Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #focusonpolitics, aggregated by home.social.
"People can not afford the basics. They do not want to have to rely on food banks. They do not want to have to come to social services. They want to be able to provide for themselves, from their incomes ..."
#BonnieRibinson, Salvation Army, 2026
Why? Either way we're not talking about growing all our own food. That's possible, on a strict vegan diet, if most of your waking hours involve gardening. But not practical.
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#FoodBanks #UnquestionedAssumptions #FocusOnPolitics #RNZ #podcasts
The Nats are stuck between a rock and a hard place with their vacuous leader;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=9b2d99b4-c151-457e-8dea-47701f053f44
They have a deeply unpopular leader who the electorate have got to know very well. A smug, entitled reciter of empty talking points, fairly unlikable and mostly disliked.
But if Nats replace CLuxon with someone whose personality isn't pasted on, it might lift their party's polling, but either Rimmer or Peters could trigger an early election
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This week's Focus On Politics looked at NZ politicians' comments on Orange Stalin's threats to destroy civilian infrastructure like bridges and power plants, if the Iranian government doesn't give the MAGA cabal what they want;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=9971aef4-ac4d-4585-8a11-cb17f03fd460
Orange Stalin's post on lies.social wasn't just "disgraceful". Threatening civilian populations with violence to achieve political aims is the definition of *terrorism*.
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"As for the government, the plan is now clearer, and they're spending less than ... might have been expected under Labour."
#RussellPalmer, 2026
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=a06dda4a-e2dd-410a-8afc-bf71d5cfa749
I'm sorry, what?
Hasn't your colleague at TVNZ, Jack Tame, reported figures that show NatACT First spending and borrowing *more* than Labour, while *not* governing through a disease pandemic?! Instead giving away huge wads of public money to landlords, corporations, and white elephant projects
"NZers are fair-minded people, we're always focused on helping those in need. But we also need to reclaim our main streets and town centres for the enjoyment of people who live here, people who visit, people who work here, and want to be able to work and operate in a safe and welcoming environment."
#PaulGoldsmith, NZ Minister of inJustice, 2026
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=e5d39797-5bff-4381-96d5-9fbe3f883b83
This made me swear loudly at my longsuffering podcast app
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Intriguing how when it comes to a fossil fuel project, NatACTs can grasp the logic that increasing public spending on infrastructure in the short term can result in future savings for the public;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=9fff2be2-c439-4427-93bc-2c43daf79584
A shame they didn't apply that logic to;
* canning prescription charges
* EV subsidies
* iRex
* hospital rebuilds
* public housing builds
* National Resilience Fund
* etc
... and particularly in this case climate change mitigation.
Speaking of economic astrology ...
"... Without doubt, the number 1 thing is to make sure the economy is growing, and that people are feeling it."
#CLuxon, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=8ea2a808-b255-4337-88d0-1ab609252fde
As a statement, "the economy is growing" is about as meaningful as 'Jupiter is in retrograde'. After decades of financialisation and the FIRE economy, number-go-up in neoclassical economic measures has no relationship to citizens' standard of living.
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"Councils will meet [the state-imposed rates cap], because they would be required to meet it under legislation. It will mean that we are saying no to our communities more often, and it will mean that we are deferring projects that they wanted to see go ahead.
But that might be ok, if it means they've got more money in their back pocket, because their rates bills aren't rising at such a significant rate.
#Tamah Alley, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=3ca9302f-cf98-42e3-b73c-a13df8cd06a5
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Now it seems like we're looking at another round of forced amalgamation of local bodies, with Auckland's "supercity" council as the model. The first step being arbitrarily firing all regional councillors and adding their responsibilities to the jobs of city and district mayors.
Two RNZ shows have reported on this over the last week or so, Focus on Politics;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=ad5c05a5-7472-48fe-b6c8-f13f997ef2aa
... and The Detail;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/the-detail?share=58b425f8-6bc9-4e38-adf8-d9f921904eb9
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"I tried, I'm disappointed too, but I wasn't prepared to hold up the entire Arms Act [rewrite] to fight over it, when there's a good win for everybody in it."
