Paul Goldsmith and Willie Jackson's weekly panel with Ryan Bridge was dominated by National's obsession with election campaign tax promises.Greg Flemming broke ranks this week saying clearly he does not believe his Govt made the right move in removing tax rebates on charity donations over $100,000 - not the first time we've seen Greg put his head up to speak out about something he hasn't agreed with.Climate change is here, and NZ needs a plan to increase our resilience to devastating weather events, but is cross-party consensus possible in this current political climate? ++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

Health system in crisis because of National’s choices. Ayesah Verrall joins us to talk about how National has spent the last two years pretending they’ve hired thousands of new nurses but yesterday, they admitted the real number is just 54 FTE across the country, and a decrease in Auckland.Quick, it’s an emergency!  Paul Barlow joins us to take a look at how Open Brief tracks responses to stories involving emergency services and responses to acute incidents like fires, natural disasters and life-threatening events and explore the differences between the way left and right leaning media frame unfolding events.Protests at the PM's public events will becomes more and more common as this Government starts to learn that if they keep themselves cloistered away to friendly audiences or their own events, they people who want to see them pushed will turn up and push back++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

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.++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

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.++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

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 voteQiulae Wong spoke in the weekend about TOP's board overruling the caucus and the hole there seems to be in their UBI plan++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

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 Open Brief shows us in the numbers - numbers which are more public than the vote count in a National Party Leadership challenge.++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

Ginny Andersen joins to discuss National's decision to keep Chris Luxon as leader to going into the 2026 election. How is Labour feeling 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.++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

At the time of setting up the show we have heard there is an unscheduled National Party caucus called for tonight with much speculation over Christopher Luxon leadership so as we write this we genuinely don't know if we will be talking about PM Christopher Luxon, or someone else at the head of the tableMariameno Kapa-Kingi spent some time with Moana Maniapoto talking the difference in leadership style in her new party and if she was at all disappointed that no other wahine followed her out of TPMChris Hpkins did the rounds this morning talking about why he finally ruled out Winston Peters++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

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 staffChristopher 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 etcMight check out poll of polls in NZ Herald, and check out how St John Ambulance is overworked like never before++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

The latest Curia Poll is in with a few surprises that could be outliers or a changing trend ahead.Councils around the country have sat around the table and put forth their preferred options for the Govt's demand to amalgamate. Whether the Govt will agree to their proposals is another story.Nicola Willis has announced a claw back of a loan made to Chorus to fund the roll out of fibre across the country, which will see $700m come back into the Govt coffers, but was not originally agreed to be paid back until 2036.++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/