Ryan Bridge: The real message in the Government's fuel plan

The most interesting thing about the fuel ration plan has nothing to do with fuel rationing.

Read the Q & A script the Minister's office provided and you quickly realise this thing will probably never see the light of day in any practical sense.

Trump would probably need to drop a nuke for us to get there.

Karl du Fresne: Mallard in Fantasyland?

I attended two sessions at the Featherston Booktown Festival on Saturday. One, on the state of the news media, was almost totally useless. I walked out before it had finished. The other, however, was not only entertaining but produced one of those “Did he just say what I thought he said?” moments from former Speaker and Labour Party minister Sir Trevor Mallard. 

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'd like to take some credit for the end of fees-free

We’re never going to know for sure what tipped the Government into finally cutting the fees-free policy but I would like to take some credit for this show’s part in it.

We have harped on about the need to get rid of that policy for so long that it actually started to get boring, even for me.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 10.5.26

Tuesday May 12, 2026 

News:
Te Pāti Māori splits as Kapa-Kingi forms new party

Te Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi has announced a new political party - named after her electorate.

The MP was expelled from Te Pāti Māori last year, before the High Court ruled her suspension and expulsion was unlawful.

John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson & H.R. McMaster: The GoodFellows on the Genius of the Constitution

The latest episode of GoodFellows is a special one, as it was recorded in front of a live public audience for the first time in the show’s six-year run! Senior Fellows John Cochrane, H.R. McMaster, and Niall Ferguson, as well as moderator and Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen, convened on the stage of Hoover’s Hauck Auditorium before a full house of GoodFellows fans. 

Click HERE to watch the video or listen to the audio.

Mike's Minute: The superannuation debate has become boring

It's hard to believe that superannuation is still a “thing”.

The OECD report told us we need to bump the age.

Nicola Willis told us Friday we have to do something. The Prime Minister then goes on Newstalk ZB and tells us they will campaign, again, on bumping up the age.

We should not be here.

Philip Crump: Work, Meaning and the Long Road Home

In April 2022 Elon Musk was a major shareholder in Twitter and had become engaged in an increasingly fraught public exchange with Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal.

Twitter had just offered him a board seat.

Then Musk publicly questioned whether Twitter was dying. Agrawal pushed back, telling Musk that the criticism wasn’t helping. Musk’s reply arrived less than a minute later.

“What did you get done this week?”

JD: The Climate Mythology and Bias

Guest post on The Good Oil by JD

With Chlöe Swarbrick’s ‘Watermelon Party’ in the news, pushing the current oil price shock as another reason to decarbonise before the apocalypse descends upon us, we should perhaps revisit the climate catastrophe narrative and establish its origins.

But first, for a perspective on the reality of the threat, let’s look at some of the claims that have been made and discredited since Al Gore kicked off the climate change industry in the 1980s.

Ani O'Brien: The importance of a unifying story

Why New Zealand's lack of national narrative keeps me up at night

New Zealand is often described, with a kind of nostalgia, as a small country that functions much like a small town. No one is a stranger and everyone knows everyone. A nation that prides itself on pragmatism over ideology, on fairness over factionalism, and on a belief that despite differences, there exists a common civic identity. Yet that story, never perfect but once broadly shared, has begun to fracture. In its place, a more brittle narrative has emerged. One that increasingly divides the country into competing communities, often framed along Māori and non-Māori lines, each with its own account of history, justice, and entitlement.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - Following the money in 2026

The Electoral Commission released the 2025 annual donation returns yesterday, and the topline figure is the kind of number that should make any New Zealander pause. Registered political parties together declared $14.7 million in donations across the 2025 calendar year. That’s up 40% on the previous year. It’s the biggest non-election-year haul on record under the new disclosure regime.

Colinxy: Reclaiming the West

There are moments when it feels as though the twin cults of Marx and Islam, each with its own absolutist creed, each hostile to the foundations of Western civilisation, are poised to overwhelm the cultural, moral, and institutional inheritance that made the modern world possible.

What follows is not a master‑plan or manifesto, but a set of practical strategies for halting the erosion and beginning the long work of recovery.

Peter Williams: A new look for local government

Are wholesale mergers really the answer?

In 1875 New Zealand had 10 provinces, each with their own government.

We now have 26 provincial rugby unions.

Currently there are 78 local authorities – 12 city councils, 53 district councils, Auckland Council, Chatham Islands council and 11 regional councils.

It used to be worse, much worse.

David Farrar: Vale Judith

Judith Collins was first elected to Parliament in 2002, almost 24 years ago. This is when I first met her, as I was an opposition staffer.

National only got five new MPs in 2002 – Judith Collins, Sandra Goudie, Don Brash John Key and Brian Connell. Three of those five MPs would go on to become National Party Leaders. It was overall a good intake. One, we don’t mention!

Monday May 11, 2026 

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Geoff Parker: Taxpayer Money Should Never Be Allocated By Race

The eyewatering 2024 - 2025 list of Te Puni Kōkiri investment recipients exposes just how deeply race-based funding has become embedded in New Zealand’s public sector. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars are being distributed through programmes available only to Māori organisations, Māori trusts, Māori businesses, and Māori landowners.

This is not welfare based on hardship. It is not assistance based on income. It is funding allocated primarily on ancestry.

Damien Grant: The grand solution Wayne Brown believes has New Zealand’s best interests at heart

“They are all mad Damien,” His Worship the Mayor advised me. I wasn’t certain to who Wayne Brown was referring. We were at his victory party so I assumed he was being dismissive of his supporters but I’d misunderstood. Brown’s irritation was at the wider political class. “Idiots. Most of them.”

There are, Brown believes, sensible, competent and moderate people in both major parties. There are also, he has observed, individuals of less outstanding calibre in the minor parties.

Pee Kay: Equal Rights is Being Quietly Euthanised

Last week, I pulled back the curtain exposing a small fraction of the financial reality of Māori privilege. Today I’m endeavouring to follow the trail to the very source of the decay. Today I’m looking at the systemic foundations that sustain Maori privilege.

New Zealand isn’t just drifting toward a two-tier society, I say we’ve already arrived!

While we go about our daily lives, a quiet revolution is being engineered by the very people sworn to represent us. This isn’t a conspiracy; Oh no, it’s a co-ordinated march toward tribal rule, led by politicians and protected by a shield of complicit media, elite academics, and bureaucratic “gatekeepers.”

Ryan Bridge: NZ's isolation is a blessing and a curse

It'd be easy to draw comparisons and parallels between our upcoming election and the local and federal upsets in Australia and the UK at the weekend.

But New Zealand is a totally different kettle of fish. In part, because, unlike the Brits and the Aussies, we run an MMP system.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Blair steps up his attack on Net Zero

UK

Blair: Britain risks falling behind because of Net Zero

Britain risks “falling behind” global competitors such as the US and China because of Ed Miliband’s net zero drive, Sir Tony Blair has warned. The former prime minister said the UK and EU must abandon their “climate-first, climate-only” approach in favour of cheap and reliable energy.

Colinxy: The Infantilisation of the Citizen

How Bureaucracies and Activist Movements Turn Adults Into Children

One of the most striking features of modern governance, not just in New Zealand, but across the Western world, is the steady infantilisation of the citizen[i]. Adults who were once expected to be treated as responsible agents are now spoken to, managed, and regulated as though they are children in need of constant supervision[ii].

This is not accidental. It is the predictable outcome of a bureaucratic culture that sees itself as the parent and the public as its dependents.