#BHN HealthNZ hiring freeze revealed | Luxon STILL out-of-touch | Carmel Sepuloni defends CGT #NZPOL

Despite repeated denial there was a hiring freeze at Health NZ, documents uncovered through the PSA's OIA request have revealed the Health Minister knew vacancies were left open to meet the govt's explicit cost-cutting expectations and stay within budget.

Luxon has shown once again he is out of touch with the people, blaming cycle ways and Labour Party / Green Party aligned council members for Wellington's downer-vibes and people leaving the city. Chris Hipkins in the house also claims Luxon once called National's front bench nothing more that AirNZ middle managers.

Labour's Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni defends Labour's CGT Tax on her panel with Nicola Willis and John Campbell, while Nicola Willis defends her party's attack ads fear mongering about 100 new taxes if the left-block are voted in.

https://www.youtube.com/live/HaOiUURpTN8?si=XOlI7DYxYmJMRhmZ

Helen Clark sat down for a chat with Moana Maniapoto to discuss Winston Peters' role in govt over the decades, and what has changed in politics since she was PM.

Te Pāti Māori have released their election 2026 strategy, abandoning the party vote to focus on winning all of the Māori seats.

Thousands of beneficiaries missed a winter energy payment because of a legislative change made using the fast-track system.

https://www.youtube.com/live/8xqcGaM_J2E?si=IcSv3aNTprC_nIS8

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We're going to go over the weekends 'debate' and we're going to look into the pull out by both David Seymour and Casey Costello and will highlight, in particular, the nonsense that Seymour is spouting over why he pulled out. BHN has also been featured in a few spaces in the press this weekend, we'll take a look at that as well.

Paul Goldsmith on Q&A on move on orders, citizen's arrest and changing the way NZers enroll to vote

Qiulae Wong spoke in the weekend about TOP's board overruling the caucus and the hole there seems to be in their UBI plan

https://www.youtube.com/live/UiTMQjm8ZEI?si=jWev3V7tqFljPQU0

David Seymour today has pulled ACT party participation in the #BHN debates including the one THIS SATURDAY.

and it's because Todd Stephenson got boo'd a bit at the Dunedin Health debate (honestly, go watch the video, it is MILD)

Todd was so offended he told myself and anyone else he spoke to that night that he had a good time.

https://www.youtube.com/live/e90mDT6jCFI?si=EHdQArSWNxeSVCZs&t=8801

Mind you, when you have almost 2 MILLION BUCKS in party bribes/donations why would you face the plebs if they might make you feel SAD

Kieran McAnulty and Chris Bishop on their weekly sit down with breakfast discuss the big news of the week - the attempted coup, putting Luxon's leadership and the party's unity into question.

RNZ reveals each party's ad spend on social media going into this election, of note National has targeted 90 of it's ads solely at men, and just 1 solely at women but lasted only 24 hours.

How does media and commentary frame what happened in National this week? Are there differences or was this an example of media driving the public response? We’ll take a look at what OpenBrief shows us in the numbers - numbers which are more public than the vote count in a National Party Leadership challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/live/_8_3Hnb7CYc?si=Xqn4WgoHlzkXsOBC

Ginny Andersen joins to discuss National's decision to keep Chris Luxon as leader to going into the 2026 election. How does Labour feel about the drama?

Chris Penk was ousted as the leader of the attempted coup, and portfolios taken from him.

Latest 1News Verian Poll released, showing small parties are holding a lot of power going into the 2026 election.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bMF4pZf4rJA?si=zuCkz0-JPz9N1r-g

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has categorically ruled out working with New Zealand First if elected in November, unfortunately for Labour and Mr Hipkins the response from the media and many voters is "why did this take so long?"

Simeon Brown faced off against Jack Tame on Q&A over the weekend where he struggled to firmly back leader Christopher Luxon and couldn't explain why one of the targets for the health service is to increase staff

Christopher Luxon was on RNZ this morning where he had to explain Nicola Willis' "no new tax on working people" when they are going to reverse the discount to fuel excise tax etc

Might check out poll of polls in NZ Herald, and check out how St John Ambulance is overworked like never before

https://www.youtube.com/live/Gnv0nv9gVqw?si=CCTalIddKk9tw1g_

Tania Waikato joins us LIVE to talk about her exciting and unique campaign to get people on the Māori roll before it closes next week.

The Jobseeker benefit for 18 and 19 year olds is set to be cut later this year, which will affect 2700 young people that are on benefits for health and disability reasons. Louise Upston's responses when questioned in the house says it all about this Govt's priorities.

Qiulae Wong answers Katie Bradford's quickfire questions on the party's stance on the main issues facing NZ.

https://www.youtube.com/live/Lx5N8_yZ5CU?si=nf6IbgZKTuAkgP48

OpenBrief is a NZ website set up to track New Zealand's significant political news, opinion, podcasts and social media — a curated, transparent set of sources, not the whole internet. With OpenBrief you get to see the data behind the narrative. Tonight we have Martin Buhr, the developer of OpenBrief, joining us to talk about why he thinks NZ needs this resource.

