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.
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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?
@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.
This is great, Rimu!
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.
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
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…