#NicoleMcKee, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=cf65a0e8-c8c6-43a1-82a3-0d61c93372a4
I've made some very strong criticisms of this firearms industry lobbyist turned ACT MP. But credit where credit is due; this is a really generous and pragmatic way for a politician to describe not getting exactly what they wanted from a bill.
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"All Labour has done is chosen a group of people that can be marginalised and be taxed without - they hope - fear of electoral retribution."
#MattBall, NZ Property Investors Federation, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=72dfab42-b0de-46f3-9958-29494bf53211
You mean Māori? Beneficiaries? Women getting pay equity? Unionised workers? Trans people? Oops, sorry, he's taking about *Labour* there. My bad.
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The Tories are virtue signalling around climate policy to shore up their rural vote;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=0fdf10db-6e5c-4b60-a29d-0acfd02449e0
But considering all the things they could have done - and that ACT and Winston First would have done given the chance - what they've done is pretty weak tea. Which suggests a significant majority of kiwis support strong climate protection policy, and NatACT First know it.
#podcasts #RNZ #FocusOnPolitics #ClimateChange #AgriculturalEmissions
Political talking points - or "key messages" as Nicky Hagar called them in The Hollow Men - are a cancer on political communication. Expressly designed to allow politicians to make public statements without actually *saying* anything.
There's some great examples in yesterday's FOP on RNZ, where CLuxon and Rimmer vomited up and ate the same verbal hairballs they've been retaining since 2023;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics/2025/FOCUSDISCONTENT
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People talking about fixing an economy that's bleeding out, with more cutting of regulation and public spending, is like a doctor proposing to save a person who's bleeding out, by doing more bloodletting.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=3bb48a4d-e5cb-4fd1-bd2b-209f8458de06
Wow, the world is really waking up to the reality of Bibi's New Clothes;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=36b614ea-2ca6-43a1-a900-293694ea3e30
Intriguing to compare the rhetoric that led up to Irish independence with the rhetoric around the recognition of Palestinian statehood. Right down to the way they used the IRA as an excuse to refuse independence. Avoiding talks for handover to a transitional government by accusing people involved of being with the IRA ("we don't negotiate with terrorists")
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"I'm not taking any lectures from frick'n Chris Hipkins."
#CLuxon, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=e209c491-f7d1-421e-abf2-a68afd0c9b0b
Ooh, the nice guy mask is slipping. CLuxon is rattled!
The NatACTs are running scared. Which is presumably why they've turned to blatant voter suppression, in a desperate attempt to avoid being turfed out in 2026.
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/07/an-attack-on-free-and-fair-elections.html
"In references how in the past, major drug seizures would have a clear impact on consumption. That's no longer the case. According to the National Drug Intelligence Bureau, there was a 96% increase, in 2024, of the minimum annual consumption of methamphetamine compared to 2023."
#LillianHanly, Political Reporter, RNZ, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=0f53fc3a-0d35-4a91-8a3d-e6cdd4ed7d2a
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#podcasts #RNZ #FocusOnPolitics #DrugProhibition #WarOnSomeDrugs #meth #NDIB
"This is the trickle-down budget. This is the no ambition budget. This is the ask the lowest paid working women in this country to pay the cost of your unequal economy budget. This is the 'let them eat cake' budget."
#ChlöeSwarbrick, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=e8279efb-5185-496b-9924-5b293c6710eb
Preach.
Most depressing podcast episode ever. According to the results of the latest Reid Research Poll (now funded by RNZ), after watching the Coalition of Chaos screw up over and over again for half a term, half the country seems to think they deserve a second one;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=54c19a5d-55a9-4b58-8259-2398f733aaf5/
It's like trying to get a friend to leave their abusive partner. A bouquet of economic green shoots and a promise things will get better, and months of beatings are forgotten.
