I've been taking notes since 2023. Here they are, grouped by depravity level (subjective, yes, I know) and sorted by date within each group. Please share this widely as the election draws near. The last 3 weeks of the campaign are crucial and when this information will make the most difference.
Where possible the minister responsible is noted although really they are all collectively responsible.
It's a lot. As you get into it your eyes will glaze over a bit and you'll start skimming. Try to sit with each item and really feel it.
High Depravity
- Resume oil exploration - An environmental item from 4 November 2023 attributed to Everyone; Labour & Greens banned offshore oil exploration in 2018, and this repeals that ban.
- Treaty referendum - From 8 November 2023, driven by David Seymour.
- Increase smoking addiction and death - health action from 1 December 2023; Chris Bishop used to be a lobbyist for the tobacco industry which explains a lot.
- Landlord tax cuts - action from 12 March 2024 delivering a $2.9b tax cut for landlords.
- Bad insulation - from 18 July 2024.
- Reduced pay for women - employment action from 8 May 2025, driven by Brooke van Velden.
- 100,000 homeless - A housing action, in progress since 1 June 2025, attributed to Everyone.
- More fossil fuels - action from 1 June 2025, attributed to Simon Watts.
- End emissions reporting - environmental action from 15 August 2025 by Simon Watts; three major emitters no longer have to report emissions, making the whole exercise useless.
- Gut Zero Carbon Act - action from 6 November 2025, attributed to Simon Watts.
- Abolish regional councilors - An environmental action from 25 November 2025 by Chris Bishop, sharply reducing environmental protections.
- 2026 and still building fossil fuel infra - An environmental item from 9 February 2026 by Simon Watts, concerning an LNG import terminal.
- Abolish the ministry for the environment - An environmental action, in progress since 16 February 2026, attributed to Penny Simmonds.
- Change law to prevent climate lawsuits - An environmental action begun 12 May 2026, attributed to Paul Goldsmith.
- Fast track corruption - action from 26 May 2026, attributed to Everyone.
- Highest homelessness in history - housing action from 28 May 2026, attributed to Everyone.
- MMP referendum - A society action, in progress since 6 August 2026, driven by Chris Luxon.
Medium Depravity
- Houses unaffordable - A to-do housing item; more sprawl means higher rates and more driving (no start date recorded).
- Pollute rivers and groundwater - An environment/health action currently in progress starting from 2023.
- Encourage sales of gas guzzlers - An environmental item from 31 December 2023 attributed to Everyone; repealing the Clean Car Discount that taxed large utes and subsidised EVs and hybrids.
- More roads, more cars - An environmental item from 31 December 2023; the more roads you build, the more people drive, the more emissions there are.
- Remove first home buyer subsidy - action begun 5 June 2024; during the election they had promised to keep this subsidy.
- Block Otago water rules - environmental action from 18 October 2024; Otago wanted to limit water takes from rivers but the government stopped them.
- Seabed mining instead of windmills - action from 18 October 2024.
- Fucked up ferries - action from 12 December 2024.
- Regulatory standards bill - An action in progress since 1 February 2025, driven by David Seymour.
- Boot Camp - action from 7 November 2025.
- Reject Climate Change Commission recommendations - action begun 4 December 2025, attributed to Simon Watts.
- Constitutional vandalism - human rights action from 12 April 2026, attributed to Everyone.
Low Depravity
- Cancelled Lake Onslow battery - environment/energy action from 4 December 2023 by Simeon Brown, made before the feasibility study could be completed.
- Remove the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax - environment/transport item from 31 December 2023.
- Increase road deaths - A to-do transport item from 31 December 2023; raising speed limits means more people will die on the roads.
- Richard Prebble appointed to Waitangi Tribunal - action from 18 October 2024.
- Importing Russian oil - An action in progress that started 11 November 2025.
- Criminalise Rough Sleeping - housing action from 23 February 2026, driven by Paul Goldsmith.
- Rejection of WHO pandemic rules - action from 7 April 2026, attributed to Simeon Brown.
So there you have it. The last 3 years have been a trainwreck that was especially hard to watch - taking notes during it was my way of coping. I hope it makes a difference.
Once again, please share this with anyone capable of changing their minds. And/or bookmark this, you'll need it later.
