way fight (paywalled)

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong confirms that working with Winston Peters could be a deal breaker, telling the Sunday Star Times’ Jonathan Killick: “We don’t want to be swallowing a bunch of dead rats - we’d rather walk away.” In Mt Albert, National’s Melissa Lee, who lost by 18 votes in 2023, and Labour’s Helen White are both fighting for survival given their list rankings. Killick reports Lee neither lives nor has an office in the electorate, and Wong now puts a land tax 10 to 15 years away.

9. Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara has done more to help the Coalition than any other MP (paywalled)

Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara has done more than any other politician to help re-elect the coalition, argues the Herald’s Heather du Plessis-Allan, by entangling the Greens, her own party and Labour in the Mongrel Mob saga in just over a week. She says the Kerrin Leoni revelations made Chris Hipkins “look like a liar”, and suggests it is probably not a coincidence that National now has its first five-point lead over Labour in the 1News-Verian poll, though one poll is not a trend.

10. Jamie Ensor (Herald): National planned social media ban event month before Cabinet approval, amid Act, NZ First opposition (paywalled)

Christopher Luxon’s and Erica Stanford’s offices were planning a Grand Hall event to announce National’s under-16 social media ban more than a month before Cabinet approved the bill, and while Act and NZ First publicly opposed it, the Herald’s Jamie Ensor reveals from emails released under the Official Information Act. A July 23 email from Luxon’s office already set the August 24 announcement, with B416 campaigners on the guest list. Stanford says the event was about online harms and could have gone ahead without the announcement had Cabinet not agreed.

Below the paywall are 28 more synopses and 25 further links. They cover the fallout from Kerrin Leoni’s resignation and the gang-photo row, Aaron Smale on the state’s role in creating gangs, whether Erica Stanford could end up as prime minister, profiles of Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins, the Epsom, Mt Roskill, Tāmaki and Auckland Central races, the Greens’ surge in the Māori electorates, homeless voters and the enrolment deadline, Te Pāti Māori’s referral to Police, the grey vote, and the tangled web of New Zealand’s news media. And today’s cartoons.

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News Briefing Top 10 for 24 October 2026

1. Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): The real reason Kerrin Leoni had to go is not about the gangs

Kerrin Leoni kept quiet about her own meeting with Mongrel Mob members for nine days while Chris Hipkins condemned the Green and Te Pāti Māori MPs’ gang pad visit, Newsroom’s Jonathan Milne writes. He argues Labour’s problem is not meeting gang members but “the hypocrisy and hush-up afterwards”. Milne reports Leoni had apparently withdrawn from the pad visit on the advice of Labour’s leadership, and others in her campaign team knew and stayed silent. He suspects more Labour heads will fall before election day.

2. Andrea Vance (Post): The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll: Party loyalties fray as late-deciding voters hold cliffhanger election in their hands (paywalled)

Almost two-thirds of voters (65%) believe fundamental change is needed to the way the country is governed, the Post’s Andrea Vance reports from the latest Post/Freshwater Strategy poll. Another 62% say political parties are not being straight with the public about the challenges facing the country, and 52% say politicians are offering easy answers to problems that require hard choices. Nearly half (46%) say their vote is mainly about stopping a particular party or coalition from taking power. Party loyalty is fraying too: just 14% always back the same party, 15% were still undecided, and 48% of minor-party voters are fed up with National and Labour. The poll, funded by Infrastructure NZ, has Labour on 28.7% and National on 27.6%.

3. The Post: Editorial – A deadline on democracy (paywalled)

An estimated 321,973 eligible New Zealanders were still off the roll days before enrolment closes on Sunday, and just 68.6% of 18- to 24-year-olds are enrolled, a Post editorial notes. The Government’s own regulatory impact statement warned that ending enrolment during voting would disproportionately affect Māori, Pacific, Asian and younger voters, and then Attorney-General Judith Collins found Paul Goldsmith’s law an unjustified limit on the right to vote. The paper calls the change “a troubling trade-off”.

4. Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Why the Kerrin Leoni scandal might not hurt Labour as much as you think (paywalled)

The Kerrin Leoni scandal is clearly a disaster for Labour but “may not exactly hurt the left’s chances” of forming a government, argues the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan. He says it almost guarantees Oriini Kaipara will hold Tāmaki Makaurau, helping Te Pāti Māori trigger an overhang of one to perhaps four seats, so the right must win well to stay in power. Coughlan credits Hipkins with handling it well, and says the talk in Wellington is that Opportunity is losing momentum.

5. David Fisher (Herald): Ex-NZSAS commander blasts current NZDF leadership – and NZ First’s Ron Mark says he’ll get rid of them (paywalled)

Former NZSAS commander Bernard Isherwood says the Defence Force cannot perform its core function because of inadequate leadership and a lack of accountability, the Herald’s David Fisher reports. NZ First’s Ron Mark backs him and says he would remove the current leadership if he becomes Defence Minister again: “We have wood rot.” The NZDF disputes Isherwood’s attrition figure of about 14.5%, putting regular force attrition at 7.9%, and Fisher establishes that Tony Davies and his predecessor did serve in high-risk zones.

6. Jamie Ensor (Herald): Chief of Defence Force Tony Davies resigns after ‘errors of judgment’, having ‘inappropriate relationship’

Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Tony Davies has resigned, admitting an inappropriate relationship while he held unit command that he did not disclose when he had the opportunity, the Herald’s Jamie Ensor reports. Defence Minister Paul Goldsmith agreed Davies’ position was “no longer tenable”, and the matter has been referred to the Inspector-General of Defence. Davies, appointed in 2024 on the recommendation of then minister Judith Collins, had 42 years of service.

7. Ernie Newman (Post): Don’t let the mobile duopoly sneak back in (paywalled)

One NZ and 2degrees want to merge the radio equipment on their mobile towers into a joint company, RANCo, and former TUANZ chief executive Ernie Newman argues in the Post that the Commerce Commission should say a resounding no. He warns customers would be left with “three brands, two networks”, and that savings would flow to dividends rather than lower prices. Newman says One NZ owner Infratil looks the winner, and that telecommunications is the big industry where competition was actually fixed.

8. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): Labour has a gang problem. But not in the way you might think

Chris Hipkins called Labour’s $2.75m funding of a Mongrel Mob-led addiction programme “a mistake” without mentioning that reports found a significant number of participants stayed off methamphetamine, writes the Spinoff’s Lyric Waiwiri-Smith. She says Kerrin Leoni was at worst dishonest to her party and the electorate, and at best showing up for whānau. Labour has spent about nine days in gang headlines instead of on the cost of living, she argues, and risks alienating loyal Māori voters in favour of centrist swing voters.

9. Brian Easton: Fitting Lobbying Into Democracy

The Taxpayers’ Union is a nonprofit company “much less transparent than a conventional union”, writes Brian Easton on Pundit, reviewing Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work. He highlights its shared office and leadership with The Campaign Company, which lobbies for commercial interests, and Hager’s chapter on Big Tobacco lobbying, which notes links to ministers Casey Costello and Chris Bishop. Easton stops short of calling the TPU racist but says it is opportunistic, and asks whether lobbying biased towards those who can afford it is enhancing democracy.

10. Jenna Lynch (Stuff): How one MP torpedoed the left’s election campaign into chaos

Kerrin Leoni turned up to a whānau function attended by gang members in Labour Party kit, with a campaign sign of herself and Chris Hipkins, and told them to enrol to change the government, writes Stuff’s Jenna Lynch. That’s campaigning, she argues, and Leoni had little choice but to stand aside after misrepresenting the event. Lynch acknowledges the state-care roots of gang culture, but says it is “rich” for Te Pāti Māori to complain about the politicisation of its own gang photos.

Below the paywall are 23 more synopses and 11 further links. They cover the fallout from Kerrin Leoni’s resignation, Opportunity and the post-election coalition maths, the enrolment deadline, the Te Tai Tonga and Wellington North races, the parties’ AI policies, the Fire and Emergency chief’s resignation, Andrew Little’s first year as Wellington mayor, and new essays on poverty and race relations. And today’s cartoons. Paid subscribers get the full briefing every day, and keep the Democracy Project going.

