John Robertson: The New Zealand Army Has Been Hijacked...

.....quietly, structurally, and without democratic consent. What should be a disciplined, secular fighting force has drifted into something else entirely: an institution requiring its personnel to participate in a belief framework they may not share. This isn’t about language or symbolism; it’s about compelled conduct.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 29.3.26

Saturday April 4, 2026 

News:
Preparing for reforms: new co-chairs for Regional Leadership Committee
News from Greater Wellington Regional Council Te Pane Matua Taiao
Regional council chair Daran Ponter and Ngāti Toa Rangatira Chief Executive Helmut Modlik will chair the Wellington Regional Leadership Committee (WRLC) for the 2025-28 triennium. While appointed as chair and deputy, the two will act as co-chairs.

Ani O'Brien: More advice ignored, Hipkins prioritised vaccine targets over safety

What the documents reveal about dose spacing, myocarditis risk, and political priorities

You can read my first dive into the Official Information Act requests here.

In this article, I focus on the tension between what evolving evidence and medical experts were advising about the spacing between first and second doses of the vaccine and the decisions regarding spacing made by the New Zealand Government, plus the way promotion of the vaccine may have breached law.1

David Neumark: The Minimum Wage Is a Dead End

Policymakers and voters care about reducing inequality and poverty, although they have historically disagreed about how to do this. In recent years, though, higher minimum wages having emerged as one of the most—if not the most—politically popular approaches to supporting low-wage workers and low-income families.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - Luxon’s reshuffle reveals a PM punishing rivals and rewarding loyalists

Christopher Luxon has announced his election-year Cabinet reshuffle. Chris Penk and Penny Simmonds enter Cabinet. Cameron Brewer and Mike Butterick become ministers outside Cabinet. Simeon Brown picks up energy. Paul Goldsmith gets the public service. Louise Upston becomes Leader of the House. The details matter. But the real story is what happened to Chris Bishop.

Bishop has been stripped of three roles: Leader of the House, associate sport, and most significantly, his position as chair of National’s election campaign. In return, he picks up the Attorney-General portfolio. On paper, you might call that a lateral move. In practice, it is a demotion dressed up as a promotion.

David Harvey: The Distant Yet Pervasive State

The Shepherd and the Flock: De Tocqueville’s Warning and the New Zealand Condition

This article arose after I had read a number of different pieces. One was Bryce Edwards’ “Democracy Briefing: The Establishment joins the electricity insurgency”. That in turn led me to Danyl McLuchlan’s Listener article “Fuel for a Crisis”. Then from out of the blue arrived a piece about the state of social media discourse and how volatile, vicious and elemental it can be. All this gave rise to some thinking about how remote Wellington seems to be, how out of touch the bureaucrats (who control the decision making process) actually are and yet by the same token when the going gets rough the howl goes up “The Government must do something.” These general themes prompted some research and and some thinking. The results follow.

There is a pattern to New Zealand’s political life that is so familiar it has ceased to surprise us — and that, in itself, ought to give us pause.

Brendan O'Neill: Anti-Trump catastrophism is the real menace to the West

The cultural elite’s dream of an American defeat in Iran scares me far more than Trump’s premature claims of victory.

Snark really is all that President Trump’s critics have left. They greet his every utterance, whether made in the flesh or on Truth Social, with instant sarcastic derision. Their cliquish cynicism was on full display during Trump’s address to the nation on the Iran War last night. No sooner had Trump said the US was nearing victory than his opposing army of nay-sayers was gleefully crowing: ‘Nah, it’s a disaster, we’re screwed.’

I can’t be the only person who now finds this voguish gloom more grating than Trump’s starry-eyed statements? Give me Trump’s possibly premature declarations of victory over these wet dreams of defeat any day of the week.

Roger Partridge: Wellington takes the gold

Winston Peters was in Westport on Sunday, announcing that a future NZ First government would return 50 per cent of all mining royalties to the regions where mining occurs. It is one of the more sensible growth ideas to emerge from this election campaign so far.

The logic is simple. When a mine is proposed, local communities experience the disruption – the consent battles, the pressure on roads and services, the divided town meetings. Wellington gets the royalties. In those circumstances, local resistance to development is not irrational. It is a predictable response to a badly designed system.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: NZ is too busy governing badly to govern well

There is an old joke about a man who visits his doctor complaining of fatigue. The doctor prescribes a course of vitamins and tells him to come back in a month. When the patient returns, the doctor asks whether the pills have helped. “I have no idea,” the man replies. “I could not get the bottle open.”