"China has the largest navy in the world."
#JudithCollins, Minister of Defence 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=bff71632-e2e7-4fb6-9482-9155d53aeb5e
You'd hope a defence minister would know, but that's news to me. When did China's navy outstrip the size of the US Navy?
Winston Peters interviewed after his diplomatic visit to China;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=bff71632-e2e7-4fb6-9482-9155d53aeb5e
He sounds tired, and started off the interview unusually subdued.
"Facing falling poll numbers and focusing squarely on growth, the prime minister's agenda this week has faced multiple distractions ..."
#FocusOnPolitics, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=7c8fabc8-d15a-45b3-84e8-8db9ecd120ce
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"The government also announced its plans to overhaul the school lunch program, only for ACT leader and disproportionate influencer David Seymour to reveal he had the pallette of a preschooler."
CraigMcCulloch, 2024
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=336fa4b2-fe44-4e0f-8081-e731727f7276
"Real democracy is one person, one vote, one opportunity to submit ..."
#DavidSeymour, 2024
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=6d064b47-5ac2-450f-9a12-c0ab983e5df5
No Rimmer. The core idea of democracy is that government can only be legitimate with the full, informed, and *ongoing* consent of the governed.
As Thomas Jefferson put it;
"... to secure [our] rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/jefferson-on-the-right-to-change-one-s-government-1776
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In yet another example of NatACT First's determination to put foxes in charge of every henhouse in the country, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk is overseeing a return to a system where builders certify their own work. Instead of having it signed off by an independent expert.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=04dadcf1-6e70-4e3b-8fa3-54351c1eb8ca
Those with convenient cases of political amnesia may not remember that we moved away from this kind of system after the leaky buildings debacle.
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... and the attempted fire sale of public infrastructure begins.
Kudos to the councilors who united across the political spectrum to block the sale of the public stake in Wellington Airport, held in trust by the Wellington City Council;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=0bf2aca9-a697-41a1-9c1a-15bd5025d826
I have to wonder what kind of kompromat the city's "green" Mayor was threatened with, to get her to front the bid to sell. Yet another sign of how deeply compromised some greens have become.
When I heard Winston Peters talking sense about the UN resolution demanding Israel withdraw from occupied Palestine, I thought I'd flipped into a parallel universe, where Winston First decides policy based on verifiable facts and consistent political principles;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=26999a4d-c479-4ed7-a241-57d918ee41e1
... then he moved on to domestic policy and the political gaslighting and doublethink returned to normal levels 🙄
#podcasts #RNZ #FocusOnPolitics #Israel #UN #Palestine #TwoStateSolution #WinstonPeters
Maybe we need a long term decision-making process for #infrastructure spending that isn't hostage to the shifting political winds?
What if any capital spending projected to span multiple governments needed a supermajority in Parliament? Or to pass a referendum at an election? Either way, politicians would be forced to take a nonpartisan, long term approach to planning, building and maintaining infrastructure.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=84797662-137a-49de-a8c6-42e15eb957b6
"Gangs peddle misery and intimidation throughout our communities, and *this* government is determined to give police and the courts the powers *they need* to deal with them."
Some NatACT First demagogue, 2024
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=c7b58d8c-3428-4c83-b0a6-b1da92866f10
These governing parties peddle misery and intimidation throughout our communities, and this population is determined to take back the powers *we* need to deal with them.
The Grocery Commissioner's report presents unambiguous evidence of a total market failure. Does David Seymour speak out against the aggressively anticompetitive gangsterism of the supermarket duopoly? Does he condemn their outright fleecing of customers, with dishonest price labels?
Not a bit. He ignores it all, in favour of a bunch of mealy-mouthed reputation laundering on behalf of the duopoly;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=4b92d4e2-186c-44f9-9489-743c733003aa
#podcasts #RNZ #FocusOnPolitics #NZPolitics #ACT #DavidSeymour
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