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We had been preparing the story for weeks. A huge research project, a scholarly article in a good journal, a well-known charity behind us.  It was our “I, Daniel Blake” story for New Zealand.  

Last week we watched the worst angles of our nature focus viciously on Metiria’s brave admission of being forced to cheat the system to feed her family, while a far larger story about our homelessness passed by without half the attention spent bashing her.

Gareth Morgan’s Opportunities Party is working to appear a radical departure from the status quo. Proposals for a dramatic change to taxation policy and the partial roll out of a Universal Basic Income are a welcome political development. It’s good to have a political party seriously calling for the rich to pay more tax. But despite this, the policy package of The Opportunities Party (TOP) would hurt working people. Behind attention grabbing rhetoric TOP maintains a deep commitment to establishment economics and neo-liberalism.

It’s about priorities and is another way we’re making the choice between Labour and National clear. This election is a choice between Labour’s investment in healthcare, homes and education; and National’s $400m of tax cuts for the top 10%.

Winston is better than this I know he is proudly Maori and he has strong Maori advocates like Pita Paraone, Shane Jones and Ronnie Mark who will be giving him advice and counsel. I hope he listens to them. He needs to remember he’s chasing National voters, not trying to copy National Party policy.

If we want social and environmental change, punishing is not a helpful or healthy philosophy. We require consultation through well-informed and democratic processes focused on the well-being of all people. Talking about abolishing Māori seats in no way contributes to this. It is a deliberate inflammatory device that has nothing to do with cultural literacy in Aotearoa.

Right now, some multinational corporations aren’t paying their fair share of tax in New Zealand. Many are using complex accountancy schemes to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in tax – and leaving it up to the rest of us to pick up the tab.

Dear Minister of justice, I have a complaint about the IPCA and a few comments to make about them to you as well. I heard on Radio NZ that the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) of New Zealand has dropped my complaint into MP Todd Barclay. While I have no doubt as a fellow National MP you will be please to hear this given he is a colleague of yours.

I am unhappy about two aspects of the IPCA handling of this.