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    Small Steps Promise on Citizenship Reform: The coalition has announced a new policy which is at least a step in the ...
11/03/2025

Small Steps Promise on Citizenship Reform: The coalition has announced a new policy which is at least a step in the right direction on Australian citizenship. No doubt spurred by the grotesque spectacle of Labor’s Tony Burke holding cult-like mass citizenship rallies (complete with voter registration booths) in Labor seats, the coalition is moving to tighten, even just a little bit, the current Weeties-packet approach.The Liberal-National Coalition will introduce a specific section on antisemitism to the Australian citizenship test and establish a dedicated antisemitism task force if elected to government.

This was announced by shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan, who was speaking at an Australian Jewish Association (AJA) online forum.

He said the opposition has comprehensive plans to address rising antisemitism, particularly through immigration and citizenship reforms.

Well, it’s a start. But barely.

What is really needed is a wholesale toughening up of Australia’s citizenship procedures. We should be looking to Switzerland, rather than the US, when it comes to citizenship. Gaining Australian citizenship should not be as easy as it currently is.

While a step in the right direction, the coalition’s approach still reeks of the sort of ‘They Are Us’ Pollyanna thinking that has for too long ruled the immigration roost. Does anyone really think for an instant that this will stop people who hate our values flocking here, where citizenship (and the concomitant welfare) are handed out like sweets in a Western Sydney street after a terror attack?“We will place a specific section within the Australian citizenship test which will deal with antisemitism, and we will have an educational module which will deal with antisemitism,” Mr Tehan said.

“If you become, or want to become, a citizen of this nation, then you will have a specific section that you will need to undertake with regards to antisemitism.”

And absolutely no one will ever lie, that’s for sure!

On the plus side, a coalition government would at least be tougher on the anti-Semitic ticks who’ve already lodged themselves under Australia’s skin.The proposed antisemitism task force would be led by the Australian Federal Police and incorporate ASIO, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, AUSTRAC, Australian Border Force and state police.

Mr Tehan told the event that the task force will have powers to refer visa holders involved in antisemitic acts for immediate cancellation and deportation.

“If necessary, we will amend the section 501 character provisions of the Migration Act to ensure this antisemitic conduct is captured by the law and applies retrospectively for all acts of hatred towards the Jewish community since the 7 October 2023 terrorist attacks,” he said.

The coalition’s plan includes issuing a new ministerial direction to the AFP to prioritise addressing antisemitism, including unsolved crimes such as doxing, display of terrorist symbols, incitement and harassment.

Mr Tehan also confirmed that dual citizens who support proscribed terrorist organisations could face having their Australian citizenship revoked.

A coalition that really wants to win would also consider stripping citizenship even from the local-born children of immigrants, as a last resort. As numerous studies show, second-generation Muslim immigrants tend to be more radical than their parents. Witness the waving of Lebanese and ‘Palestinian’ flags at a Western Sydney high school recently, not to mention the wave of eager-beaver jihadis who flocked to join the Islamic State. To the fury of many Australians, the latter were not just allowed back, but flown in under a cloak of secrecy and will be ‘monitored’ for years, at the cost of millions each to the Australian taxpayer.

So, two modest proposals: anyone who leaves Australia to join a terror organisation is not allowed back and anyone who professes allegiance to a foreign country or an overseas terrorist organisation gets sent there.

There will be the usual squealing about ‘international law’ and a bunch of globalist ‘declarations’, but so what? ‘International law’ is a law of convenience (we had no qualms about breaking it to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, when it suited us). No Australian was ever consulted on or got to vote on the ‘declarations’ that we were signed up to. A more un-democratic process there can scarcely be.

Time to put ourselves and our allies first.
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New anti-Semitism test announced.

    Making Mountains Out of Poll Hills: There are two political truisms that should be borne in mind when considering th...
11/03/2025

Making Mountains Out of Poll Hills: There are two political truisms that should be borne in mind when considering the latest Newspoll numbers and the state election in WA. The first is: voters rarely vote a new government in, they chuck the old one out. The second is: All politics are local. In Australian terms, this is usually translated to mean that state polls rarely have any relevance to the federal government.

