Stories by Guyon Espiner

Analysis - Labour will count itself lucky the Newshub-Reid Research poll was held for nine days and released the night before MPs returned to Parliament on Tuesday.

Analysis - This assessment may surprise you coming from someone who spends his professional life criticising and critiquing politicians: Over the past 20 years we have been among the best governed…

Analysis - When it comes to tension between the US and China, National and Labour are on the same side. It's the side that, having taken one side on security and the other side on trade, says we…

Analysis - Simon Bridges has been severely tested in the salacious saga of Jami-Lee Ross, but the real plot twist for National doesn't lie here but in the dry prose of the Treasury, Statistics NZ and…

Analysis - There were two big housing stories this week, two quite different approaches to them and one clear signal where the government's focus lies, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - For Simon Bridges, emerging unscathed from the Jami-Lee Ross saga is the political equivalent of escaping from Alcatraz, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - The Respecting New Zealand Values Bill is probably a dead duck that will never get the chance to quack, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - Momentum, clarity and cohesion are essential check-in items for a happy travelling government but right now they are three items of lost luggage for the Labour-led government.

Analysis - If Andrew Little had forgotten how hard it will be to liberalise the criminal justice system, two colleagues reminded him on the very night he began his task, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - The government and business are playing a high stakes game of chicken - the ultimate confidence game, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - The difference between the NZ First vote and the Green vote at the election? Less than one percentage point. The leverage value for NZ First in those 25,000 extra votes? Priceless, writes…

Analysis - Monday's announcement that the government would be spending billions on surveillance planes was in stark contrast to the nurses' placards, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - It's a great bumper sticker. Ban foreign buyers! It's simple, it resonates and appeals to our sense of fair play. But what's the problem we're trying to fix?

Analysis - In recent days Winston Peters has deployed tactics that have sustained him in his decades-long career, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - Labour is happy to call it a "housing crisis" but it doesn't seem to want to act like it's one, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - Labour's first Budget in nearly a decade looked more like National's tenth Budget rather than Labour's first, writes Guyon Espiner.

Analysis - Top marks for symbolism. Te mutunga kē mai o te pai - couldn't be better. But what of policies to deliver for Māori?

Analysis - To outsiders New Zealand foreign policy must look like a riddle wrapped in a mystery, perhaps clear only to the enigmatic Winston Peters, writes Guyon Espiner in his new fortnightly column.