There will be SO much that I missed out. Education and health is a true mess at the moment but that's not where my attention goes a lot of the time. Please add what you have in the comments, with a news link if possible.
20 Comments
Dave@lemmy.nz · 4 pts · 8d
Great job collecting all this. Some of those Low Depavity ones may understate the damage.
Cancelling Lake Onslow is bad, but strongly related is the billion dollar LPG storage facility that is their plan for dry years. Replacing renewable with fossil fuels, against the advice they sought.
They didn't just increase speed limits, they cancelled the who Road to Zero plan. Instead of "people shouldn't die on the roads" we get "some people should die to allow faster transport of goods" and I'm barely paraphrasing. And this ignores that it doesn't actually allow faster transport of goods, once you account for the delays caused by the fatal accidents.
Then the rough sleeping one... it's criminal not to have a home. Coming from the government that significantly cut Kaianga Ora's funding to build state housing. And they want to selectively enforce it, so it's ok if you're white I guess?
mwt@mastodon.nz · 3 pts · 8d
@rimu Cancelling the Dunedin hospital was a pretty big one. To a lesser extent, messing with the plans of the Nelson hospital.
I'll look up links and such later - the PSA probably has an organised list somewhere of everything related to the public services.
AWOL_muppet@lemmy.nz · 3 pts · 7d
This is great, Rimu!
rimu@piefed.social · 2 pts · 7d
Kinda depressing but also hopefully a good resource!
I really think we have a good chance of a positive result in this coming election. One term governments are rare but so is this level of balls-up so anything could happen.
Let's get this done.
AWOL_muppet@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 7d
I've been keeping tabs on those big hairy news fullas and getting excited but I'm completely aware of the echo chamber and most people's ambience
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 7d
Great list; the only one item I have an issue with is the lake Onslow battery.
Should be under the heading "accidently did the right thing" or "did the right thing for the wrong reasons".
The project was stupidly expensive for relatively little gain. $16B is a lot of solar and wind generation.
In NZ we already have a couple of massive hydro lakes; we just use them incorrectly. Currently we use the lakes as generation assets at base load; rather than generation that can throttle to fill in the variance in consumption.
On average we are using ~60GWh of hydro per day; with the lowest day in the last 6 months @48GWh and the highest @100GWh. We could add 30GWh of base load (geothermal, solar) into the grid and reduce the drain on the lakes. Keeping them full year round. Using the hydro lakes to fill the variable 18-70GWh variability in demand.
To achieve 30GWh/day we would need to add 1.25GW of generation to the grid; in 2024 we added 524MW; the highest yet; we could add the required generation in as little as 2.5 years. A decade or more before the first GWh came out of the hydro lake, at a significantly reduced price.
Ok rant over....
rimu@piefed.social · 1 pts · 6d
Admittedly I lack the technical knowledge necessary to redesign NZ's electricity grid or even make intelligent suggestions.
But what I do know is we are staring down the barrel of climate change fucking everything up and ruining everything good we ever built. Everything is on the line (just not all at once, in inevitable slow motion over decades). So I'm an extremist on this issue - we should be going balls to the wall decarbonising everything all the time, building Lake Onslow, AND $16B of solar and wind, not either/or. And a lot more besides. Some of it will turn out to be a mistake but we must try everything. And so should every other country, but developed ones with lots of money and capability especially. I am unabashadly foaming at the mouth on this. Even so it only got into the 'low depravity' section, heh.
Compared to what I fantasise about, Lake Onslow is the compromise position.
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 6d
I understand the climate emergency also.
But I am a pragmatist at heart; I know we have a set amount of resources to throw at a problem. I would rather we focus on where the biggest gains would be had.
If I had $16B to throw at the energy system:
$16B is a big sum; we could do a lot more with it than one project that will have no gains for over a decade.
A well planned solar project can bring on ~150MW in 9 months; then with rolling crews another 150MW every 6 months after that.
rimu@piefed.social · 1 pts · 6d
Yes I can see how those would be better value for money.
The amount of resources there are to throw at a problem depends on political will. In 2009 when bankers needed money suddenly there was unlimited resources to throw at that. When Bush wanted to start his multi-decade wars -> unlimited. When Trump wanted to start his forever war -> unlimited. And so on.