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Four days ago, Labour candidate Kerrin Leoni warned that photographs of her Te Pāti Māori rival with Mongrel Mob members had become the right’s “primary ammunition”. This morning Labour’s Tāmaki Makaurau candidate resigned over her own appearance at a Mob event, and the gang controversy that has dogged the Greens and Te Pāti Māori for more than a week is now Labour’s problem too. Chris Hipkins was right to accept her resignation. The affair has still drawn Labour into the kind of culture war it had kept out of all campaign, three days before advance voting opens on Labour Day.

From the Greens’ problem to Labour’s

When Te Pāti Māori and Green politicians were photographed at a Mongrel Mob “health and wellbeing election hui”, Hipkins called the visit a “huge error of judgement” and ruled both parties out of the police and corrections portfolios. He also told Newstalk ZB, “I don’t want any of our MPs or candidates seen alongside gangs.”

In a Whakaata Māori debate on Wednesday night, Leoni criticised the visit, and Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara alleged that Leoni had posted about going “to the same place a week before” and taken the post down. Leoni replied, “No, I did not go to the gang pad the week before, no.” Yesterday Hipkins “absolutely accepted” her account, and Labour declared that “Oriini Kaipara was wrong.” But that evening Whakaata Māori aired footage of Leoni at an event on 3 October attended by Mongrel Mob members, and Labour announced her resignation this morning.

A Labour jacket at a Mob event

Leoni has never hidden that some of her whānau are in gangs. “Gangs are part of a lot of our lives as Māori,” she told Newsroom on Monday, and on Thursday she wrote that she would not “turn my back on them or pretend they are not my whānau because of their associations.” Yesterday Hipkins defended her on exactly that ground, saying “she is of course entitled to interact with her own family.”

RNZ describes that in the video Leoni is in her Labour jacket with a campaign sign showing her and Hipkins, giving out flyers and telling those present, “Some of them you might know, that aren’t enrolled to vote, and they can have the power to change this government.” The Post understands it was advertised on social media as a fundraiser for the Mob’s Rogue chapter, though Hipkins says he has been reassured it was not a fundraising event.

Kerre Woodham said on Newstalk ZB that she would have had sympathy for a photo of Leoni “in a T-shirt, shorts and jandals, having a BBQ with her brother at a whanau function. But she’s in a Labour Party jacket, handing out Labour Party flyers”.

Her position became untenable because the footage contradicted the impression her denial had given, and because Labour had used that denial to call her opponent wrong. In fairness to Leoni, the event came before Hipkins publicly condemned the Green and Te Pāti Māori visit, and it isn’t clear what guidance Labour candidates had been given by then.

Hipkins said she had not given the party “full information”, and he became emotional as he spoke to reporters today at the Hawke’s Bay A&P show. “All of us navigate family situations in politics, and it’s bloody hard,” he said, noting that she had “grown up in an environment where she’s been surrounded by gang members. She is not a gang member herself.” Labour would have been reluctant to let her go, knowing a resignation gives the scandal more attention, but keeping her would have let it run until election day.

Dragged into the culture war

Before the 2023 election, 40% of voters named law and order as a top concern in the Ipsos Issues Monitor; in September it was eighth, on 15%, and Labour had largely stopped talking about it. When the Herald’s Jamie Ensor searched Labour’s policy webpage for “law and order”, the reply was “No policies match your search.”

The gang visits have put the issue back on the agenda, and crime and race have been hard ground for the left, as Labour found with co-governance and youth crime in 2023. Mike Hosking calls the gangs “a visceral reminder of who these people really are”.

Overseas voting began on Wednesday, the leaders’ debates are over, and when the Greens released their fiscal plan on Friday morning, including an extra $3 billion a year for health, it was competing with Leoni’s resignation for attention. Labour has few chances left to change the subject before most people vote.

The left turns on itself

Hipkins said there was an element of “racism” in the reaction and that “Our Māori MPs get held to a very different standard to others.” Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said responsibilities to whānau do not disappear “because someone finds their presence politically inconvenient”, a line aimed at Hipkins as much as National.

Māni Dunlop writes in the Post that “whānau connections and obligations do not necessarily stop at the boundaries of political life” for Māori politicians, while noting that the decision “will however appeal to the more conservative centre-left constituency that Hipkins believes he must cater to.”

On the left, the No Right Turn blog argued today that if Labour loses, “we will know exactly who to blame: Chris Hipkins”, while Martyn Bradbury blames Kaipara for choosing to “nark on Kerrin live during a debate on Māori TV”. Accepting Leoni’s account that it was a whānau event, as Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan did this morning, only kept the story running.

Heather du Plessis-Allan has already compared the gang photos with the 2017 Metiria Turei controversy, which sent Green support tumbling. Turei, however, was a co-leader confessing her own offence, and the Greens’ lost voters had Jacinda Ardern’s Labour to go to, whereas the voters Labour now risks losing are more likely to go to National.

Has the left lost the election?

It is too early to say the left has lost the election. The Verian poll on Monday projected 60 seats for National, Act and NZ First and 59 for Labour, the Greens and Opportunity, and its fieldwork ended on 19 October, so no poll has yet measured the effect of Leoni’s resignation.

But the left has lost control of the campaign’s final fortnight. Labour wanted this election fought on health and the cost of living, and it will begin advance voting answering questions about gangs. Much of the damage is self-inflicted, from the photos at the gang pad to Leoni’s denial.

Hipkins can be forgiven for feeling the problem came out of nowhere, but the hard lines he drew to manage his allies’ mistake applied to his own candidates too, and one of them fell foul of those lines days before voting began. If the left loses narrowly on 7 November, the post-mortems will start with a fortnight that began with selfies at a gang pad in South Auckland and ended with Labour’s own candidate resigning.

Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project

In the Further Analysis, below: “How Labour’s lines on the gangs issue changed throughout the week“
I cover the Labour statement declaring that “Oriini Kaipara was wrong”, issued on the day the video aired; the 2023 press conference at which Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said gang-linked programmes were “having a positive impact”; the night Robert Muldoon threw his whisky in a young gang member’s face; and how the Abuse in Care Royal Commission showed politicians a better way to engage with gang whānau. Paid subscriptions keep this independent analysis going.

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Dear Subscribers

Thank you for all the feedback on the new News Briefing model. The consensus seems to be that the summaries are much more useful than the list of links. So from today, I’m building the whole briefing around them.

The free section will continue to be a ranked Top 10: the day’s ten most important pieces of political journalism and commentary, each with a short synopsis. Below the paywall, paid subscribers get around a large number of more synopses each day, grouped by topic, followed by a short list of other items worth knowing about. This replaces the long list of categorised links. The format will continue to evolve - as always, feedback is very welcome.

Kind regards

Bryce

News Briefing Top 10 for 23 October 2026

1. Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Labour criticises National’s jobs for mates, but won’t commit to stopping it

Labour has compiled about 80 examples of coalition ministers appointing mates to government roles: 27 former MPs, 20 candidates or former candidates, 20 party officials and staff, and 10 donors, Stuff’s Glenn McConnell reports. Several ministers appointed their former bosses, including Erica Stanford naming Murray McCully to the School Property Agency board and Chris Bishop giving Steven Joyce two roles. But asked to promise Labour wouldn’t do the same, Chris Hipkins would only say: “We’re going to prioritise getting people on the job that we need to get on the job.”

2. Jane Yee (Herald): Commentators say Mongrel Mob pad scandal could be bigger problem for Labour than it is for the Green Party

The Mongrel Mob pad visit is “much more of a problem for Labour” than for the Greens, the Herald’s political editor Thomas Coughlan says on Jane Yee’s report of Election 2026: The Podcast, because Marama Davidson is speaking to her own voters rather than trying to win over David Seymour or Winston Peters. Coughlan says the Greens and Te Pāti Māori can tumble over the invisible barrier between engagement and endorsement. Former Lower Hutt mayor Campbell Barry recalls meeting 10 patched gang members, who raised the same issues as everyone else.