For transparency, BHN and OpenBrief are going to be doing some work together over the next 4 months.

Chris Hipkins spent time on the NZ Herald and TVNZ this morning talking about if Labour would work with Opportunity and responding to the National party's apparent, off the cuff, exclusion of Opportunity from the podium yesterday.

Winston Peters was shocked yesterday that Tova Obrien uttered the words "opal sex" when referencing Shane Hones' "kneepads" comments from their conference last weekend and the two sparred over what is, and isn't, appropriate in an interview question.

The Free Speech Union has made their final death knell of irrelevance where they have some out against a journalist using their free speech to ask questions, and defended a government appointee with, what some think, is a chequered past, but we have seen this from astroturf lobby groups in the past

https://www.youtube.com/live/8x_CyAtJT2g?si=1_S6v0NwXA7MTFvQ

Chloe Swarbrick was on Q&A in the weekend with guest host Tova O'Brien in what seemed like a bit of a waste of an interview where Tova seemed to want to be pedantic about singular words rather than debate the themes and play contrarian rather than investigator.

In the most ironic interview of the election season so far, David Seymour wants to calm the farm when it comes to critiquing coalition partners and has come up with, what seems on the surface level, as a pretty good idea for the health system.

Christopher Luxon rules out the Opportunity Party ending their potential run to hit 5%

Debate Update and what you need to know about the Big Hairy Debates over the next 2 months

https://www.youtube.com/live/dR59L8Usx9A?si=JtPzHDKbmLEE5GNm

Leighton 'Uncle Tics' Clarke and Josh 'the Tourette's Barber' Hughes join us tonight LIVE at 9pm to talk about life with Tourette's and Felix Shaw's petition to "Recognize Tourette Syndrome as a government-funded disability in Aotearoa" as it's currently not seen in law as a disability in Aotearoa NZ

The ACT Party is accusing Labour of "manufactured outrage" after it complained about new candidate Paul Henry's participation in a risqué radio game. "People want politicians who are real," ACT leader David Seymour said. "Not ones that pretend to be outraged." In the past, David Seymour was very keen to be offended when TVNZ Breakfast shot salt at a Trump doll. Hypocrisy?

Kieran McAnulty and Chris Bishop were on TVNZ's Breakfast show this morning talking about Stuart Nash's history of awful behaviour. They also then covered off how with that history, NZ First still saw fit to have him as one of their candidates and took a moment to mention the other NZ First MPs who have also said some shocking things but seem to be safe in Luxon's cabinet

https://www.youtube.com/live/n_pniqJbII0?si=wXWIyyNZzBF03r1O
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Politicians across the spectrum are expressing disgust at NZ First candidate Stuart Nash as he attacks his National Party opponent in the Napier electorate for taking maternity leave - naming her as the “laziest MP I have ever come across”. Christopher Luxon called it "sexist" and Chris Bishop said the comments from Nash were “disgusting”

Finance Minister Nicola Willis says while inflation has been largely driven by fuel prices, rates are also an issue that needs attention and she, and National, are trying to sell the idea that it wasn't for the external pressures like the closure of the Strait of Hormuz then inflation would only be at 2,9%...funny I can't remember National giving Labour a pass on external pressures and allow them to celebrate what inflation WOULD BE if it wasn't for COVID.

The Climate Change Commission has found New Zealand is not on track to meet domestic climate change targets, but the Prime Minister says he disagrees. Mr. Luxon said that his Government would respond to the Commission’s latest emissions monitoring report, but “our position is really clear ... we’re on track to deliver EB budget 1, EB budget 2. There’ll be more work for EB budget 3, but we’re on track to deliver net zero and we might even deliver it a little earlier”

https://www.youtube.com/live/NraV4FV2NPU?si=KlEJlABQB4_wPxKE
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The Green Party is proposing sweeping energy reforms, aimed at slashing household power bills and stripping market dominance from major electricity corporations with the establishment of a new publicly owned electricity entity named Kiwipower which would compete directly with the four major electricity providers, which control over 85% of both retail and generation markets, and build a more resilient network with the funding of solar power schemes.

Christopher Luxon was very clear on RNZ this morning that when their budgets changes because "we take our costings as best we can at the time" and that "construction costs bounce around a lot" that is fine, but if Labour's budgets say for ferries or Auckland light rail change then it's a mismanagement from a feckless government.

P aul Henry has announced his candidacy for the ACT Party list. He says while the decision came together quickly, he wants to be in parliament to create a better future for his ten grandchildren. He joined Jack Tame to discuss what that future might look like.

https://www.youtube.com/live/hEDhN6SK5_4?si=Iaaa5Oe7KAPxpZlu
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