Which may be cold comfort to the WA Liberal party as it’s handed yet another thumping at the hands of Roger Cook. On paper, the Liberals won a 14 per cent swing, which in normal circumstances would unseat most incumbents. The problem, though, is the low base they started from. In some seats, the swing against Labor was as high as 20 per cent, yet Labor retained the seat. In Fremantle, there was a whopping 30 per cent swing against the ALP. Tellingly, not one seat swung to the government.

Still, seats are seats, and Cook is sitting high on 41 seats (out of 30 needed to win) against the Lib-National Coalition’s nine. So, it’s not exactly the rebuilding the Liberals were hoping for, but Cook may be in big trouble, come next election. Recent history is littered with Labor state governments who charged to sweeping victory, only to be turfed out or in diabolical trouble by the next election.

But that’s three years and almost certainly a new Liberal state leader away. The focus now is on what the WA result portends for the looming federal poll. Excitable pundits have worked themselves into a lather that this is a sure sign the Albanese government in Canberra can bank on holding seats in WA. Is this so, though? Remember that Anthony Albanese is so on the nose with voters in WA (and elsewhere) that he was more or less barred from the state during its election campaign. Taken with the massive swings against Labor in the state poll, WA seems far from safe ground for federal Labor next month.

Immediately following the WA state election, a new Newspoll landed. While it’s hardly a stellar result for the coalition, there’s no sign of any real improvement for Albanese’s government. Remember: voters almost always chuck governments out. Labor has far more to worry about from the poll than the coalition.Support for Anthony Albanese’s performance as prime minister has lifted but not enough to carry Labor to a winnable position, with a hung parliament still ­looming as the most likely outcome of the federal election now scheduled for May.

An exclusive Newspoll conducted for the Australian also shows a majority of voters don’t believe the coalition is ready to govern after a single term in opposition, despite the Liberal/Nationals maintaining a seven-point primary vote lead over Labor.

The results suggest Labor ­remains short of being able to form majority government, with the election likely to be a race between the two major parties over who could form a minority government with support of independents and minor parties.

Preferred prime minister is always the incumbent’s to win. Kevin Rudd led Tony Abbott in the preferred PM stakes right up to losing the election by a landslide.

What is more interesting in the poll is that voters appear to be firming behind the two major parties.Primary support for both major parties has lifted, with Labor on 32 per cent and the coalition on 39 per cent. This is in line with Labor’s result at the last election, but represents gains of more than three percentage points for the coalition.

The Greens remain on 12 per cent, while there was no movement in support either way for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (seven per cent).

The lift in primary vote for the major parties has come at the ­expense of independents and other minor parties, including the teals, with a two-point fall in ­support to 10 per cent. This is 4.5 percentage points below the last election result, when eight teal ­independents were elected to ­parliament.

This is where things get interesting. The Teal wins were all in what were up ’til then blue-ribbon Liberal seats. The Teals are essentially the ‘Doctor’s Wives’ party: the party of people rich enough and idle enough to virtue-signal their wokeness at the ballot box. But nothing sharpens the minds of the woke rich than money, and with the Albanese-Chalmers economy in such dire straits, many may be having second thoughts. As well, at least two Teal seats are heavily Jewish, and, with the Teals’ at best ambivalence on anti-Jewish violence, a voter backlash may well be looming.

That Labor’s position is indeed as dire as it looks is belied by nothing if not the desperate flailing at opposition leader Peter Dutton by the left media. The Age’s senior columnist (and, quelle surprise! former Gillard and Rudd adviser) Sean Kelly makes ludicrous mountains out of inconsequential molehills, to try and claim Dutton is making poll-deadly gaffes.Dutton has just had four of those events.

The first two – Dutton’s long ago share trading, and attending a fundraiser during a mild squib of a tropical storm – were such non-scandals that nobody even cares. The rest of Dutton’s so-called ‘gaffes’ only serve to underscore how ridiculously out of touch the mainstream media really are.[Albanese criticised] the coalition’s edict that public servants would have to stop working from home, which he said Dutton had copied from America. This policy was the third of the moments that, in a campaign, could have derailed the coalition.

How? Does Kelly really think that the average working Australian frets for a single moment that a clique of elite insiders hauling in grotesque salaries, funded by working people’s taxes, might actually have to show up for work for once?