3. Māni Dunlop (Post): Video shows Labour candidate Kerrin Leoni at Mongrel Mob event – but not ‘gang pad’ (paywalled)

Labour’s Tāmaki Makaurau candidate Kerrin Leoni attended an October 3 event advertised as a fundraiser for the Mongrel Mob’s Rogue chapter, according to footage obtained by Whakaata Māori, the Post’s Māni Dunlop reports. Leoni had denied in a debate that she visited the gang pad Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara attended, and says this was a whānau function. Chris Hipkins, who barred Green and Te Pāti Māori MPs from the police and corrections portfolios over their visit, has not been asked specifically about the October 3 event.

4. Isaac Davison (Stuff): Chris Hipkins ‘can’t recall’ past support of gang-led programmes

Chris Hipkins now says he can’t recall saying, as prime minister in September 2023, that his Cabinet had considered limiting government contracts with gangs but found it would do “more harm than good”, Stuff’s Isaac Davison reports. Hipkins now calls funding gang-led programmes a mistake. A Cabinet paper on government contracts with gangs, released under the Official Information Act, is completely redacted. Davison notes the gang-linked Te Kahukura programme received $2.75 million, and a previous National government funded a similar scheme involving the same Mongrel Mob chapter.

5. Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Election 2026: Inside New Zealand’s voter enrolment crisis and why Labour is so worried (paywalled)

Labour volunteers in Manurewa have sent 1104 enrolment forms to the Electoral Commission this year, suggesting about 28% of the electorate’s 3903 new enrolments came with Labour’s help, the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan reports from the doorsteps with MP Arena Williams. Just 48.6% of Manurewa’s 18-24-year-olds are enrolled, against 66.7% nationally. Since the coalition’s 2025 law change closed enrolment 13 days before polling day, volunteers spend more time enrolling than persuading. Labour calls it suppressing voting; the coalition says everyone has the same ability to enrol.

6. Nick James (Post): Electoral Commission will need to enrol 107,000 voters in just three days to match 2023 election (paywalled)

The Electoral Commission would need to enrol 107,368 more people before enrolment closes at midnight on Sunday to match 2023’s rate of 94.7%, the Post’s Nick James reports. As of October 21, 92.05% of eligible voters were enrolled, and just 68.6% of 18-24-year-olds, against 77.2% in 2023. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the coalition’s law change is needed to cut the number of special votes and the time taken to count. The commission has increased advertising in electorates with low youth enrolment.

7. Matthew Hooton (Post): Labour needs its voters to give Opportunity 5% (paywalled)

Labour can only return to power if Opportunity reaches 5%, and it now needs its own voters to get it there, argues the Post’s Matthew Hooton. He says Labour appears to have lost nearly 200,000 voters since about March, mainly to the Greens and Opportunity. On the Post/Freshwater numbers, a shift of just 0.5% of voters from Opportunity to either National or Labour would re-elect Luxon’s coalition 62-58, so those on the left urging Opportunity voters home are serving Luxon’s strategy.

8. Tom Day (1News): Analysis: The real roadblock to Opportunity isn’t Luxon, it’s Peters

Even if Christopher Luxon dropped his rule-out of Opportunity, Winston Peters may be the bigger roadblock, argues 1News’ Tom Day. Asked after the Herald’s Powerbrokers’ debate whether he could sit around a Cabinet table with Qiulae Wong, Peters said: “No, I can’t.” Day notes Peters has mostly been clear before elections about who he will work with, and Wong’s whole campaign is built on being everything Peters isn’t. National’s four-point jump to 32% in the 1News Verian poll still leaves the coalition on 60 seats, about three short.

9. David Cohen (Herald): Dame Jacinda Ardern may be gone, but Ardernism is proving harder to evict this election (paywalled)

Dame Jacinda Ardern is not on the ballot, but writing from London, the Herald’s David Cohen argues that “Ardernism” is proving hard to evict. New Zealanders remember affordability pressures, about $100 billion in new debt and Covid fatigue, he says, and Chris Hipkins inherited both her halo and the economic hangover. Cohen writes that neither Hipkins nor Luxon has what David Seymour calls her great gift of emotional intelligence, and that the election will show whether voters have got her out of their system.

10. Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Why the left overhang is overhyped but the right could change the election (paywalled)

A growing campaign by wealthy right-wing donors, including the country’s richest family, to engineer an overhang on the right matters far more than Te Pāti Māori’s strategy, argues Newsroom’s Marc Daalder. In four of the six most recent polls, the right would need an overhang of just three to seven seats to govern without Opportunity, the left 11 to 16, and the left’s overhang is capped at seven. Reality Check Radio has registered as a promoter and distributed what Daalder calls misleading pamphlets urging National voters to back Act or NZ First.

Below the paywall are 46 more synopses and 20 further links. They cover the coalition maths and Opportunity’s rise (and its critics), the fallout from the Mongrel Mob visits, the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey, the enrolment deadline and key electorate races, plus inflation, the LNG terminal, health and the TVNZ strike. And today’s cartoons. Paid subscribers get the full briefing every day, and keep the Democracy Project going.

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News Briefing Top 20 for 22 October 2026

1. Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): CEOs back Luxon over Hipkins on economic growth (paywalled)

The Herald’s annual Mood of the Boardroom report and survey is out. Asked who had the strongest capacity to drive growth as Prime Minister after the election, 65% of CEOs in the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey backed Christopher Luxon and just 3% Chris Hipkins. Luxon leads on integrity (3.6 out of five against 2.7) and, by the widest margin, sound economic management (3.5 against 1.86), but Hipkins scores 3.23 for political management skills, well ahead of Luxon’s 2.31. They rated their confidence that Luxon would lead National for a full term at just 2.27, with 34% giving the lowest possible score.

2. Bill Bennett (Herald): CEOs deliver mixed verdict on Christopher Luxon (paywalled)

Christopher Luxon scores 4.31 out of five for promoting New Zealand business internationally, driven largely by the India free trade agreement, but just 2.52 for his overall political performance as Prime Minister, Bill Bennett reports from the Mood of the Boardroom survey. CEOs rate him 3.2 for delivering on the Government’s economic plan and 3.14 for managing coalition partners, but lower for setting a bold ambition and selling it (2.96), building confidence with business (2.86) and leading a cohesive Cabinet (2.66).

3. Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Erica Stanford rated Government’s top Cabinet minister, Luxon stays outside top 10 (paywalled)

Erica Stanford has again been rated the Government’s top-performing Cabinet minister, with 56% of Mood of the Boardroom respondents rating her ministerial performance as “very impressive”, ahead of Todd McClay (38%) and Mark Mitchell (34%), while Winston Peters slipped from 23% in 2025 to 13%. Christopher Luxon again sits outside the top 10, though Nicola Willis returns in ninth place. Rating the Government since 2023, CEOs scored trade highest at 4.42 out of five, and addressing climate change (2.42) and supporting Māori and Pasifika aspirations (2.21) lowest.

4. Andrea Vance (Post): Christopher Luxon at odds with his own voters over Opportunity rule-out (paywalled)

A new Post/Freshwater Strategy poll finds 57% of National voters believe Christopher Luxon should abandon his rule-out and seek an agreement with Opportunity if he needs its support to remain in power, with just 35% wanting him to stand firm, reports Andrea Vance. Majorities of Act (56%) and NZ First (51%) supporters agree, but 80% of Opportunity voters would prefer the party to back Labour. Opportunity’s support also looks soft, with 23% of its voters deciding only in the past few weeks, compared with 9% of National and Labour supporters.

5. Harriet Laughton (Post): Labour cranks up ad spend as campaign hits final stretch (paywalled)

Labour spent $135,000 on digital ads in the past week, more than eight times National’s $15,820, according to The Post’s analysis of Google and Meta data. Around $33,000 went on a single YouTube attack ad, Don’t Risk 3 More Years, more than double National’s total spend for the week, with the Greens ($25,166), NZ First ($24,758) and Act ($22,000) next. Harriet Laughton also reports who parties are targeting, with Labour focused on renters, first-time property buyers and apprentices, and Paul Henry appearing in every Act video ad.

6. Andrew Geddis (Spinoff): What happens if this tight election delivers a hung parliament?

Andrew Geddis explains what would happen if the election delivered a hung parliament, with 60 seats for each bloc, as one reading of this week’s 1News/Verian poll suggested. He says the chance is negligible, given likely overhang seats and because he knows no-one who believes Christopher Luxon will stick to his Opportunity rule-out. In a true deadlock, the incumbent would continue under the caretaker convention while parties negotiated, and a new election might eventually be needed. Geddis notes the 2023 Independent Electoral Review recommended an uneven number of seats.

