Pee Kay: Are we not living in the most privileged time?

I am well and truly stepping out of my“wheelhouse” with this article I found when trawling through some of the many websites I access each day.

I couldn’t help but think there are certain parallels with a section, probably a growing section, of New Zealand society that have similar thoughts to those the author is debunking. Does our youth think they are “hard done by” rather than see the advantages of our country and the modern world?

Ashley Church: Was there an ancient Palestinian nation?

Separating fact from fiction

Ask any pro-‘Palestinian’ protestor what they’re marching for (or against) and most of them wouldn’t have a clue other than that they want all Jews eliminated. But amongst the few that actually have a broader opinion they’ll tell you that they want the Palestinian homeland returned to its rightful owners (‘from the river to the sea’) based on a belief that the original Arab inhabitants come from a land that was displaced by Britain and then stolen by Israel.

That belief is powerful. But is it true?

Dr Benno Blaschke: Finance Freedom

New Zealand cannot build enough houses because councils cannot afford the pipes and roads that new suburbs need. That is the conclusion of a new report by The New Zealand Initiative.

In Finance Freedom, Research Fellow Dr Benno Blaschke explains how council finances drive the housing crisis and how to fix it.

Kerre Woodham: A fantastic blueprint for the future

I'm going to start with good news today. Now, I know we don't normally, but it is such good news I have to comment, and it's also a topic dear to all our respective talkback hearts. And that is that almost all of Parliament is backing the 30 year infrastructure plan. You'll have heard it in our news, the Coalition Government comprising National, ACT, and New Zealand First, as well as Labour and the Greens, have committed to the Infrastructure Commission's blueprint for major works in this country, and bloody well done to them, I say. To get this sort of rare across the house support, the Commission must have done an excellent job of prioritising works, justifying the order of works, outlining what needs to happen for these works to be done. Chief Executive of the Infrastructure Commission, Geoff Cooper, is absolutely delighted, as he should be.

Mike's Minute: Labour have no idea

For those of you who were super keen to hear from the Labour Party in an election year as to what they might have in mind for policy, my question to you is: now that they have started handing out the ideas, does the size of the cock-up make you wish they hadn’t?

Or can you believe the incompetence of past years hasn’t been addressed?

Bob Edlin: Bishop aims to trim outdated laws from the statute books....

Bishop aims to trim outdated laws from the statute books – but won’t this permit sales of watery stuff as “milk”?

This rates among the more bemusing headlines to attract the attention of the PoO team this week:

David Farrar: Makes the Munich agreement look strong and visionary

A (alleged) copy of the agreement between Trump and Iran has leaked, and it is hard to overstate how bad it is. Some details:

David Farrar: Heads must roll

The Post reports:

Immigration officials stand accused by their own minister of misleading her and her predecessors for seven years, engaging in creative accounting to dodge scrutiny and removing people from a $33 million IT project when they raised questions.

And ultimately, they achieved nothing. The entire project is now being written off with nothing to show for it.

Thursday June 18, 2026 

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Owen Jennings: Giovani is Unhappy

Giovani Riveri makes ‘healthy’ sandwiches and ‘coffee to die for’ in the centre of New York, right under the tallest skyscrapers. Giovani is not happy. Some of his best customers and biggest tippers have disappeared. Income is down again. Giovani knows why, too.

“It’s Mamdani. It’s his freakin’ taxes.” He nods up at the glass offices towering above his little bar. “Dey all going to Texas, man. Mamdani is driving the wealthy outa ere”.

Andrew Dickens: Is the Michelin guide worth taxpayer money?

The first Michelin rankings of New Zealand restaurants are out later this month.

Yesterday, Jesse Mulligan, the Herald’s restaurant reviewer, pointed out it’s going to be a very incomplete list of our best restaurants and worth little to most, including the high wealth tourists it’s supposed to attract.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Do we really need another special unit that costs more money?

Now, unfortunately, because it is an election year, we are apparently going to have the debate that we have every single election year: should we set up a special unit that costs each party's election promises independently?

And the answer to that question should be the same as it always is - no, we should not do this.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.6.26

Thursday June 18, 2026 

News:
Luxon meets iwi leaders as Treaty clause tensions continue to simmer
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has met with iwi leaders for the first time since they formally requested talks over the Government’s Treaty clause review, following months of growing tension between the Crown and the National Iwi Chairs Forum.

