The Daily Blog Predictions 2026

It’s officially 2026 and it’s time to peer into the crystal ball and make some guesses on what the coming year may bring.

ECONOMY:

The NZ Economy: I don’t think most people appreciate how bad the economy actually is right now. We have free market capitalism cheerleaders, we don’t have economic journalists. They always have to be upbeat and optimistic to channel the animal spirits of free market capitalism. Because the NZ Herald derives so much of its income from property speculation advertising, their never ending mantra is, ‘there’s never been a better time to buy’.

Pop the bubbly, the economic recovery is here (finally) – Liam Dann

The most recent GDP figures that showed a near standstill in the economy (it fell 1% GDP then gained 1.1%) is in contrast with the Half Yearly Fiscal Update which showed Debt has exploded and the pretend date of surplus is now 2030.

The Polar Ice Caps will melt before Nicola Willis gets us into surplus.

The Government have borrowed more than Labour have, (despite Labour’s excuse being a once in a century pandemic), but the extra borrowing hasn’t been for public services!

Nicola Willis is a wide eyed Free Market acolyte (which is why the pretend fight between her and Ruth Richardson is Right Wing Performance Art and the intellectual equivalence of the sound of one hand clapping). She believes with a religious fervour that if you cut back the State, the market will step in and do it cheaper.

This austerity has worked in the past because private debt was so low, it’s not working now because private debt is so high!

Bernard Hickey makes this very point…

The Luxon-Willis doctrine for the economy is to repeat the recipe adopted by both National and Labour Governments after recessions since 1990. They have constrained growth in Government spending to reduce public borrowing in the expectation that this will help interest rates fall even further. In turn, this was designed tempt households and businesses to step forward and replace debt-funded Government stimulus with private stimulus for the economy in the form of spending, investment, employment and wage growth funded with mortgages and business or farming loans.

It worked in the wake of the 1990/91, 1997/98, 2007/08 and 2020 recessions because firstly businesses (1991-2000 & 2002-08) and then households (especially from early 2000s onwards) were able to reinvest profits and/or borrow significantly more to pump extra money through the economy and fire up growth in consumer spending and house-buying and building.

That increase in household debt was possible and encouraged through the early 2000s as banks unshackled from lending and capital controls increased household debt from 60% of disposable income in 1990 to almost 180% by 2009. Since 2013, the Reserve Bank has restricted household borrowing through Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) and now Debt to Income (DTI) Ratio controls to reduce financial stability risks.

…State cut backs so the private sector can step up doesn’t work like it did in the past because private debt is so high now!

So while Willis has borrowed MORE than Labour, she’s borrowing it not for public services (which she has underfunded to their need), she’s borrowing it for tax cuts we can’t afford, landlord loopholes, Big Tobacco and the Oil and Gas industry!

National’s decision to smash Labour’s infrastructure pipeline last year has had a cascade impact on the whole of the Economy and they are scrambling to try and right the waka before we capsize.

New Zealand has always been 3 huge sparsely populated Islands that has always required the State to step in as the 40% foundation stone. National are trying to smash that up and hand over the funds to private interests, the way they are in Health.

The latest stats show Trucking, business investment and the delivery economy all slowing post the GDP numbers which alongside a weak retail season and more migration all spells for real trouble over a slowing first quarter of 2026.

Luxon promised us ‘growth, growth, growth’ last year, all we got was more people fleeing.

Those green shoots of recovery are going to quickly look like the dried snot of desperation.

Banks, Property Pimps, Big Polluters, Billionaires, Monopolies, Duopolies and Oligopolies will do well: The Crony Capitalism that dominates NZs economic landscape will continue to make outrageous profits thanks to their donations to the Political Right that lock into place their interests at the cost of the common good. The way the RMA reforms are being sold as helping out the Kiwi Battler trying to build his deck against local Council Nazi rather than the actual reality that it is a guide book for big polluters to bypass any community and environmental oversight highlights the ease with which the NZ public are led to slaughter.

The Global Economy: Thanks to Trump, the planet is now rushing towards war. The global economy is expected to avoid an outright recession in 2026, but growth remains muted and below historical averages, with risks from tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty, and financing pressures. The IMF, the OECD and the World Bank ALL revised their growth predictions down for 2026. The impact of climate change on the global economy is being utterly ignored.