As for the ‘copied from America’ sneer: that’s pretty rich from a wing of politics who’ve slavishly aped every idiocy of the American loony left, from BLM to anti-Semitism. Spare me.

If that’s the worst Dutton has to worry about, he can be pretty confident about the election campaign.
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MSM try to big up another non-existent Labor ‘poll bounce’.

    The Wailings of a Broken Class: Joakim BookJoakim Book is a writer and professional editor. He holds degrees in econ...
11/03/2025

The Wailings of a Broken Class: Joakim Book
Joakim Book is a writer and professional editor. He holds degrees in economics and financial history.

In “Their Target Is ‘the Very Core of Modern American Liberalism’,” Thomas Edsall – a long-time New York Times columnist I’ve never heard of – is outraged at Trump and Elon’s desecrations. In another recent opinion piece, Edsall, and the editors choosing his title, thinks of the new President and its administration as “a hostile takeover of the federal government.”

Across the pond, the Financial Times’ long-time professional commentator Martin Wolf writes the embarrassingly titled, “In defence of the state.” The same day, in the same paper, Edward Luce subheads a piece with “The world’s richest man is taking a torch to the American state on behalf of Donald Trump.” A few days before that, the New York Times had, dutifully and enthusiastically, reported on protesters calling Trump a “tyrant,” [and] widely describing current affairs as a “coup.”

Let’s not revisit the irony that the very same people, on the very same pages, spent four years shouting that Trump was a threat to democracy for refusing to accept the outcome of a democratic election. Stunningly, then, Wolf – in no uncertain terms – lets us know that what Musk and DOGE is up to now is “a coup”… but Trump winning 2020 “a lie.” (I guess things feel very different when the shoe is on the other authoritarian foot: cognitive dissonance is a powerful force).

But what, exactly, are these credentialed members of the legacy corporate media so up in arms about?

In sum, it’s some aggressive, trolling tweets (mostly by Elon Musk), at most so far a hundred thousand federal employees leaving their jobs (most, supposedly, with eight months’ severance), and the $60-billion-dollar agency that is USAID. If we’re lucky, the Department of Education also.

If these hyperbolic wailings were merely stray coincidences among the intelligentsia, this would be one thing, but since Trump’s inauguration a mere month ago, the legacy media has been flat-out littered with similar such stories, opinion pieces, aggressive-looking videos, protests, indignant university staff, and hysterical bureaucrats.

The timing and the viciousness with which these credentialed members of the commentariat are responding to the Department of Government Efficiency trolls and uncovering of government improprieties is enough to make even the most dispassionate of us outside observers subscribe to some deep state conspiracy theory.

Not only does the anger and vitriol feel coordinated, but it’s undeniably performative: Clearly, they cannot genuinely be this upset over such trifling matters. This little spring cleaning, having already annoyed absolutely everyone in the world of Anglo-American intelligentsia, is but mere a trickle. If shrinking the federal workforce by some single-digit percentages is “taking a torch to the American state,” I would like to know in which segment of the dictionary Messrs Luce, Edsall, and Wolf intend to find the appropriate words for any actual (and urgently needed) reduction of America’s government.

Even if the DOGE team manages to gut the entire USAID (an unlikely feat), that’s only some $60 billion dollars, (i.e., what the federal government spends in about four days). Employee compensation is some eight per cent of total federal government outlays, and so even firing every single person on the government payroll (oh, the glory!) doesn’t move the needle much. (Excuse me, FiscalData.Treasury.gov, but the 2,436 billions spent by the Treasury since October have not been spent “to ensure the well-being of the people of the United States”).

The Financial Times includes this very helpful chart (mis-titled though it may be) in Wolf’s piece – even though the author draws precisely the wrong conclusion from it. Staring at a record-high fiscal size of the US government, he reaches the non-obvious conclusion that America needs more cowbell.

Is it so hard to consider that maybe – just maybe – the never-ending, disastrous growth of America’s public sector is… not good?

The ratchet effect of repeatedly and steadily increased spending as a consequence of crises (usually of the state’s own making), increases the size of government, year in and year out. While it may be dreamy-eyed of us libertarian and hard-money types to think that the US could shrink the footprint of its incompetent, corrupt, reckless, insert-adjective-of-choice bureaucratic class back to those hallowed years of the classical gold standard, this bloating cannot keep growing. The current backlash – while political in nature – is merely one way in which a sane, stable order of things reasserts itself. That line must come down, radically – by hook or crook; by economic crises or political takeovers; or by rich, productive members of society moving their operations and lives elsewhere until the edifice collapses under its own weight.

