Christopher Bishop

Fantastic news today for Auckland. Draft approval has been given through Fast Track for the Downtown Carpark project. Two towers including a 55-level commercial office tower and 45-level toweryo house up to 160 residential apartments and a 200-room hotel.

The meatballs made it all the way from Sweden to Auckland. The plug-in solar might soon ☀️ When department stores like IKEA open here, Kiwis get the flatpacks, the little pencils, the famous meatballs, the whole lot. But the one thing that could actually shrink your power bill gets left behind on a shelf in Europe. Because in New Zealand, right now, plugging a solar panel into your own wall is illegal. Over in Germany, nobody thinks twice about it. A range of stores will happily sell you a plug-in solar kit. You stand it on your balcony, plug it in, and your power bill starts shrinking that same afternoon. More than a million German homes already do exactly this. So let’s fix that. The idea is beautifully simple. Plug-in solar - or balcony solar - is a panel or two, a small inverter, and an ordinary three-pin plug. No roof work and no drilling. You plug it in, point it at the sky, and it turns free sunshine into cheaper power while you get on with your day 🔋 And cheaper power is the whole point of this. If you own your home, it’s the easiest, lowest-cost way yet to start knocking real money off your bill. If you rent, and nearly a third of Kiwi households do, this one’s for you too. You’ve been locked out of solar for years, not because your roof is wrong, but because it isn’t yours. Plug-in solar doesn’t care whose roof it is, and the day you move out, you unplug it and take your savings with you 📦 Every sunny hour it runs is power you’re not buying from the grid. That’s money staying in your pocket, week after week, year after year. ☀️ Purchase a plug-in solar kit 💡 Turn free sunshine into a smaller power bill 🏠 Own or rent, it works either way 📦 Moving house? Unplug it and bring it along We’ve got the sun, and other countries have already proven it’s safe and it works. The only thing standing between Kiwis and cheaper power is an old rule that needs to be looked at and changed. That’s why under National, work is underway to enable plug-in solar where it’s safe to do so. Get the safety standards right, then let Kiwis plug in and start saving. Would you plug one in? Let me know in the comments 👇 Cheaper power, more choice, and control back in your hands. It’s all part of National’s plan to fix the basics and build the future 🩵

Labour now claiming ‘new research’ shows their claim about Accommodation Supplement is a ‘landlord subsidy’ is correct. Except the paper they’re citing doesn’t analyse the question of whether AS increases are passed through to tenants or landlords, which is the precise issue.

Great win by the Black Caps at the Oval. Astonishingly it is just the 7th time we've won a test in the UK; the first since 2021. Brilliant from Matt Henry.

The two-over-pub makes the world’s best neighborhoods.