MEDIA:

The Growing Influence of Political Podcasts: The election will be decided upon which Political Party can reach out to male voters who have been alienated by mainstream media and middle class activists who have gone online to podcasts for their current affairs. Politically these podcasts will be preferable to broad mainstream media platforms. If the Left pick up male voters, they can win the 26 Election.

Dirty Politics Media Infrastructure via Taxpayers’ Union Stable of clients: The skill and ease with which the Taxpayers’ Union Stable of clients can manipulate and influence the debate has become impossible to ignore. They are a fake union promoting a fake debate between two neoliberal fanatics that spent a fortune on a Fudge campaign that didn’t even eventuate into an actual debate in the end.

The utter failure didn’t matter, the taking hold of the agenda did.

There is now a well engineered Dirty Politics Media Infrastructure. The Atlas Network provide the social media tips on how to engage and radicalise; the Taxpayers’ Union builds the social media infrastructure to pump these talking points out on; the NZ Initiative influences the Political positions in mainstream media as well as the politicians themselves; The Campaign Company produces the political campaigns, Curia does the Polling, Anti-Vaxxers, Hobsons’ Pledge, Groundswell, Free Speech Union and The Woman’s Rights Party are Identity leeching astro turf activist groups and they interact with Right Wing Hate Trolls to promote the more feral talking points which appear on Right Wing Hate Blog, The Centrist.

They dominate right wing social media in NZ and bridge culture war malice into the mainstream, all while pursuing the interests of big money under the guise of free market purity.

The NZ Political Left have NOTHING to compete against this right wing infrastructure of influence. There is a way to lash something together that could counter this, but no one on the Political Left even appreciates the manner in which the Taxpayers’ Union Stable of clients  have won the propaganda war before the election has even begun.

Jordan Williams is the Draco Lucius Malfoy of corporate influence. Anyone who works for Jordan Williams: The Taxpayers’ Union; NZ Initiative; Atlas Network; Groundswell; Federated Farmers; Campaign Company; Free Speech Union, Hobsons’ Pledge or has numbers in their Twitter handle, should be avoided like cancer.  They are bad faith actors working for corporate interests while arousing your bigotry. Engaging with them is like trying to debate an arsonist about fire prevention inside a house doused in petrol while the arsonist keeps excitingly flicking a lighter. They are a fake union who are pimping for a fake debate between two of the worst neoliberal architects in NZ political history. Why not add Roger Douglas, Milton Friedman and Satan into the mix if we have enough money for AI fudge fantasies?  Engagement is not in your interests. Denouncement is.

The rise of Toxic Right Wing Māori Influencers: Indigenous culture’s everywhere have a shared experience of generational trauma alongside low education outcomes and high social poverty, and Māori are no different.

Include cosmology and mysticism, Māori like all indigenous cultures wounded by colonisation are open to cultural manipulations that manifest in unexpected ways.

Consider the hysteria over Māori anti-vaxxer Billy Te Kahika.

There is now a new generation of Right Wing Social Media Influencers doused in toxic conspiracy claims that parrot Hobsons’ Pledge talking points about ‘Elite Māori’.

70% of the Māori population are under the age of 40, their vehicle for comprehension is social media and these Toxic Right Wing Social Media Influencers are currency in their understanding of the world around them.

The threat their Tikanga Grift pose’s wider Māoridom can’t be under appreciated, especially with the enormous cut backs in funding for Māori media.

Who will fail in ’26? The Spinoff? The Platform? Stuff? Scoop?: As social media continues to rob revenue from traditional Fourth Estate Journalism, we ask who will go under this year?

Will it be The Spinoff? Without the jaw dropping largesse of NZ on Air, all they have left is donor support from their middle class Millennial audience. How many soy lattes are middle class activists prepared to part with when vegan bikes are so expensive these days?

Will it be The Platform with their angry culture war boomer audience that will finally go under? Can they get a deal with alt-Right culture war billionaire Jim Grenon to stay afloat?

Will Stuff go under with their confused ownership model?

Who reads Scoop anymore? It feels like Free View, something that is going to get switched off in 3 months.