In this case, the joke is on New Zealand.

Andrew Dickens: Is there a magic age before we start worrying about peoples health?

I want to start with the story of Jacquie Kidd. Jacquie's a former nurse who's spent more than 20 years researching Māori health inequities. She is the AUT professor of Māori health and she is now facing her own terminal cancer diagnosis. She's got a touch of the bowel cancer, which has now spread to her lungs. She is 62 years of age.

Since she's found out about this cancer, she's penned a memoir called ‘Ngākaurua: My experience of cancer, identity and racism in Aotearoa’. Because of her work, obviously she's concentrated in her memoir and in her thoughts on how hard it is for Māori to get screened, how important it is for Māori to get screened for cancer. She's written that the system is too complex and that Māori also loathe to investigate symptoms because they don't want to be a burden to their whānau.

Friday April 3, 2026 

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Ryan Bridge: My thoughts on Luxon's reshuffle

The American President's doing a live presser today on his war.

The Australian Prime Minister's just wrapped a live address to the nation on the oil shock.

And here, our Prime Minister is making his own announcement about a cabinet reshuffle.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why did Donald Trump call this speech today?

If you were hoping Donald Trump scheduling a speech meant there would be some sort of development in the war -either the US pulling out, putting boots on the ground or opening the Strait - then, like me, you would have been disappointed.

There was no news, was there? No announcement at all. Donald Trump was simply trying to convince American voters with PR - and it’s stuff he’s said before.

Rhys Hurley: MBIE paying staff for daily waiata sessions

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Health New Zealand was holding compulsory "Karakia" sessions during work hours. Now, our own research has uncovered something even more absurd, this time at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

While Kiwi businesses are facing economic uncertainty, the Ministry supposedly responsible for helping businesses has been spending our money on Workplace Waiata – i.e. staff singing sessions in their Wellington offices. And this isn't just a one-off thing: At their swanky Wellington offices, MBIE were hosting 30 minute sessions every work day, every week!

Point of Order: The reshuffle

• From the Beehive –

2 April 2026

PM refreshes ministerial teamRt Hon Christopher Luxon

Prime Minister

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced a refreshed ministerial line-up to continue fixing the basics and protecting New Zealand’s future.

Bob Edlin: Report on Code of Conduct investigation costs Invercargill ratepayers $33,000......

Report on Code of Conduct investigation costs Invercargill ratepayers $33,000 – and the council rejects its findings

What (we wonder) does Cr Ian Pottinger have to say about the outcome of the $33,000+ investigation which he triggered when he lodged a Code of Conduct complaint against Invercargill’s deputy mayor.

PoO reported on Monday about the captious councillor’s latest complaint, this time concerning the robust language allegedly directed at a council staffer at a meeting he did not attend.

David Farrar: Good insights on the Medical Council

Grant Duncan writes:

Its draft “Statement on Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety” begins with the obvious – “Aotearoa New Zealand has a culturally diverse population” – but leaps ahead to assert: “Some dimensions of identity result in power and privilege whereas others result in underprivilege, which can lead to discrimination or marginalisation”. No scientific grounds are given for that statement, and anyway it’s simply ungrammatical: it uses an abstract noun – identity – as if it were a thing with “dimensions” that can “result in power”. Unfortunately, such poor writing gets a pass in some university courses.

David Farrar: Education Ministry prioritises costs over achievement

The Post reports:

New Zealand is not planning to build any new single-sex state schools, even as research suggests some students – especially girls in some settings – can do better in them.

 

The difference in outcomes is stark.

Andrew Dickens: Is it time to split electricity gentailers?

Here we are in the middle of autumn, or is it the start of another winter of discontent? Because April the 1st is the time of scheduled price increases. All sorts of things are going up. The minimum wage goes up today, putting more pressure on small businesses. Thank you very much, at a time of pressure anyway, you're going to have to spend more on your wage bill. Meanwhile, the ACC earners' levy is going up to $1.75 for every $100 you earn from today. That is up from $1.57, up 11%. So you'll be paying 11% more of your wage into ACC than you were before. That is up to a limit of $156,000 or something like that. It's going to hit us all.

Lindsay Mitchell: 'Brown Optimism'

I visited the new Wellington Library today unprepared for the towering inscription, rising through almost three stories, which has been installed on the west face.