“Government cannot function without the means to collect taxes,” concludes Luce in pearl-clutching horror from an ideological conviction long since out of date. Judging once more by the graph above, it seems “means to collect taxes” is the least of America’s troubles. Wolf’s appeal to technocrats, specifically in those fields (pharmaceuticals, aircraft safety, dangerous pollutants) where they have recently failed and monumentally overreached, is a most elaborate gaslighting.

He opened his FT article with the powerful sentence, “Civilised societies depend on institutions.” At a high enough level, that’s right – although his continuation, “the most important institutions are those of the state,” is laughable. Moreover, he’s wrong about which institutions, and on which side of “civilized” we find him and these other unsavory characters in legacy media, politics, and the state bureaucracy.

The intelligentsia really feels like they’re in mortal danger. It’s lovely to see.

This article was originally published by the Mises Institute.

The intelligentsia really feels like they’re in mortal danger. It’s lovely to see.

    White House Snubs Climate Talks: Bonner CohenBonner Cohen is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Polic...
11/03/2025

White House Snubs Climate Talks: Bonner Cohen
Bonner Cohen is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, where he concentrates on energy, natural resources, and international relations.

The Trump administration has made another in-your-face move away from global greenhouse gas-reduction commitments by barring US officials from traveling to China to participate in an international conference to draft the next UN climate assessment. Trump is also on the verge of jettisoning an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy that served as the backbone of US climate regulations.

Upon receiving the news that the trip to Hangzhou, China for a Feb 24 to 28 meeting of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a no go, Katherine Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist and senior climate adviser was likely disappointed. Lest anyone miss the message, NASA also terminated its contract with a US-based group of scientists and staff who were working closely with Calvin on the IPCC’s next climate assessment, due to be released in 2029, the Washington Post reported.

The IPCC has issued six climate assessments since the UN body’s creation in 1988. The release of each of these, accompanied by great fanfare, has triggered warnings of dire consequences unless global emissions of greenhouse gases are not substantially reduced. With the absence of American participation in drafting the next report, calls for climate-related sacrifices by governments of other major emitters of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases risk encountering political resistance. After all, if the US isn’t playing, is there really a game?

The shunning of the UN climate working group comes on the heels of Trump’s Jan 20 executive order withdrawing the US from the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, something he had done in his first term, only to have the Biden administration rejoin the pact in 2021. Now Trump is going one step further by scuttling US cooperation in crafting the next IPCC Climate Assessment.

Rather than move away from fossil fuels in the spirit of global climate negotiators, Washington is headed in the opposite direction. Trump officials at the US Army Corps of Engineers, for example, have identified over 600 energy and other infrastructure projects to be fast-tracked under Trump’s day-one declaration of a National Energy Emergency. Projects include an oil pipeline under Lake Michigan, several natural gas power plants, and new liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals on the Gulf Coast.

Abandoning an EPA Regulatory Tool

Of even greater importance is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s Feb 26 recommendation to the White House that his agency repeal an Obama-era finding that underpins EPA’s authority to regulate man-made greenhouse gases. Known as the “endangerment finding,” the policy was rooted in a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, Massachusetts v EPA, that said EPA had the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

Two years later, Obama administration officials at EPA used the court’s decision to limit emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources. Under Biden, the regulations were expanded to include tailpipe emissions (leading to the EV mandate), restrictions on oil and gas development on federal lands and waters, and even household appliances. Other federal agencies and numerous state agencies have cited the endangerment finding when imposing regulations costing billions of dollars.

Environmental groups are vowing to take the Trump EPA to court, aware of the threat that tossing the endangerment finding would pose to the entire climate-related regulatory structure. David Doninger of the Natural Resources Defense Council is optimistic that the Trump administration’s effort will be shot down in the courts.

“This would be a fool’s errand,” he told the Associated Press. “In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court.”