Alt-Right Billionaire Jim Grenon turns NZME into alt-right culture war sludge: With Alt-Right Billionaire Jim Gernon about to double his holding in NZME, he will be able to dominate the editorial position of the Herald to turn it into Fox News Lite with Ryan Bridge playing Mike Hosking Jnr on multiple platforms regurgitating Grenon’s alt-right culture war talking points.

Relaunch of The Daily Blog: The Daily Blog is 13 years old this year and we will launch a brand spanking new design and site for the first time since we started. There will be features built into the new site for Election Year that recognise TDBs role as an OG in the NZ Political Media Landscape, we are very excited about you checking it out. We relaunch before Feb.

POLITICS:

Chris Trotter’s Culture War Boomers and the rise of NZFirst Gumboot fascism: Culture War Boomer Warlord Chris Trotter has blazed a trail into the right wing wilderness that Matt McCarten now seems doomed to wander down. Total capitulation to populist culture war garbage aimed against any minority that scares brittle sensibilities and fragile social values do not for a fun time down at Galbraith’s Pub make. In decades to come, the ‘Bittering-of-the-Boomer-generation post-Covid will be a required sociological course in the free community climate change enforced Autarky kibbutz University that all first year citizens wanting to graduate with voting rights will need to take after the polar ice caps melt. Those brave new citizen-students at the Green re-education campus  will attempt to understand why the Boomers walked away from climate change obligations and social equity issues because of unisex toilets. As the afternoon monsoon rain drenches the near tropical climate of Invercargill, these brave new citizen-students will ponder how the environmental hell hole Culture War Boomers left them in was justified because Jacinda had the temerity of saving 20 000 lives. Until that distant time in the near certain future when we can comprehend why so many Boomers went bitter, best to mute and change the channel. We are all looking at you Dr Bryce Edwards.

NZFirst Gumboot Fascism will rise like a toxic fart from Nigel Farage. They are simply the worst. Their mix of redneck cracker philosophy alongside the sexual excitement generated whenever Winston or Shane attacks immigrant MPs, environmentalists or the Treaty mark them out as racist conspiracy theorists who should be avoided at all cost. Their culture war boomer electorate will never turn from their bigotry or petty prejudices. They can not be reasoned with, nor should anyone ever try! The moment you hear a family member is voting NZF, cut them off immediately and sow the space between you with salt. The next time a pandemic occurs that kills Boomers and leaves everyone else ok, we should just let God do his work. The good news is that the millisecond Winston dies, this cult of personality will die too because most culture war boomers are so socially isolated now that they don’t have the emotional skill set to like new things. Once Winston is gone, NZ First is buried with him and lots of culture war boomers will fill that empty space by getting crypto scammed.

The malice of ACT’s libertarian economic and social vandalism: NZFirst voters are lonely old racists scared by eclipses, where as ACT supporters are gleefully willing sadists who burn books with relish and ideological zeal. Most NZFirst voters wouldn’t know what ideological meant, or zeal. What you can excuse in the celebration of ignorance that is NZFirst voters you can’t ignore in the wilful malice of ACT voters. If you are still willing to buy into the race war, public service mutilating, zionist appeasing libertarianism that ACT have displayed over the last 2 years, you are corrupted and infested beyond reason. Aggressive use of napalm is the only solution here.

The weak spinelessness of National: The fiasco over whether Luxon was actually working over the Summer managed to become another minefield for the Prime Minister to navigate. His missing in action routine quickly followed up with a claim he was working from home triggered two issues of hypocrisy, but there is also a background problem Luxon has managed to trip every holiday.

First the two hypocrisies.

His missing in action over the holidays occurred after the Political Right in NZ had been bitching about the length of time Kiwis take off over the Summer Holidays AND after the Government had attacked public servants for working from home.

After shitting on workers for taking time off AND for working from home, the Prime Minister was then off for the Summer holidays AND working  from Home.

It’s good for the PM, it ain’t good for everyone else.

Those hypocrisies aside, Chris has never dealt with Holidays well because of his extreme privilege.