7. Rawiri Taonui: Record Māori roll tops huge decline in Māori on general roll

Rawiri Taonui says Electoral Commission figures show the Māori roll has reached a record 315,933, contradicting Winston Peters’ claim that the Māori seats have “passed their use by date”. The Māori roll is now 54,344 higher than Māori on the general roll, where Māori enrolments are down 15,113 since 2023, as the Māori Option and new enrolments favour the Māori roll. Taonui says current numbers should trigger an eighth Māori electorate, but calls youth enrolments on the general roll, 9,892 lower than in 2023, a genuine concern.

8. Tim McCready (Herald): The missing ingredient in Election 2026: A vision for New Zealand

Dentons New Zealand chairman Hayden Wilson says the biggest thing missing from the election campaign is a sense of where either major party wants to take the country, Tim McCready reports. Wilson says both major parties are campaigning on a variation of “we’re not the other guys”, which he believes is probably the primary driver of the rise of minor parties such as Opportunity. He also sees social cohesion as one of the biggest issues facing the country, describing the Treaty Principles Bill as a completely unnecessary distraction.

9. Janet Wilson (Post): Voters should resist fatigue brought on by dreary choice we face (paywalled)

Janet Wilson, who has worked in communications including with the National Party, argues many voters are suffering from what she calls Political Fatigue Syndrome, as both Chrises practise fear-mongering over aspiration and hope. She questions the earlier enrolment deadline, noting just over 66% of 18-24-year-olds were recently enrolled compared with 76.7% at the last election, and says National has attempted to “queer the democratic pitch” while Labour and the Greens objected belatedly. Wilson urges people to vote, arguing low turnout benefits conservative and incumbent parties.

10. Jonathan Ayling (Herald): We trust citizens to choose a government. Surely they can enrol (paywalled)

Jonathan Ayling, an Act supporter and donor, argues the outcry over the earlier enrolment deadline, which closes on Sunday, is infantilising, since enrolling is a legal obligation that takes five minutes. He says it is not politicians’ job to make voting exciting, and that we should expect more of the one in three 18-24-year-olds yet to enrol. Ayling says Chris Hipkins’ concerns about disenfranchisement deserve to be taken seriously, but so does the integrity of the count, citing the Auditor-General’s finding that high late enrolments in 2023 overwhelmed staff.

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Above are today’s ten most important items, free for everyone. Below the paywall, paid subscribers get items 11 to 20 of the Top 20, each with its own synopsis, plus the full News Briefing list of today’s political coverage and commentary. The Democracy Project is funded entirely by paid subscribers, and that support is what keeps much of my work free to read. If you find this useful, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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News Briefing Top 20 for 21 October 2026

1. Justin Hu (1News): Poll: National jumps, leaving Labour’s position perilous

National has jumped four points to 32% in the latest 1News Verian poll, opening a five-point lead over Labour, which slipped one point to 27%, its lowest result since the last election. The Greens rose to 16% and Act to 11%, while NZ First fell to 8% and Opportunity to 7%. Verian’s seat modelling shows the right could govern with Opportunity in either overhang scenario, while the left needs electorate results to go its way.

2. Henry Cooke (Post): Who really runs Opportunity? Inside the party that could pick the next Government (paywalled)

Henry Cooke spends time on the campaign trail with Qiulae Wong and examines who would control Opportunity’s post-election choices. A seven-person board would need a 75% super-majority to approve any coalition agreement, and Wong admits the party has grown so fast that its top 10 have not all been in a room together. Cooke reports on past internal clashes, including former board member Henare Parata’s complaints, and Wong’s expectation that her $30,000 donation cap could be a hard pill to swallow, particularly for Act.

3. Henry Cooke (Post): Final debate: Both leaders stuck in past, refusing to face future (paywalled)

Henry Cooke argues that both leaders spent the final debate stuck in the past, trading blows over 2009 surpluses and Labour’s spending while offering little vision for the future. He says Luxon made the most news by stopping short of pledging to resign rather than call Opportunity, which makes his rule-out much less credible. Cooke criticises both for dismissing overhang questions as hypothetical, pretending to lead the only parties in a world that “ended not in 2009, or in 2023, but in 1993.”

4. Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon’s final debate - who won? (paywalled)

Thomas Coughlan calls the final debate a tie, saying Luxon exceeded low expectations and survived a section on health before Hipkins clawed it back on the cost of living. He cites Health NZ data showing that, by one measure, just under a quarter of shifts were understaffed but about 44% were overstaffed. Coughlan argues the election will be decided largely off-screen, by whether Opportunity falls below 5%, whether overhangs are triggered and whether enrolment drives succeed.

5. Te Ao Māori News: Poll: Tāmaki Makaurau race neck and neck ahead of crucial candidate debate

A Whakaata Māori-Curia poll has Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara on 33% in Tāmaki Makaurau, just ahead of Labour’s Kerrin Leoni on 31% and within the 4.5-point margin of error, with the Greens’ Florence Te Ohaere on 21%. Labour leads the electorate’s party vote on 28%, while Te Pāti Māori’s party vote among decided voters is down 19 points on 2023. The cost of living was the top local issue at 37%, with Te Tiriti chosen by 5%.

6. Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Te Pāti Māori’s dysfunction is a gift to the right

I argue that Te Pāti Māori’s internal conflicts, gang-related controversy and constitutional demands are helping National attack the credibility of a Labour-led government. I contend the party’s priorities are poorly aligned with Māori voters’ economic concerns and that its electorate-only strategy faces stronger competition from Labour and the Greens. In the “Further Analysis” paywalled section I examine how Te Pāti Māori could still wield bargaining power, but would need a credible process for negotiating and sustaining any compromise.

7. Jo Moir (RNZ): Chris v Chris: No mistake, no magic moment

Jo Moir writes that neither leader made a mistake serious enough to change the dial, but there was no clear winning moment either, in a debate marked by personal jabs such as Luxon’s reference to Kiri Allan’s car crash. She notes a long list of agreements in the quickfire round, from treating overhang exploitation as cheating to holding a four-year term referendum. Moir argues the most telling point is that neither can talk unscripted for 45 seconds about their vision for the country.

8. Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Voter suppression? Give me a break.

Liam Hehir argues that calling the Government’s new enrolment deadline, 13 days before election day, “voter suppression” is a misguided import of American political controversy. He accepts the change may discourage some eligible voters and that National could possibly benefit, but says it responds to problems the Auditor-General identified after the 2023 enrolment surge compromised checks on the count. Hehir notes Labour’s own election-day enrolment reform was contested, passing 63 votes to 57.

9. Anneke Smith (Post): Leaders’ debate: Luxon leaves himself some wriggle room on Opportunity (paywalled)

Anneke Smith reports that Luxon left himself some wriggle room on Opportunity in the final debate, ruling the party out again but refusing Paddy Gower’s repeated invitations to put his job on the line. Luxon called the resignation question “ridiculous” and hypothetical. Smith contrasts this with pledges by Sir John Key on superannuation and Jacinda Ardern on a capital gains tax, both of which were kept, and notes Luxon later told media he had ruled Opportunity out long ago.

10. Stewart Sowman-Lund (Post): The Paul Henry Show: A day on the road with Act’s star candidate (paywalled)

Stewart Sowman-Lund follows Paul Henry on Act’s Big Pinky bus through the Coromandel, where the list candidate is packing halls on a schedule that rivals party leaders’. He reports strategic voting has become a daily topic, and Henry told The Post Act’s latest ads lean into that debate, although the party denies they explicitly encourage it. Henry told one National voter: “You could almost argue that every party vote for National is a wasted vote.”

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Above are today’s ten most important items, free for everyone. Below the paywall, paid subscribers get items 11 to 20 of the Top 20, each with its own synopsis, plus the full News Briefing list of today’s political coverage and commentary. The Democracy Project is funded entirely by paid subscribers, and that support is what keeps much of my work free to read. If you find this useful, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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At Te Pāti Māori’s August campaign launch, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told Māori voters: “You have the power to bring this government to its knees.” Two months later, her party keeps supplying National with material for its campaign against a Labour-led government.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that National is recovering in the polls: it is up four points to 32% in tonight’s 1News–Verian poll, which was taken between 15 and 19 October as the backlash over the gang-pad visit played out, while Te Pāti Māori remains under 1%.