But during his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Zeldin rejected the idea that the Supreme Court had “mandated” that EPA treat manmade carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

“The decision does not require the EPA” to act on greenhouse gases, “it authorizes it,” Zeldin told Massachusetts’ Democrat Sen Ed Markey. “There are steps the EPA would have to take in order for an obligation to be created.”

Markey and Dininger hew to the “science-is-settled” narrative on human-induced climate change, according to which the only question is how rigorous regulations need to be to force the nation into a green-energy transition. Trump calls the whole enterprise a “Green New Scam,” while Zeldin rejects the idea that his agency is legally bound to regulate greenhouse gases.

The forthcoming litigation will probably wind up at the Supreme Court, which in recent years has curtailed administrative agencies’ power to regulate absent a specific congressional mandate. In its landmark 2022 decision, West Virginia v EPA, the high court ruled that EPA lacked congressional authority to issue a rule that led to the closure of coal-fired power plants in the Mountaineer State and elsewhere.

Challenging Zeldin could lead to the Supreme Court’s revisiting, and perhaps even overturning, its 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, an outcome climate alarmists don’t want to contemplate.

This article originally appeared at Human Events and was republished by PA Pundits – International.

Trump officials at the US Army Corps of Engineers, for example, have identified over 600 energy and other infrastructure projects to be fast-tracked under Trump’s day-one declaration of a National Energy Emergency.

  Whānau Ora shake-up: Tamihere-led agency among three losing contracts: Summarised by CentristA major overhaul of Whāna...
11/03/2025

Whānau Ora shake-up: Tamihere-led agency among three losing contracts: Summarised by Centrist

A major overhaul of Whānau Ora will see the three original commissioning agencies lose their contracts,

including the John Tamihere-led agency for the North Island.

The government has awarded contracts to four new agencies, with Ngāti Toa and Ngāi Tahu confirming they are among the successful bidders.

The shift affects $155 million in funding and could put up to 1000 jobs at risk. Whānau Ora leaders are furious, calling the move a political attack on Māori-led solutions.

Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, chair of the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, said they received little explanation for why their contract was not renewed.

Te Puni Kōkiri says Whānau Ora is shifting towards data-driven outcomes and frontline service delivery, with its $155 million budget unchanged.

The NZ Herald reports that Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer calls the overhaul “a political attack on Māori-led solutions,” despite iwi like Ngāti Toa and Ngāi Tahu securing contracts.

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says the government’s priority is ensuring continuity of services, with final contracts set to be signed by the end of April.

Editorial note: The NZ Herald cited Helen Leahy, former head of the South Island Whānau Ora agency, who called the changes unnecessary, saying Whānau Ora was effective while the public service had been negligent. Instead of addressing bureaucratic failures, Te Puni Kōkiri had “dismantled” successful agencies, she said. To understand the cloud of suspicion swirling around John Tamihere, read Graham Adams’ Centrist exclusive ‘Tamihere’s woes.’

Read more over at The NZ Herald

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The government has awarded contracts to four new agencies, with Ngāti Toa and Ngāi Tahu confirming they are among the successful bidders.

  Man Up stages Pride protest, says it’s standing for families: Summarised by CentristDestiny Church-linked group Man Up...
11/03/2025

Man Up stages Pride protest, says it’s standing for families: Summarised by Centrist

Destiny Church-linked group Man Up staged a protest at the Wellington Pride Parade, briefly blocking the event with a haka. At the same time, police maintained a separation between the group and parade attendees.

The demonstration follows backlash over previous Auckland Pride protests, including an incident at a drag event for children.

Critics accused Man Up of intimidation, while Destiny leader Brian Tamaki defended the group, saying they were “making a stand to protect our children.”

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau condemned the group as “not welcome” and accused them of spreading hate and bigotry, but noted that most attendees were unaware of the protest.

Following the Auckland incidents, police cut ties with Destiny’s Man Up and Legacy rehabilitation programmes, which work with men overcoming domestic violence and addiction.

Tamaki now says he will lead a delegation to Parliament to challenge public funding for Pride events and push for greater recognition of parents’ rights and community values.

Read more over at The NZ Herald

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Summarised by Centrist Destiny Church-linked group Man Up staged a protest at the Wellington Pride...