Remember when they tried to claim he was in Te Puke when he was really overseas at his Hawaiian mansion…

Christopher Luxon’s social media suggested he was in Te Puke – he was actually overseas on holiday

…remember how he was taking the housing allowance and kept saying he was ‘entitled’ to it…

PM Christopher Luxon’s allowance saga raises questions about politician entitlements

…remember how he gained personally from changing the rules on capital gains…

‘I’m wealthy and I’m sorted’: PM makes no apology for capital gains on Wellington apartment

…remember how he took the Tesla EV subsidy…

Christopher Luxon heckled to repay $8k Tesla subsidy as Government ditches ‘ute tax’

…remember how he managed to get a rates rebate on his Waiheke holiday mansion…

Christopher Luxon gets rates relief after challenging luxury Waiheke property valuation

…remember when parents complained about the poorly cooked slop ACT had denigrated our school lunches into and his comment was ‘make them a marmite sandwich”.

Remember all that?

Political commentators keep saying Luxon misread’s the room which is utter bullshit!

They all misread Luxon!

He sees his privilege through his prosperity theology paradigm where he has 7 properties because Jesus loves him – his accomodation allowance is a prosperity given to him by Jesus – that’s why he took so long to u-turn!

It’s like Abraham’s blessings but on meth.

It’s what Bishop Brian Tamaki believes in.

The Bish has a huge gold watch, beautiful houses and expensive motorcycles because God loves Brian ever so much he is publicly blessing him with prosperity to bring more souls to Christ.

Hiding your prosperity when Jesus has given you the wifi password to heaven is considered a terrible shame.

For Luxon, him having 7 properties is proof positive that Jesus loves him, and hiding any of the prosperity and privilege that comes with being loved ever so much by Jesus is sinful.

Chris dug his heels in over his EV subsidy and paying himself $1000 per week to hire his own apartment while demanding brutal austerity for everyone else because Jesus loves him dammit!

If Jesus wants to give Chris all these privileges and benefits, then Christopher fucking Luxon deserves everything God wants to give him!

All hail baby Jesus!

If NZ was Air NZ, Luxon only cares about First Class, Business Class and considers joking with the Pilots as working class.

Those in cattle class are the middle classes & those who work outside the plane are the Bottom Feeders who never get to fly.

They exist to maintain the privilege of those who are flying.

This is the new class system of NuZilind.

The shock by almost the entire Press Gallery at how poorly Luxon handled the Accomodation subsidy highlights Luxon’s tone deaf entitled evangelical prosperity theology privilege.

I love how easy it is to read Luxon.

He is a gut politician, his first response to any social issue is a really weird and tone deaf statement that always exposes how genuinely Old Testament conservative Christian he really is with all the fake sincerity of an Air NZ safety advert masquerading as a corporate diversity virtue signal.

Before he was PM, he would walk these statements back in 24 hours, now he is PM, they’ve sent him to an expensive CEO weekend retreat on learning to be dominant to butch him up because Seymour, Winston and the Corporate Interests are having a field day playing him like chump.

That’s why we’ve seen him stick to robotic CEO KPI language and when challenged, simply repeating the same talking points but louder and with a stern look on his face.

The excitement he shows at publishing his Spotify playlist should make us all cringe.

Luxon manages to screw it up every single holiday because his values of promoting his wealth in praise of Jesus leaves him looking as hollow and shallow as Brian Tamaki grifting for a new gold watch.

This is the leader we elected, this is what post Covid bitterness has mutated us into, this charmless rich god freak who sees his well being as heaven ordained.

That the National Caucus are too weak top get rid of the weakest Prime M minister ever shows how haplessly compromised National have become. NZFirst and ACT will continue to cannibalise National into the high 20s.

The importance of a self-mutilating Māori Party: If they can’t work their shit out they will destroy the Left’s chance of winning the election. The best they can hope for is 4 seats that creates an overhang, the worst is they only hold onto 2 seats. Dumping Debbie, Rawiri and JT would leave them utterly rudderless.

The Green’s Last Stand: If the Greens lose their 3rd party ranking to NZ First, they will deserve to be held hostage to a Labour/NZFirst Government. The enormous wave of young people fleeing NZ will have an immediate impact on Green vote so they need to urgently chase that overseas vote. They also need to reach out to the 15% of the non-vote who walked away from voting for Labour and were too heart broken to vote for anyone else. The Greens need to inspire that Labour non-vote into voting Green. If the Greens can’t formulate a Labour + Green + Māori Party Government, it will be our last chance to elect a Government that can actually embark upon the policy shifts and structural hegemony  needed.

