The Opportunities Party (Top) is surging in the polls! Relatively speaking. Founded in late 2016 by the economist Gareth Morgan, Top failed to reach MMP's 5% threshold in 2017, winning just 2.4% of the party vote. It failed again in 2020 (1.5%) under the leadership of Geoff Simmons, Morgan's former chief of staff, and again last year (2.2%) led by former Christchurch city councillor Raf Manji.
But in the publicly available polls released since the last election, an average of 2.81% of voters would give their party vote to Top. Which is impressive for a party that has no seats in Parliament, no presence in the media, no leader, no deputy leader and no money.
They're working on all of these things. When Morgan launched the party seven years ago, it was presented as a "radical centrist" movement. All of its policies would be evidence based and it could enter into coalition with either National or Labour. Once in Parliament, Top would use this leverage to radically transform New Zealand's economy.
For years, political pundits had speculated about the viability of a centrist environmental party, and climate and decarbonisation were central to Morgan's policy platform. Top's key policies were a universal basic income for families with young children and a massive tax switch, lowering income taxes while imposing an unrealised capital-gains tax on all assets, including houses both ideas beloved of policy nerds and technocrats.
The long-prophesied messiah of progressive centrism had entered New Zealand politics.
Unfortunately for Top, Morgan wasn't interested in winning the votes of policy nerds and environment-focused progressive centrists. He saw himself as a populist in Donald Trump's mould, trying to attract working-class voters, and he went about this by launching attacks on Labour's new leader, Jacinda Ardern.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 20-26, 2024 من New Zealand Listener.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 20-26, 2024 من New Zealand Listener.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
A hint of mermaids
Erin Palmisano's latest novel once again has food and romance at the heart of its well-plotted story.
Execution over innovation
Big and bold ideas are fine, but being the best beats being first.
Something's wrong with all of them
Engaging dissection of the 20th-century novel likely to send the reader in search for the book under discussion.
Cell warfare
A NZ trial using immunotherapy to beat a form of blood cancer is expanding after promising results – and it's hoped the 'gold standard' treatment will soon be widely available.
The virus that stole all the smells
In this edited extract from The Forgotten Sense, Jonas Olofsson traces the rise in anosmia as a result of Covid-19 infections.
When caring is ‘woke'
Some years ago, I sat in a small plane circling over Punta del Este in Uruguay. There was a delay and we sat in tense silence until we began our descent. Outside the tiny airport, a taxi ferried us past private Lear jets; these had been the cause of the hold-up. The driver pointed to two planes side by side. \"This one is a Trump plane.\"
Getting along swimmingly
The presenters of Endangered Species Aotearoa spend a fair bit of time on and in the water in the second season.
That clingy feeling
Our pets display the same types of attachment behaviours as we do, or so it seems.
The famous furred
A peaceful little spot in LA is the final resting place for the pets of some of Hollywood's biggest names.
Gone girl
She wandered in on Thursday morning looking very wan, and climbed into her bed. I sat on the edge and stroked her back.
