It’s Budget Day - and seeing as this is the Coalition that puts the N in Cuts, and their pre-budget announcements have already said they’re going to make life tougher for tens of thousands of people, while in the midst of a swirling vortex of scandals they hope the budget will wash away from front pages and news feeds - I have suitably low hopes for any announcements of value.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

On the eve of a budget that will show us if the threats at media were empty or fulfilled, if we will see any actual cost of living relief or if million dollar donors will keep getting our tax payer dollars - the IPSOS Issues Monitor has been released to show what voters are most concerned about.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

The International Media Freedom rankings are out and we have again hit our lowest ranking ever. And while the commercial reality of the modern media environment is a big impact on those rankings here in Aotearoa, there are things the government is doing which make it worse and things they can do to make things better if they chose to… which we know this lot won’t.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

Today is the day we remember our towels, fight for truth, justice, reasonably priced love and a boiled egg and the day I’m reminding you all to head to vote.nz to check your enrolment details because we only have 5 months left to do that or we won’t be able to vote if there’s an issue.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

In This Week’s the News, Nicola Willis makes a play for horror villain of the century, Jenny Marcroft makes a play for anti rainbow shithead of the century and it’s taken almost 3 years but National has finally signalled the Act Party is problematic in a small way.  All that and more in this week’s This Week’s the News.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

*This Week’s The News is a satire, based on real news reports. Some comments and representations have been made for comedic effect.

Join me for a new weekly series looking at the 2026 General Election from a serious perspective - as I take us through the most impactful moments of the campaign this week and catch up with Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime to talk changes to Education and the impacts they will have on Tamariki.

With a raft of awful law changes that will make life measurably worse for many different groups, taking up the culture war button NZ First has been pushing and making it easier to keep media and socials complicit - now is the time to crack open those critical thinking and media literacy skills or risk electing another term of the worst government ever.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

An announcement from the Coalition they will fire 9000 people and try to streamline processes with AI is not a surprise considering how often they try to “fix” things and end up costing us more in the long run.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

As they goose step further right every election, ramping up the racism, conspiracy theories and culture war topics, NZ First candidates will swear black and grey they're common sense centrists. So I figured I'd have a look at what modern NZ First considers "common sense" - which seems to be very different to the dictionary definition of it.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026

The research is really clear - when people in charge start saying things that racists see as agreeing with them, we see an increase in racism because those people are emboldened. We saw this play out in two ways over the weekend - downplaying the sundown moments of an octogenarian MP and white supremacists demanding to be heard - and there’s so many actions this coalition has done that reinforce to the worst people that they have valid view points.

Check out www.election2026.co.nz for resources and tools to help you decide on who to vote for.

Why not check out some of my other content - there’s an award winning podcast, a weekly newsletter and more - https://linktr.ee/paul_barlownz

And if you want to support what I do with a donation, you can do that through this link - https://buymeacoffee.com/paul.theotherone

All your support is really appreciated, especially as we push for a change of government in 2026!

©️ Paul… The Other One, 2026