  NZ Herald dismisses Winston Peters’ anti-DEI bill as a distraction: Summarised by CentristNZ First’s push to remove di...
11/03/2025

NZ Herald dismisses Winston Peters’ anti-DEI bill as a distraction: Summarised by Centrist

NZ First’s push to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mandates from the public service has been slammed by the NZ Herald as a pointless culture war imported from the US.

The editorial argues the bill is unnecessary, politically motivated, and ignores real issues like the economy, cost of living, and healthcare shortages.

Peters claims the bill will “put an end to woke left-wing social engineering” and ensure hiring is based on merit, not identity politics. However, critics point out that NZ First previously voted in favour of the same DEI policies it now opposes, with then-deputy leader Fletcher Tabuteau supporting them in 2020 as a way to create a “modern, agile, and adaptive public service.”

Business leaders, including Global Women CEO Katie Bhreatnach, argue that DEI strengthens workplaces, rather than undermining them. She claims that corporate New Zealand is doubling down on diversity, seeing it as a strategic advantage rather than a compliance burden.

The editorial concludes that New Zealand should focus on real issues—not follow the US into a divisive cultural battle. “It might be better if this bill stays in the tin,” the editors write.

Read more over at The NZ Herald (paywalled)

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“It might be better if this bill stays in the tin.”

  NZ’s ‘worst mayor’ calls police on rogue YouTuber over public meeting filming: Summarised by CentristA viral video, ra...
11/03/2025

NZ’s ‘worst mayor’ calls police on rogue YouTuber over public meeting filming: Summarised by Centrist

A viral video, racking up more than 100,000 views in a day, shows South Waikato District Mayor Gary Petley calling the police on a YouTuber for filming a public council meeting.

In the footage, Bruce Simpson of the Xjet YouTube channel, arrives at the council chambers with a camera, only to be told he cannot film without permission—despite the fact that the council itself records and controls its own footage.

“Why do you need to film Mr Simpson?” asks the mayor.

Arguing that there is no expectation of privacy in a public space, Simpson responds, “Because the stuff you film disappears like magic.”

When he refused to stop filming, council staff calledl the police. Officers arrive but take no action, confirming that no laws had been broken.

He alleges the council deletes inconvenient footage, including a public ejection and critical submissions, which vanished from its archives after being live-streamed.

Simpson argues this is why the council avoids using YouTube, opting instead for a costly private streaming service. He argues this allows them to quietly erase embarrassing content.

He suggests his independent filming threatens their ability to control what the public sees.

Simpson says this lack of transparency is why Gary Petley is New Zealand’s least popular mayor, according to The Taxpayers’ Union.

Hear more over on YouTube

Image: Mr Thinktank

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“Why do you need to film Mr Simpson?”

  Chris Hipkins overtakes Luxon as preferred PM in latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll: Summarised by CentristLabour lead...
11/03/2025

Chris Hipkins overtakes Luxon as preferred PM in latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll: Summarised by Centrist

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has overtaken Christopher Luxon as New Zealand’s preferred prime minister, according to the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll.

The Taxpayers’ Union called the results “more bad news” for the coalition government, warning that unless it delivers meaningful economic growth, support will continue to slide.

The poll, conducted 2–4 March, shows Labour up 2.8 points to 34.1%, surpassing National, which rose 1.7 points to 33.6%. The results indicate a leftist government could be formed, with Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori projected to secure 62 seats, while the centre-right bloc lags at 58 seats.

Among smaller parties:

* The Greens dropped 3.2 points to 10% (losing four seats).
* ACT fell 2.3 points to 7.7% (down two seats).
* NZ First slipped 1.3 points to 5.1% (down two seats).
* Te Pāti Māori gained 2.1 points to 6.5% (up two seats).

This marks the first time since the election that Hipkins has led Luxon in the preferred prime minister rankings. Hipkins rose 3.1 points to 20.7%, while Luxon dropped slightly to 20.3%. Winston Peters ticked up to 8.6%, David Seymour slipped to 5%, and Chlöe Swarbrick fell to 4.8%.

Luxon’s net favourability fell to -10%, while Hipkins sits at +4%. Seymour’s -28% rating is the worst among party leaders, while Peters sits at -1%.

The public’s mood remains pessimistic, with 48.9% believing New Zealand is heading in the wrong direction, despite a slight improvement.

Read more over at The NZ Herald and RNZ

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