Luxon alongside Ministers Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith and Tama Potaka were at the meeting on Wednesday morning at the Beehive.

Timothy Welch: Cheaper fares won’t fix NZ’s public transport woes

Cheaper fares won’t fix NZ’s public transport woes – and neither will a few extra buses

Last week, within the space of 24 hours, voters heard two very different proposals to improve New Zealand’s public transport system.

On Wednesday, Labour promised to cap weekly fares at NZ$20 in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch – and $10 everywhere else – if elected to power in November.

On Thursday, Transport Minister Chris Bishop, of incumbent National, responded by suggesting the government could use its $450 million fuel emergency fund for more trains and buses at peak times.

One policy lowers the price. The other adds service.

Nicole Foss: An Actual Deal? I Very Much Doubt It.

The US, Iran, and the mediator -Pakistan – have all said that some kind of agreement is close. This is the first time all have agreed. Usually such statements come only from Trump and are merely for the purpose of market manipulation. However, there are significant caveats. What is being proposed is not actually a deal, but merely a memorandum of understanding (MOU). There are still huge differences in the public stance of both the US and Iran, and Israel has said it won’t agree to anything. The MOU is meant to be phase one of an agreement, involving a sixty day ceasefire during which further details are to be negotiate, leading to phase two.

Ivan Barnett: The Breach, The Silence, The Collapse

A Constitutional Warning to Parliament and the People of New Zealand

The Point of Collapse

New Zealand has reached a moment where silence is no longer a neutral act. It has become participation in the dismantling of our own democracy. For months, citizens have traced the internal drift of government institutions — ministries acting beyond mandate, ideological frameworks embedded without parliamentary approval, and decisions made without transparency or consent.

This is not speculation. This is not political theatre. This is a constitutional breach unfolding inside the machinery of the state.

Melanie Phillips: Cyrus no more

The Trump administration's apparent naivety towards Iran is either imbecility or dissimulation

The shock and distress in Israel are palpable. President Donald Trump’s apparent volte-face on Iran is being felt as an abandonment.

Roger Partridge: Cooking up a storm - Robust criticism no threat to Supreme Court

Warren Pyke is, by all accounts, a serious practitioner. Thirty-five years acting for the underprivileged, the vulnerable, the mentally ill, the villainous and a great many “ordinary folk” is real civil-liberties work. His reply in these pages, “Balance needed in criticisms of Lord Cooke and the Supreme Court,” takes issue with my June essay, “Lord Cooke's indictment.” Pyke is right that my column did not survey the whole output of the Supreme Court. It did not attempt to. Most of the court’s judgments doubtless are orthodox and well-reasoned, and nothing I wrote was meant to suggest otherwise. On that much, Pyke and I agree. The complaint was never with the body of the court’s work. It was with an increasing number of radical decisions.

Kerre Woodham: Fairness and land acquisition for public works

Life isn't fair. It's one of the first lessons you learn. And it's not fair when you find yourself, or more accurately your home, right smack in the middle of a vital piece of infrastructure. There's been so many cases around the country over a long period of time, but more recently you had the buyout of houses after the Canterbury quakes. Technically the buyouts of more than 8,000 properties were structured as voluntary offers. However, many residents felt forced to accept because the Government explicitly stated that essential infrastructure and council services would cease in those zones. They would be no more. They'd be living in a literal no man's land. You had the buyout of 160 odd homes for the Waterview Tunnel. We've had 50 odd homes in Ranui in West Auckland bought by the council to make way for new floodplains and to uncover a buried piped stream. So if your house happened to be right over the top of that stream, you were gone.

Bob Edlin: Simeon Brown applies his scalpel to the Medical Council.....

Simeon Brown applies his scalpel to the Medical Council – but Treaty ideology has spread through the health system

The Post reports:


Health Min­is­ter Simeon Brown has removed the lead­er­ship of New Zea­l­and’s med­ical reg­u­lator, accus­ing the Med­ical Coun­cil of pur­su­ing an “ideo­lo­gical agenda” and becom­ing dis­trac­ted from its core respons­ib­il­it­ies.