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 6d
Resources at some point just becomes people to do the work.
rimu@piefed.social · 1 pts · 6d
There is no shortage of people. Basically everyone living in a hot country either wants to GTFO now or will in coming decades. We can have as many people as we want (chances are we'll get waaay more than we want).
Politically, that idea is impossible, yes, I know :)
We can bring in the best and brightest from all over the world in a controlled way now and build build build or we can sit on our hands and deal with millions of desperate refugees all at once, later. We both know which it'll be.
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 6d
Political vision is an expensive investment. Most parties cannot afford to be too visionary; it means that they have to admit they have been wrong for 40 years.
Lets say that Labour; came out tomorrow and said that neo-lib economics is a bit shit really; what they are saying is that "actually we have been wrong since the early 80's; but believe us now, we are totally trustworthy".
New ideas require new voices; I'm an opportunity supporter, because they are bringing new voices into the mix. They are saying "hey, lets listen to the experts, and actually implement their ideas"
Look at the infrastructure policy; it is not much different than the infrastructure commission recommendations. The work had already been done, they are the ones with the confidence (and naivety) to say, lets just do that!
rimu@piefed.social · 2 pts · 6d
Oh yes, absolutely. I worked at parliament for 5 years so I understand the political dynamics. Basically if you stick your head out too high it gets blown off. That's arguably a feature, not a bug.
I know I'm just dreaming.
TOP is the most interesting part of this election, for sure.
worik@mastodon.social · 0 pts · 6d
@absGeekNZ @rimu Do you have an opinion on grid scale batteries?
I do, but I am not any sort of expert
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz · 0 pts · 6d
I'm a big fan.
Batteries are not geographically constrained; modern sodium ion batteries are very safe, so inner city locations are not an issue. Iron flow batteries are also very safe, but not quite as convenient as sodium ion.
Well tuned, they can react to grid events in under a second; thus providing incredible stabilizing for a very reasonable cost.
Physically they can be quite small, if you distribute them around the country. Proving grid resilience in the event of emergency.
On a smaller scale; communities could have 2MWh "local" batteries charged by local solar installations.
worik@mastodon.social · 1 pts · 6d
@absGeekNZ Fascinating thank you
We are talking stationary batteries, so energy density is not so much of an issue, aye?
"sodium ion batteries" are not something I am familiar with. I looked them up on Wikipedia they say nothing I could understand about how often they can cycle. From my (limited) understanding that is the Achilles heel of Li batteries we use in cars, computers and phones. I have a lot of varied experience with them form computers.
....
worik@mastodon.social · 1 pts · 6d
@absGeekNZ
....
My prior (before asking you about this) was "flow batteries" (technically fuel cells I am told). Primarily for their long life and low cost. Except I cannot go out and buy them, I looked. There are some people building them but I have found none available that can compete with the lower capital cost of Li batteries.
I really like the idea of neighbour hood batteries, very hard to do in New Zealand because of the bureaucracy, am I off base?
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 6d
Flow batteries are great at scale.
Pumps, piping, tanks... All scale really well. At small scale flow batteries are not great, you need all the complication of a bigger system without the capacity to offset the cost of that complexity.
The regulatory environment is both more complicated than you realise and not that bad. Neighbourhood scale batteries, could be totally managed by lines company, without involving much in the way of regulatory hurdles. The question is what incentive do they have to install them.
worik@mastodon.social · 1 pts · 6d
@absGeekNZ
> The regulatory environment is both more complicated than you realise and not that bad. Neighbourhood scale batteries, could be totally managed by lines company, without involving much in the way of regulatory hurdles. The question is what incentive do they have to install them.
Yes.
Communities do.
A local trust would probably be pushing up hill to service local solar systems and consumers.
We looked at something similar in Waitati, and there was no way. A big, serious, NO!!
ooo_shiny@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 7d
The ones I’m most annoyed by are the pay equity cuts, the ferries, and the Lake Onslow battery. The general attitude towards environmental concerns also sucks, as does their attitude towards Maori.
Stuns me that people actually think that all the parties are the same because actually no, not all parties do this sort of thing.
Edit: forgot to mention completely f***ing up the health system.