Meanwhile, today’s Whakaata Māori–Curia poll also has a surprise result: the Green Party’s Hūhana Lyndon is ahead in Te Tai Tokerau, suggesting that Te Pāti Māori has lost its grip on the seat. Lyndon is on 24%, followed by Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime on 18%, Te Pāti Māori’s Aperahama Edwards on 17% and former Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi on 12%.

A Lyndon victory would be a first for the Greens in a Māori electorate. It is far from assured: 22% were undecided. The poll surveyed 500 enrolled voters between 5 and 15 October, with a maximum margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. But Te Pāti Māori now has to defeat the MP it elected in 2023 as well as Labour and the Greens. It also suggests that Te Pāti Māori’s candidate-vote-only strategy might be backfiring.

Te Pāti Māori keep gifting to the right

The Mongrel Mob controversy shows how Te Pāti Māori’s problems become problems for the whole left. My column last week focused on what the Mongrel Mob photos meant for the Greens, but since then Te Pāti Māori has done most of the talking. A video emerged of the party’s Tāmaki Makaurau MP, Oriini Kaipara, telling gang members that her party’s policies would “reinstate what should have always been”, and yesterday she told RNZ, “you see Mongrel Mob, I see whānau.”

The party’s general manager, Kiri Tamihere-Waititi, called the backlash “manufactured outrage” and mocked Labour’s leader: “It puts old Chippy under pressure and he’s fallen for it”. Having helped create a problem for Labour, Te Pāti Māori’s response is to ridicule the man it wants to lead the next government.

Kerrin Leoni, Labour’s candidate against Kaipara in Tāmaki Makaurau, says the photos are “basically their primary ammunition at the moment, from what I can see on social media”. Similarly, Richard Harman concluded in his column today that “Luxon can thank the Greens and Te Paati Māori for a brief respite from being on the back foot.”

In the Herald leaders’ debate, Luxon said Hipkins had “a new coalition member today, it’s the Mongrel Mob”, and Hipkins responded by ruling Te Pāti Māori and the Greens out of the police and corrections portfolios. Te Pāti Māori is supplying the material for an attack on the entire prospective government.

Te Pāti Māori has made a Tiriti Commission, with the ability to stop Cabinet decisions, a bottom line in post-election negotiations with Labour, which gives National another line of attack. Hipkins has rejected that power. Audrey Young wrote of the demand, “That’s not only a coalition killer, it will make it less likely the parties of the left are elected.”

Two years of dysfunction

These failures come after an extraordinary opportunity. Te Pāti Māori won six Māori electorates in 2023 and reached 7% in a December 2024 1News–Verian poll, following the mobilisation against the Treaty Principles Bill.

By November 2025 it had expelled two MPs, Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris. The High Court subsequently ruled Kapa-Kingi’s suspension and expulsion unlawful because the party failed to follow its own constitution and tikanga. A party demanding stronger constitutional accountability from the Crown should be able to follow its own rules. Kapa-Kingi now leads her own party, while Ferris is standing as an independent in Te Tai Tonga, so the leadership has turned two of its electorate winners into opponents.

Former co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell, who lost his seat when the party was wiped out in 2017, warned in July that it had “lost its way” and “risks being punished once again”. Aaron Smale, a journalist who specialises in te ao Māori issues, argues in the Listener that “The failure was at the top.” Power remains concentrated in one whānau, with Tamihere as president, his son-in-law as co-leader and his daughter as general manager, part of what I described last year as “a Māori-branded variant of elite capture”.

Out of step with Māori voters

Every Whakaata Māori–Curia poll of the Māori seats has found the cost of living to be voters’ biggest issue, at between 29% and 42%, with Te Tiriti named by only 5% to 13%. Yet Te Pāti Māori chose constitutional transformation, rather than economic policies such as its $1 billion energy fund or no tax on the first $30,000 of income, as the thing it won’t trade away.

Even the Tamihere-linked Waatea News published Matthew Tukaki’s warning that “constitutional transformation will mean considerably less to a whānau struggling to pay the rent if nobody in the household can find secure employment.”

Smale notes another telling choice of priorities: when survivors of abuse in state care marked the anniversary of the Royal Commission’s report at Parliament, every party sent a representative except Te Pāti Māori, which told another reporter its MPs had other appointments or were on leave, although “About 80% of the tens of thousands of state abuse victims are Māori.” Yet this week Kaipara told RNZ that “gangs exist because of systemic failures, because of the government of the time creating state care abuse”, in defence of the visit to the gang pad.

Outmanoeuvred by Labour and the Greens

A Mata Reports–Horizon poll of party-vote intentions among Māori roll voters puts the Greens on 28%, Labour on 27% and Te Pāti Māori on 16%, down 14 points since 2023. Tamihere credits the Greens’ surge to his party’s decision to seek only the candidate vote, but the Spinoff’s Liam Rātana argues that the infighting explains more of it.

The overhang-one-tick strategy was meant to help the left bloc win government, with the idea that it could deliver more seats to the left, even if the parties of the right won more votes. An editorial in the Post said the strategy was “within the rules” but “best described as cheating”, once more tarnishing the name of the party. Of course, part of the motive was also to improve Te Pāti Māori’s chances of retaining its Māori seats. Yet the Greens are now competitive in seats like Te Tai Tokerau, and Labour leads in Te Tai Tonga in the Curia poll.

Labour has also become much more aggressive towards Te Pāti Māori. Its campaign chair Kieran McAnulty says, “We’re trying to form a parliament after the election that doesn’t have Te Pāti Māori in it”, and he prefers Opportunity as a partner. Labour is hardly a disinterested judge, since it wants the party’s seats, but the question it is asking is a fair one: even if the overhang strategy produces extra seats, could a Labour-led government rely on the MPs who hold them?

Still in Parliament, but diminished

A repeat of Te Pāti Māori’s 2017 wipeout looks unlikely. Waititi is on 42% in Waiariki, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke on 45% in Hauraki-Waikato and Ngarewa-Packer on 38% in Te Tai Hauāuru, and polls in the Māori seats have been wrong before.

Survival, though, is a low measure of success for a party that entered this term with six electorate seats and a Government that gave Māori voters every reason to mobilise. Last November I wrote that “The demise isn’t just likely — it’s already underway.” The polls suggest I was right about the direction and too pessimistic about how far the party would fall.

The likeliest outcome is a party of three or four electorate MPs with a tiny party vote and only one possible partner, which is campaigning to wipe it out. Its overhang strategy may yet leave Labour needing its votes, which is one reason National is happy to keep Te Pāti Māori in the headlines. If the right is narrowly re-elected on 7 November, the dysfunction of the party that set out to make this a one-term government will be part of the explanation.

Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project

If Labour needs TPM’s votes, what would it have to offer – and how much of TPM’s constitutional bottom line would survive? In the “Further Analysis” section after the paywall I examine the possible deal, the difference between funding a discussion and enforcing Treaty obligations, and whether TPM’s leaders could carry their own party through a compromise. Paid subscriptions support this work.

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News Briefing Top 20 for 20 October 2026

1. Andrea Vance (Post): The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll: A fraction of a point could decide who governs (paywalled)

The latest Post/Freshwater Strategy poll puts Labour on 28.7% and National on 27.6%, with neither bloc able to command a majority without Opportunity’s seven MPs. Andrea Vance reports National, Act and NZ First would win 59 seats, while Opportunity, on 5.4%, could give Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori the narrowest possible 61-seat majority or National a 66-seat one. She notes overhang tactics could squeeze out National list MPs such as Nicola Willis, and 54% say the country is on the wrong track.

2. Ethan Manera (Herald): Former Opportunity Party board members allege toxic culture and bitter internal power struggles (paywalled)

Former Opportunity Party board members tell Ethan Manera of a toxic culture, factional infighting and two abrupt board resignations in the years before Qiulae Wong became leader in November 2025. Henare Parata alleges an informal Wellington faction known as TWGG took over the party’s direction and that he was blocked from internal channels, while Nikki-Leigh Wilson-Beazley says her responsibilities were stripped without explanation. The party acknowledges a “difficult time” but says it has moved on, and that Parata breached its code of conduct.