The danger of Labour’s Feeble Incrementalism: They just need to sit back, promise nothing and implement a less cruel management team. Never underestimate Labour’s capacity to become very middle class incremental on the big issues. This is why they need to have a searing negotiation process via Greens + Māori Party post the election, they will never do the things needed on their own.

Helen Clark Foundation will continue to provide hope: Without question, the Helen Clark Foundation is the best social/economic think tank we have in NZ and all her work and policy ideas should be adopted by Labour/MP/Greens.

Political Scandal inside Immigration: There will be an enormous scandal inside Immigration that will flash fry everyone involved.

Breaking Winston’s Window: We will find out if the person who broke Winston’s window was a left wing protestor or something else.

Hacking of Election 26: There are so many bad faith actors who will want to test out hacking elections in real time and the chaos it can induce and NZ is the perfect test bed for that type of manipulation. Will we see a deep fake spread days before the election? Will we get bot armies manipulating online discourse? Will we have agents hostile to us use existing social tensions to turn on each other? Seeing as that is happening now on any given Tuesday, I think it’s safe to say we be fucked.

Donations to the Political Right will eclipse anything the Left get: The money men now know they can buy legislation directly from the Right and donations to NZF, ACT and National will surge. Anyone wanting deregulation just writes a cheque to National, ACT or NZF as crony capitalism smothers all free market meritocracy. NZ will edge closer to a Plutocracy.

CLIMATE CHANGE:

Disconnect between catastrophic weather events and news reporting: The disconnect between the catastrophic weather events caused by human pollution and the fact that it is human pollution causing that catastrophic weather will continue to be a yawning chasm. The denial we are in culturally, economically and politically can not stand and must shatter at some stage.

Water: Māori are taking their interests in water to Court again after the Government shut 3 Waters down, expect the Court to be filthy on the Crown and order Māori ownership. Watch Groundswell and the Dark Money astroturf organisations go mental. Expect to see a lot more of Don Brash in your social media feed begging for donations to stop da Maaaaaares.

Biosphere Tipping Points: We are now in the age of consequences and the Tipping Points once crossed can’t be undone. A sudden climate shift could cascade a thousand environmental catastrophes. We are at the wait and see period now, but it will require a focus on adaptation no one will want to hear.

AI:

Benign Overlord or Skynet? What’s it going to be? A benign Overlord who catches disease early and makes you redundant from all white collar jobs causing a cascade failure for the middle classes or a vengeful Skynet God who turns on humanity as punishment for our collective sins? We don’t know yet, but I get the impression that outsourcing our imagination, art and intimacy to AI is probably a very bad idea.

INTERNATIONAL:

Trump, Trump, Trump: The difference between war crime and Genocide tends to be the belief of the person inflicting the violence that God is on their side.

After the assassination attempt, Trump believes God is on his side and he seems to want to repay God by creating a white Christian Super State that includes all of North America, all of South America and Greenland for some reason.

He is an utterly unhinged, narcissistic megalomanic gangster who intends to make $20billion by the time he leaves office – whenever that is. The chances of him invoking the Insurrection Act and bringing about the Handmaids Tale prequel are about 50%.

CULTURE & SOCIETY:

Generational war – Everyone else vs Boomers: The vast intergenerational theft by the Boomers vs everyone else will become more and more stark as the economy continues to falter. Adding in their new lonely culture war pet peeves isn’t helping.

Social Media Hate algorithm All-Tribe-no-Village Polarisation: We hate each other more than ever before thanks to Social Media Hate algorithms. The demented realities some have slipped into make them unreachable. Future study will demand to know why we thought leaving platforms run by tech bro dickheads was a smart use of communication.

Māoridom fracturing generationally: 70% of Māori are under 40, they are a demographic bubble and the poverty many are living in will demand answers and attract many different charlatans. It’s going to get bitter very quick.

CONCLUSION: 

We are here…

…good luck to everyone.

Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.