Barbara Edmonds on National’s Budget 2026 Failure
National says its Budget delivers recovery. Barbara Edmonds says working families, state tenants and public services are paying the price. Can Labour offer something better?

National says its Budget delivers recovery. Barbara Edmonds says working families, state tenants and public services are paying the price. Can Labour offer something better?

Workers must prove their English. Millionaire investors do not. Public servants face AI cuts. Martyn Bradbury takes apart another week of government hypocrisy.

Jobseeker recipients now reapply every six months. MSD can now use automated systems for welfare decisions. Somehow the poorest are always first in line for State experiments.

Nearly 1.2 billion people are living with mental disorders while the planet burns and AI threatens work. This despair is not happening by accident.

National’s vision of AI-powered public services sounds less like innovation and more like automating neglect.

The CTU says Nicola Willis is pushing reckless austerity cuts while gambling on AI and consultants to replace public sector workers.

AI may crash the economy before it destroys humanity, but either way the future is being fought over by billionaires who should not be trusted with a toaster.

From deepfakes to surveillance capitalism, a major journalism conference asks what happens when AI and Big Tech reshape the media itself.

Palantir’s critics warn of militarised AI, surveillance and “technofascism”. So why did National’s Auckland Central candidate work there?

The future of war may already be here. Ukraine’s drone battlefield is changing military tactics faster than governments, generals or ethicists can keep up.