3. Te Ao News: Hūhana Lyndon leads Te Tai Tokerau poll as Labour tops party vote

An exclusive Whakaata Māori-Curia poll has Green list MP Hūhana Lyndon leading the Te Tai Tokerau candidate race on 24%, ahead of Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime on 18%, Te Pāti Māori’s Aperahama Edwards on 17% and incumbent Mariameno Kapa-Kingi on 12%, though 22% are unsure. Te Ao Māori News reports no Green candidate has ever won a Māori electorate. Labour leads the party vote on 27%, just ahead of the Greens on 25%, and 70% support recognising He Whakaputanga alongside Te Tiriti as a constitutional document.

4. Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Politicians must act on the overhang campaign

I argue that Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins should say, before voting begins, how they would handle organised campaigns on left and right to engineer an overhang. I call on both to condemn deliberate overhang engineering even when it helps their own side, declare whether they would govern on a result that unfairly hands them power, and commit to closing a loophole the Electoral Commission recommended abolishing in 2012. In the “Further Analysis” section I argue that Germany’s 2025 rule is perhaps the “least bad” fix.

5. Tom Day (1News): Could extra seats in Parliament decide the election?

Tom Day calculates that on last week’s 1News Verian poll National would get 34 seats but holds 43 electorates (44 including Papakura), so it would need to lose 11 of them for Nicola Willis to come in as its only list MP. Even losing seven would create a three-seat overhang, he says, potentially costing National Willis, Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith and Gerry Brownlee. On the left, he says Te Pāti Māori’s electorate strategy could produce a four or five seat overhang.

6. Hanna McCallum (Newsroom): Inside The Parents’ Alliance, the new lobby group pushing govt school reforms (paywalled)

Hanna McCallum investigates The Parents’ Alliance, a new education lobby group whose board includes Taxpayers’ Union co-founder and Curia founder David Farrar, former Labour minister Kris Faafoi and chair Cameron Bagrie. She reports its six policies closely mirror the coalition Government’s school reforms, and that its evidence rests partly on a 2025 Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll. Bagrie insists the group is non-partisan and has no major funder, but declines to name the one donor who has given more than him.

7. Richard Harman: Under siege Luxon cops a break (paywalled)

Richard Harman argues the photos of Green and Te Pāti Māori candidates with Mongrel Mob members gave an embattled Christopher Luxon a chance to revive his hardline law and order campaign, with Chris Bishop barely getting a word in at a Hamilton press conference meant to be about infrastructure. Harman also reports that NZ First’s Shane Jones told Auckland business people he opposed Nicola Willis’s tight fiscal policy, saying his party would “intervene at the drop of a hat”.

8. Jamie Ensor (Herald): Labour lacks law and order policy days out from voting starting

Jamie Ensor reports that Labour has not released any distinct new law and order policies with voting about to begin, and that searching its policy webpage for terms such as police or justice brings up nothing. Labour told the Herald law and order was not among its priority areas and its justice policies would be in its manifesto. Ensor notes crime is now the eighth-biggest issue in the Ipsos Issues Monitor, mentioned by 15% of respondents, after peaking at 40% before the 2023 election.

9. Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Labour, Greens and Opportunity: Inside a hypothetical coalition Cabinet (paywalled)

Marc Daalder imagines how Chris Hipkins might share out ministerial jobs in a government with the Greens and Opportunity, a scenario he calls increasingly plausible. On the 1News poll numbers, he says Labour might hold just 11 seats in a 20-person Cabinet, with around six for the Greens and three for Opportunity. Allocating posts by list order, his Cabinet has 16 women and four men, gives Chlöe Swarbrick and Qiulae Wong associate finance, and suggests Green MP Teanau Tuiono as Speaker.

10. Jenna Lynch (Stuff): Pulse of the Nation: Hipkins more trusted to deliver promises than Luxon

A Stuff Pulse of the Nation survey of 616 voters finds 59.1% trust Chris Hipkins a great deal or a fair amount to deliver on his promises, compared with 33.8% for Christopher Luxon, while 26.4% trust neither. Jenna Lynch reports trust in Luxon falls to 13.0% among those who are financially struggling and to 29.0% among women. Luxon tells Stuff voters should judge him on his record, while Hipkins says he is putting the cost of living front and centre.

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Above are today’s ten most important items, free for everyone. Below the paywall, paid subscribers get items 11 to 20 of the Top 20, each with its own synopsis, plus the full News Briefing list of today’s political coverage and commentary. The Democracy Project is funded entirely by paid subscribers, and that support is what keeps much of my work free to read. If you find this useful, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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Dear subscribers

A quick note about another format change I am trialling. From today, the Democracy Briefing column will be shorter, while remaining free to read and complete in its own right. But after the paywall, paid subscribers will receive a longer, essay-style “Further Analysis”, giving me room to explore a closely related question in greater depth.

Kind regards

Bryce

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Democracy Briefing: Politicians must act on the overhang campaign

The campaign by some politicians of left and right to game the MMP electoral system is escalating. This morning, NZ First leader Winston Peters told listeners of The Platform that National’s party votes are “a total waste”. With overseas voting beginning on 21 October and advance voting on 26 October, Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins need to say what they would do about the campaign, and they need to say it before they find out whether the manoeuvre benefits them.

Its advocates dress up the campaign as simply asking people to “split their vote”. An editorial in The Post said Te Pāti Māori’s version was “within the rules” but “best described as cheating”. The Post’s editor-in-chief, Matthew Hooton, likens it to Australia’s underarm delivery against New Zealand in 1981, and says the Mowbray–Brash plan on the right, if it worked to its fullest extent, would be “a bit like bowling the whole innings underarm, not just the last ball.”

How the overhang strategy distorts the election outcome

A party that wins more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to keeps them, creating an overhang that makes Parliament bigger and less proportional. On the left, Te Pāti Māori wants Māori voters to elect its candidates and give their party votes to Labour and the Greens. On the right, people in and around NZ First and Act are urging National supporters to vote for National candidates and give their party votes to Act or NZ First. If either strategy works, the bloc behind it could govern with fewer party votes than its opponents.

National could produce an overhang simply by holding electorates while its party vote falls, which would be an accident of the results. But the organised campaigns are a deliberate attempt to manufacture one, and they may make a difference. On RNZ’s Nine to Noon today, the centre-right commentator Liam Hehir predicted “a record overhang”, including a National overhang of about four or five seats. It could end up being much more serious if the overhang campaigns escalate further.

None of this is illegal. The votes cast this way, and any seats they produce, would be lawful, and Rodney Hide argues that splitting is “MMP working exactly as Parliament wrote the law.” Parliament having written the rule is no argument against Parliament changing it, however.

The parties benefiting must answer for it

The overhang campaign is being carried out in a rather disingenuous way, with some of the parties that will benefit pretending to keep their hands clean. Te Pāti Māori presents its strategy as a way to increase Māori representation. Its president, John Tamihere, told Waatea News: “But we want to make it very clear if you get our candidates in it can create the overhang.” Its official party list contains just one name, general secretary Lance Norman.

Act’s position is more ambiguous. Its new advertisement has Paul Henry telling viewers how to “keep these guys out”, saying the contest is about “the biggest coalition”, while the on-screen text for the electorate vote is blue. Act told The Post’s Nick James that the ad was not an attempt to create an overhang and that it was not instructing people how to vote, and said the blue was one of its own party colours, not a direct reference to National. Its spokesperson, after naming David Seymour in Epsom and James Christmas in Tāmaki as the people to back locally, added: “In other electorates, that may well be a National candidate.”

NZ First is even more enthusiastic about vote splitting. Its candidate and Platform host Michael Laws told listeners today that “any party vote for National you now know is a wasted vote” and that they “may as well burn” a party vote for National. Interviewing Peters, he asked whether the centre-right had a responsibility to defend itself against the left’s strategy. Peters replied that the Prime Minister was “making statements which are just suicidal for the National Party vote”, and that “For every action, there has to be a reaction”.

