pics

Oh absolutely not. It's a much smaller population and being an island it's got a figurative and literal buffer to the rest of the world.

I have always loved New Zealand. It's like the cooler uncle of Australia minus all the spiders the size of my head.

And it's just a beautiful place. Makes me wanna go frolicking in the mountains with an elf, dwarf and old white guy lol

The world’s billionaires are heading back to NZ

BusinessDesk talked to real-estate agent Caleb Paterson, who works with a number of offshore agents and high net-worth individuals mainly out of the US and UK markets. He said interest had “definitely perked up” since National said it would repeal its ban on foreign buyers.

Foreign buyers, with the exception of Singaporean and Australian citizens, have been barred from owning NZ properties since 2018.

Assuming it makes up the next government, National’s plan would open the door to all foreign buyers to purchase NZ homes valued at more than $2 million, with a 15 per cent foreign buyer stamp surcharge clipped on, from the 2025 fiscal year.

Enjoy paradise while it lasts.

The “centrist” party leader (Winston Peters) is a whole thing that I can’t neatly summarize, but imagine a political party designed to cater exclusively to the oldest & dumbest 5% of voters run by that Monorail guy from The Simpsons

I cant neatly summarise him either, but I have disliked him immensely since he verbally abused myself and some other students at Waikato back in '93

I would characterize it differently.

• Labour was hugely popular, I agree, but the popularity left when Jacinda Ardern left. She was a extremely charismatic figure; and Labour was at the end of two terms (6 years); with the halo effect gone a lot of the poor decisions they made were highlighted (a lot of the times unfairly).
• National along with Act and NZ First, pushed hard on the government debt rhetoric during the last election. Blaming Labour for inflation, which it had little control over, but it didn't matter the populous were hurting from low wage growth and high inflation. They were looking for a change.
• The center right bloc won with a decent majority, though not specular.
• National fucked up hard! during the negotiations with Act and NZ First. Luxon in a rush to form a government; gave away so much it is frankly baffling.
• In NZ politics:
  • The Green Party has stated they will never work with National or Act.
  • Labour have said they will not work with Act.
  • This forces Act to only be able to side with National, from Nationals point of view Act should be a minor player on the right of National.
  • NZ First are a bit of a wild card, Winston Peters the leader is an old cunning and in my opinion untrustworthy ally.
  • Te Pati Maori (TPM) will work with both parties, which ever gives them the most of what they want.
• National could have gone with TPM or NZF along with Act to form a government, they choose to go with NZF and between Winston Peters and David Seymour; got played like a fiddle. In one crazy political power play, Luxon had a meeting setup to negotiate with Winston and David, they didn't bother showing up and made him come to them in another city.

I could go on but, the politics here is just as complex as anywhere else. Overall we have shifted right, further than we traditionally have but not too much further.

The current government has made some truly stupid calls, and has scored a lot of own goals. Their popularity is very low this early in a parliamentary term. They have been in for a little more than a year; if things keep going the way they are, they may be the first one term government we have had in a long time. Our term of 3 years, is short, so most governments get more than one term to show what they are made of.

For anyone is interested in NZ politics, I've been enjoying BHN

Well that's.... Good to hear? Certainly sounds better than whatever shit show the US currently has kicking off.

America's always cranking things up to 11, including fascism.

I'm not gonna pretend I know the exact details of how much of a slide and to what severity each countries election is going. I was nearly saying that it seems global we are in the middle of a shift right is all.

Hilarious that I, in NZ, can't see this!