G News - The good news

Everyone laughed at David Farrar, Bryce Edwards and Oliver Sean Plunket this evening when their dreams of a 13.7% rise to Act was struck a second mortal blow by the TVNZ 1 News Verian poll that slammed Act back to 8%.

This was the second poll after the recent Talbot poll that made the Atlas Network Curia TPU poll look like an outlier with some seriously wrong about it. Someone should step in and put Taxpayers Union Curia polls under a review - are they meeting the standards?

TVNZ 1 News made a big deal out of a 10% drop for Chippy as Preferred PM and a rise for Choe of 2% - but as you know polls move around a bit and polls in 2024 when the next election is in 2026 are a bit of an academic study.

Naturally the NZ Herald and Newshub headlines are all about resignations but yeah - the next poll will tell a different story...that's what happens.

Perhaps the funniest thing was when David Seymour said we should not read too much into this poll and what it says about the Treaty Principles Bill - after he lapped up the Curia TPU Atlas poll.

Christopher Luxon was booed off the Big Gay out by a number of people exercising their democratic right to protest and Luxon says he gets that - but Oliver Sean Plunket at the Platform was outraged and his glasses fogged up as he lashed out saying half of gay people are pretending to be gay and anyone protesting about Palestine was supporting Hamas.

Christopher Luxon was asked today if someone has cancer will you still sanction their benefit and - because the answer is yes he will - he looked down and away as if the question was too hard.

Luxon used cherry picked evidence that was 14 years old and general spanning multiple countries in 2010 and ignored more recent New Zealand specific MSD evidence that suggested children will go without if sanctions are used too much - but Luxon dismissed this blithering it was about principles when it was not.

National used opaque statistics and correlations to suggest that between 2017 and now there had been a rise in the people on Jobseeker Benefits of 57% but a drop in sanctions of 58% - which was enough for Luxon to try and sell a correlation as causation and leave out the other factors - like say - the pandemic, mental health issues, rising number who are disabled but ready to work.

On a few occasions Upston and Luxon seemed angry and stressed - hectoring and lecturing media as if their coercive fascist jackboot arguments were all about tough love and not just hard right ideological neoliberal dogma.

Chris Hipkins, cool as a cucumber said what national is doing will not bring stable employment because any new jobs found after "checks ins and sanctions" tend to result in short lived employment and before you can say "Oh another poll", the worker is back on the job seeker benefit again.

"That woman reminds me of the warden on the Handmaids Tale", said an organic punga, "Did you see her using anecdotes as evidence?"

"80,000 people have sickness and disabilities and she wants to put them through the grinder in their first 12 months", said a flax bush, "I thought we went to war over this sort of thing?"

"We care deeply" warbled a majestical Tui before yelling "YEAH RIGHT" and flying off to peck at Louise Upston.

Luxon gave a state of the Nation speech yesterday which was so loaded with spin and bluster that we all had a good laugh as Luxon decided the best way to sell a lie was to pretend he was levelling with us and being honest and straight up.

Chippy said Luxon was exaggerating how things were fragile and in decline to find wiggle room cos his tax cuts have never added up - and this is all a performance art - to soften up the reasons why National have to break their promises.

Nobody Reading this is Gerry Brownlee !!!

Hooray !!!

Luxon has attempted to shift the conversation away from this dreadful Treaty principles Bill and shocking flip flopping after an abysmal Waitangi Day.

Media seem sucked in ( especially Jason Walls ) to think it will be a glorious achievement if Luxon completes his 49 actions in 100 days - when in reality - it's all chaos, evasion, anti-democratic and a march backwards to failed neoliberalism in the thrall of the Atlas Network.

The tide is turning on Nicola Willis who thought she was smart to cancel those new ferries - and this played well for the newly minted finance minister, but it was always a risk because Willis made the call without having a plan B. Now the rubber is hitting the dock and Willis is coming under pressure with no new direction.

I've had a quiet day, but Vicki went up to town to see Lachlan our wee grandson and there were some lovely pics of Lachlan and his great grand Dad ( Vicki's Dad )

Monty is doing great and we regularly discuss the situation in NZ Politics as he increasingly seems more and more like Mr Louis everyday and watches TV attentively - especially documentaries and pop music.

I've gotta go and watch some mindless TV with Vicki and Monty now cos it's dinner time.

Have a pleasant evening.

G News - The Good News

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