The argument assumes National will win no list seats. That depends on both its electorate tally and its share of the qualifying party vote. Voters cannot know those results in advance. Advice presented as an obvious mathematical truth is a gamble on both.

Three things Labour and National must do now

National opposes the campaign. Hipkins says “no parties should be aiming to make that happen”, while Willie Jackson has been more accommodating about Te Pāti Māori’s approach: “that’s their business.” Both parties now need to step up their own condemnation, and there are three things they should do to protect the integrity of the electoral system.

1) Condemn deliberate overhang engineering consistently, including when it could help their own side. Although vote splitting by individuals is a legitimate part of MMP, it is unacceptable when organised campaigns direct it specifically to engineer an overhang. Labour and National can point out that what their allies are doing is nothing like the electorate deals of the past. Even The Post’s editorial, which called Epsom “probably the dodgiest example”, said such “little games at the margin are very different” from Te Pāti Māori’s strategy.

2) Declare how they would deal with a result that unfairly hands them power. Nothing can, or should, stop individuals splitting their votes, so Luxon or Hipkins could still win a majority of seats with fewer party votes than his opponents. Would either of them govern regardless, or refuse on principle? The Post’s political editor Henry Cooke has proposed that they jointly promise that “if an overhang is the only path to government, then we’ll ask the Governor-General to call another election instead.” A rerun is no automatic remedy, though, because lawful votes can’t simply be disregarded, and another election under the same rules might reproduce the problem. Whatever their answer, voters should hear it before polling day.

3) Commit to closing the loophole. If one side wins with a distorted result, the other will try even harder at the next election. Neither major party has a good record here. The Electoral Commission recommended abolishing overhang seats in 2012, and the Independent Electoral Review repeated the recommendation in 2023. Successive governments led by both parties left it on the shelf. Andrew Geddis, who was part of the 2023 review, told RNZ the panel thought “we should try to get rid of them, but no one did anything.” Luxon and Hipkins should promise an independent review, or name the fix they favour. Any review should include smaller parties and the public, because a deal between National and Labour is not automatically a democratic improvement. Abolishing the Māori electorates wouldn’t solve the problem either, since an overhang can arise just as easily through National’s general electorates. There is no painless remedy. But that is a reason to begin the work, rather than leave parties to compete over who can exploit the rules most effectively.

Before the votes are counted

Luxon and Hipkins should make these commitments while neither knows whether an overhang will help him. Thomas Coughlan warns that the winner, “particularly if an overhang pushes it over the line, will be tempted to bank the win and not change anything.” If either leader benefits on 7 November, will he still want the rules changed? Voters should hear his answer now.

In the “Further Analysis” section below, I explain why I have changed my mind about Germany’s overhang remedy, and the serious objection that still troubles me. Paid subscriptions support the Democracy Project’s research and analysis. Please consider subscribing to support this work and read the full essay.

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Dear subscribers

Today I’m trying out a new format for News Briefing. Each edition will now open with a Top 20: my ranking of the day’s best political journalism and commentary, numbered from 1 to 20 with the strongest at the top, each with a short synopsis of what it says. After that will be the normal list of curated links.

Here’s how it works. Items 1 to 10, with their synopses, are free for everyone. The paywall then starts, and paid subscribers get items 11 to 20, followed by the full News Briefing as you know it: the complete curated list of links, organised by topic.

Many of you have told me it’s frustrating that so many links are paywalled, and that you’d like to know what’s in them (especially if you’re considering taking out media subscriptions to access them). The synopses are my answer to that. Even if you can’t get past a news site’s paywall, you’ll know what the most important articles of the day say. I’ll review this format and probably make some changes as I experiment with it - please reply and tell me what you think.

Kind regards

Bryce
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1. Adam Pearse and Chris Knox (Herald): Poll of polls: Chances of Labour/Greens/Opportunity win nearing probability of re-elected coalition (paywalled)

The latest Herald-Motu Research poll of polls gives a Labour, Green and Opportunity government a 27.5% probability of forming, slightly behind the 30.6% chance for the current National, NZ First and Act coalition, which was above 80% early this year. Adding Te Pāti Māori lifts the left’s probability to 55.5%. With National on an average predicted 28.5% and Labour 26.5%, Opportunity’s 11 seats would give a four-party left bloc a one-seat majority, assuming no overhang, while the coalition bloc reaches only 59 seats.

2. Richard Harman: Luxon digs himself into deeper hole (paywalled)

Richard Harman reports that Christopher Luxon’s repeated refusal to work with Opportunity is leading to talk among influential National Party members that he would need to give up the leadership if Opportunity were all that stood between National and government. Harman argues a U-turn would damage Luxon’s credibility so much as to make it worthless. Drawing on David Farrar’s electorate-by-electorate analysis, he explains why Paul Goldsmith is now campaigning to win Epsom, with several senior list MPs at risk.

3. Elliot Crossan: Report: Labour’s Fiscal Plan Requires Public Sector Cuts

Elliot Crossan’s statistical analysis of Labour and National’s fiscal plans argues both intend to freeze real per-capita government spending, shrinking the public sector outside health to a record low share of GDP. He calculates that Labour would have to cut real, per-capita spending on public services outside healthcare by 1.2% per year, with new promises and pay equity deepening the squeeze. Given higher superannuation, health and finance costs, Crossan argues “33% is the new 30%”.

4. Harriet Laughton (Post): Consultant spending climbing again as MBIE bill more than doubles (paywalled)

Consultant and contractor spending across the public sector is rising again, reaching $1.303 billion in the past financial year, up $57 million, after the Government’s cuts saved $858m. An Official Information Act response shows MBIE’s payments to Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers more than doubled to $18m, which the ministry attributes largely to two IT projects. The PSA’s Fleur Fitzsimons says departments that showed public servants the door are now paying consultants to do their work.

5. Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): Qiulae Wong, the radical moderate

Hayden Donnell profiles Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong, describing her as campaigning for “a sensible, moderate political revolution” that pairs modest bottom lines with ambitions such as a land tax and universal basic income. Critics including Helen Clark and former Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins question the party’s lack of fixed values, while Wong rejects attacks from both left and right. Donnell asks whether her inside-the-system theory of change can survive coalition negotiations with Winston Peters.

6. Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Election 2026: Something’s gotta give

Tim Murphy writes that at the campaign’s halfway mark National and Labour remain stuck at 28 or 29% in the polls, despite intense campaigning and leaders who engage better than three years ago. He identifies late-week factors that might move votes, including Christopher Luxon’s wrong claim about the minimum wage in the Herald debate and Green and Te Pāti Māori candidates’ selfies with the Mongrel Mob. Murphy says vote-splitting, Opportunity’s fate and the Māori roll party vote are the unknowns to watch.

7. Dileepa Fonseka (BusinessDesk): MBIE changes LNG tender update wording as questions linger over progress (paywalled)

MBIE has twice revised its public account of the LNG import tender, most recently around October 15 to say the Government had instructed it to progress discussions with a preferred provider, with a decision after the election. The Government had originally aimed to sign a contract by mid-2026. MBIE will not name the preferred provider, though BusinessDesk previously identified Clarus and Höegh Evi as likely finalists. Labour’s Megan Woods accuses the Government of trying to cover its failure to deliver.

8. Amy Ridout (Post): Former Free Speech head’s ’useful skill set’ helped set up parent lobby group (paywalled)

Former Free Speech Union head Jonathan Ayling helped set up the Parents’ Alliance, a new parent lobby group whose board includes Cameron Bagrie, Kris Faafoi and Taxpayers’ Union co-founder David Farrar, and was briefly listed as a director. Bagrie says the directorship was “quid pro quo” for Ayling’s work on the constitution, and rejects claims of astroturfing, saying the group has no connection with the FSU or Taxpayers’ Union. Farrar says it hopes to raise around $300,000 over 12 months.

9. Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Opposition parties raise concerns over what they say is voter suppression

Labour and the Greens are accusing the Government of voter suppression as the enrolment deadline nears, with Electoral Commission figures showing only 65.5% of 18-24 year olds enrolled as of 15 October. Chris Hipkins blames the scrapping of same-day enrolment, while Chlöe Swarbrick says the Government made decisions that could potentially disenfranchise up to 400,000 New Zealanders. Christopher Luxon says the Electoral Commission is doing enough and urges people to enrol by 25 October.

10. Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): A large pool of voters who love the outdoors are ready to punish the govt (paywalled)

Danyl McLauchlan argues the coalition’s pro-mining, pro-fossil fuel and anti-conservation agenda has provoked a backlash that is helping the Greens and Opportunity, including among hunters, fishers, yachties and trampers inclined to vote for the right. On current numbers, he estimates a left-wing government with 64 of 122 seats and the Greens as the largest minor coalition partner in MMP history. McLauchlan says the ruling out has at some point become anti-democratic, and suggests splitting the finance and treasurer roles.

The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Above are today’s ten most important items, free for everyone. Below the paywall, paid subscribers get items 11 to 20 of the Top 20, each with its own synopsis, plus the full News Briefing list of today’s political coverage and commentary, and today’s cartoons. The Democracy Project is funded entirely by paid subscribers, and that support is what keeps much of my work free to read. If you find this useful, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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ELECTION 2026 – LEADERS, PARTIES AND COALITIONS
Derek Cheng (Herald): Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong might hold the balance of power in post-election negotiations. What would make her walk away? (paywalled)
Derek Cheng (Herald): Purple vote collapse: Is an existential reckoning awaiting Labour and National? (paywalled)
Andrea Vance (Sunday Star Times): The high-pitched whine of a campaign that can’t connect (paywalled)
Luke Malpass (Sunday Star Times): Christopher Luxon: The man who wanted to win (paywalled)
Andrea Vance (Sunday Star Times): Chris Hipkins: The making of a political survivor (paywalled)
Dita De Boni (Sunday Star Times): David Seymour’s still gleefully singing yesterday’s tune (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Sunday Star Times): The area Labour must win, to win this year’s election (paywalled)
Vernon Small (Sunday Star Times): Safety is not the political currency in 2026 (paywalled)
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): ‘Their core beliefs are a long way to the left of their branding’: David Seymour on what he got wrong about National (paywalled)
Russell Brown (Listener): The worst aspects of a bad government are on display (paywalled)
Anna Thomas (RNZ): ‘It took a while to feel like me again’: A road trip with Marama Davidson
The Civilian: Opinion: I don’t know how to be any more clear. No, really, I don’t. Please help

GREENS, TE PĀTI MĀORI AND THE MONGREL MOB
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The Greens are back in the culture wars
Herald: Kiri Tamihere-Waititi calls backlash to Mongrel Mob hui ‘manufactured outrage’
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): The Green Party gave us an insight into their world of topsy-turvy morals (paywalled)
Richard Prebble: Gangs and politics

ELECTION 2026 – POLICIES AND CAMPAIGN
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): Election ‘26: Good, bad & unworkable policy pledges on the big issues from our political parties continued (paywalled)
Tom Rose (Herald): Greens promise to scrap apprentice training wage, offer $2000 equipment grants
Jenna Lynch (Stuff): Greens want to abolish apprentice wage, offer $2000 grant for tools
RNZ: Greens propose to abolish training wage
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This week’s controversy over Green and Te Pāti Māori politicians posing for photos with Mongrel Mob members has exposed a weakness at the heart of the Greens’ election campaign. The party has climbed to record levels of support this year by focusing on economic issues such as supermarket prices and power bills, while keeping its more contentious social and cultural positions in the background. Those positions haven’t changed, and this week one of them was suddenly at the front of the campaign. The Greens’ economic message has wide appeal, but their stance on gangs is a much harder sell, including to some of the soft voters who lifted them to record highs.

The trouble started when Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam posted photographs of Green MP Hūhana Lyndon, Green candidate Michel Mulipola and Te Pāti Māori MPs Oriini Kaipara and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke at a gang pad south of Auckland, smiling and giving the thumbs up in front of Mob posters and flags. Tam’s caption described a “Mongrel Mob whānau, health and wellbeing election hui with the Green and Māori Party candidates”. The reaction has been intensely polarised.

Part of the reason is that the debate has mixed up three separate arguments. Nearly everyone accepts that politicians should be able to engage with gang members and their families, and nearly everyone thinks the photos were a political blunder, but there is deep disagreement over whether smiling photos and talk of public funding amount to endorsing a criminal organisation. The other reason is that both major parties have their own history of dealing with gangs, which makes some of the outrage hard to take at face value.

From power bills to gang patches

In my column on Monday, I argued that the party’s polling surge reflected its discovery of economic leftwing populism. The Greens were connecting with voters’ concerns about the cost of living and keeping culture-war controversies out of the headlines, and Sam Sachdeva of Newsroom also credits “a disciplined approach to policy and public messaging”. The gang visit has interrupted that progress, and given the Government an issue it badly needed.

RNZ’s political team noted that law and order ranked only eighth in the September Ipsos Issues Monitor, and that Labour had spent the week attacking the Government over delays to children’s chemotherapy at Starship. On the day of the Herald leaders’ debate, Christopher Luxon said Chris Hipkins had “a new coalition member today, it’s the Mongrel Mob,” and in the debate itself Hipkins agreed, when asked by the moderator, to rule the Greens and Te Pāti Māori out of the police and corrections portfolios. In doing so, he was publicly questioning the judgement of the parties he may need in order to govern. He later told the Herald, “The gangs are perpetrators of misery. Political leaders shouldn’t be cosying up to gangs.”

The response of the Green leadership then made things worse. When the Herald pressed co-leader Marama Davidson on whether the Greens would fund Mob-run drug rehabilitation, she replied, “We are open to funding what works, absolutely.” Audrey Young of the Herald criticised Davidson for “both validating and exacerbating the issue in follow-up stories by resurrecting the possibility of grants to gangs for drug addiction programmes.”

Not a new position for the Greens

Hūhana Lyndon was the only Green MP in the photos, but the party’s response showed this was not a one-off. Davidson’s defence this week was strikingly similar to one she gave five years ago. In May 2021 she and the then Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, spoke at the Waikato Mongrel Mob’s headquarters. At the party’s AGM that August, speaking about her meetings with women associated with gangs, she said, “I will not ever apologise for that,” adding, “I am proud that as a Green Minister I can do what is right and not just what is popular.” This week she told reporters, “We’re proud and we have done that year and year again,” and told RNZ the next morning, “We don’t change who we are as a political party just for the campaign, you know.”

Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was much less comfortable, and the two co-leaders did not appear to be on the same page. Where Davidson was “proud”, Swarbrick would not say whether the visit was a good idea. Asked twice whether she would have advised Lyndon against going, she said, “That didn’t happen,” and that she needed to “understand more of the context as to what has played out here”. She defended engaging with marginalised communities in principle, but stopped short of defending the visit itself.

By Friday both co-leaders appeared frustrated by the continued questions and were trying to get reporters to focus on the cost of living again. Swarbrick said, “It is what it is.” When one journalist tested Davidson’s argument about engaging with all communities by asking whether the Greens would also talk to Mexican cartels, she challenged the question by asking the journalist, “Are you okay?”

The Greens cannot assume their supporters welcome the association. A Curia poll from October 2023, republished by David Farrar this week, found only 7% of Green voters had a positive view of the Mongrel Mob, and 82% a negative one. Farrar’s conclusion was that “Green voters are smart and get it. Green MPs do not.” The poll didn’t ask about engagement or rehabilitation funding, and it can’t tell us what the party’s newer supporters think. RNZ says the Greens’ growth “almost certainly includes some soft centre-left voters, who may have previously voted Labour”.

Earlier this year I described a Green Party that seemed “more interested in pronouns and Palestine than power bills and polluted rivers”. This year’s campaign, under the slogan “For All of Us”, has been about economic issues instead, and Davidson used the same language this week, saying the Greens must “create an Aotearoa that works for all of us.” The Greens’ economic campaign is about standing up for ordinary New Zealanders against powerful interests such as the supermarkets and power companies, and that message is popular. Gangs are different. Many ordinary New Zealanders, including in poorer and Māori communities, see gangs as one of the powerful forces they need protecting from, and they expect politicians to take their side against the gangs.

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:

• “Three arguments about gangs, and where the real divide lies”

• “National and Labour have worked with gangs too”

• “Where is the evidence?”

• “Who pays the electoral price?”

• “Principle or poor judgement?”

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