Reynold Macpherson: Who Does Rotorua Lakes Council Serve?

Two Issues, Two Signs, Four Years, and Falling Legitimacy.

Voter turnout in Rotorua Lakes Council elections has remained below half of eligible voters for many years. Turnout was 45.99% in 2016 and 45.15% in 2019. It rose slightly to 46.46% in 2022, possibly reflecting controversy over proposed co-governance changes, yet still fewer than half of voters participated. In the 2025 election turnout fell again to 43.27%, despite record spending by officials intended to boost participation. Taken together, these figures suggest a persistent and now worsening problem of civic disengagement that raises questions about the legitimacy of Rotorua’s local government.

Clive Bibby: Predicting Elections

Predicting General election results is always a difficult task but this time the soothsayers have reason to be confident.

Voting in a general election usually results in a referendum on Incumbent government performance and consequently, the result will more than likely reflect the public mood .in November.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.3.26

Monday March 16, 2026 

News:
Public Submissions Open on Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Treaty Settlement Bill
Public submissions are now open on the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill, with the Māori Affairs Committee inviting feedback from iwi members and the wider public before the legislation progresses through Parliament.

John McLean: Wrecking Race Hustler Gets A Free Pass

A new low from New Zealand’s criminal injustice system

On 10 March 2026, the Wellington District Court dismissed all criminal charges that had been laid against a man named Te Wehi Ratana. The charges Ratana was facing were for his role in the vandalism of an exhibit at New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa, on 11 December 2023. The charges Ratana was facing included intentional damage, obstructing police, and breach of bail. Ratana’s breach of bail charge evidences that, when he was busy vandalizing, he was already facing other criminal charges. Ratana is a career criminal.

Dr Oliver Harwich: Faith-based asset management

There is something almost admirable about spending a fortune on roads, pipes, schools and hospitals without quite knowing what state any of them are in. Or, in some cases, where exactly they are.

For decades, nobody bothered to check. Now someone finally has.

Dr Benno Blaschke: Named but not defined

New Zealand’s Planning Bill is supposed to make housing affordable. For the first time, the law would require the planning system to create competitive land markets. That is a big deal, if it works. But the Bill has a problem.

When zoning restricts what can be built and where, owners of land where building is allowed have a strong upper hand. The Bill aims to flip that around by making enough land available across the wider urban area so that landowners have to offer better deals for buyers. This disciplines land values, exerting downward pressure on house prices.

Dr Marian Tupy: Edge of abundance

New Zealand has plenty of reasons for optimism. In a world gripped by anxiety, the country stands at the edge of several extraordinary opportunities. The question is whether New Zealand will seize them.

Few countries are as well placed as New Zealand to benefit from geothermal power. Few can match its potential in supercritical geothermal energy. If New Zealand exploits this advantage, it could move from energy adequacy to energy abundance.

Dr Oliver Harwich: Why the Government must resist fuel tax cuts

After five years of stagnation, falling living standards and a cost-of-living crisis that ground down households and businesses, New Zealanders wanted nothing more than a return to normality: a bit of growth, stable prices and the relief of things finally getting better.

At the start of 2026, it looked like that might be happening. The green shoots were there.

The war in the Middle East has shattered that hope. We face spiking oil prices, potential fuel shortages, rising inflation and slower growth.

Bruce Cotterill: TVNZ has lost its way and the public deserves better

There’s a lot going on. The Middle East. The oil price. The Royal Commission. The polls. The Senate hearings. Epstein. If you’re interested in current affairs, it’s a long list. It’s difficult to stay on top of things.

So I dragged myself back, kicking and screaming, to the 6pm television news. It’s a one-time ritual I’d long ago abandoned. I did so out of a need to catch up with the facts quickly.

I shouldn’t have bothered.

Kerre Woodham: Are you feeling fuel anxiety?

Today we thought it would be Fuel Friday because we haven't really touched on the oil crisis so far, have we? I filled up at my local on the way to work and it was certainly more expensive than it was last week, but nowhere near the heights we've reached previously. Back in the day I had to give up driving the Club Sport, which was a beast of a car —loved that car— when fuel topped $3 a litre. I loved her, but I couldn't afford to keep her.

There's a lot of things like that really. With the war in Iran effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, the only tankers going through are the most tenacious or those with a death wish as they attempt to negotiate the waters. I mean, there is oil getting through, but it seems to be a, ‘well, let's give it a bash’ rather than with any kind of certainty. So, one of the main sources of oil and fertiliser has, in effect, been blocked and Iran's doubling down on that. They're just going to shut up shop and that will be that.

Lindsay Mitchell: National window-dressing on welfare

Last week Simon Bridges, CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber, could be heard waxing lyrical to Mike Hosking about the new partnering initiative, ChamberWorks, between his organisation and MSD (WINZ) to get recently unemployed people into jobs. These are people who have not long been on a benefit but have skills, and recent experience and attachment to the workforce.

Mike's Minute: We have good news on housing

1) It's still a buyers' market.

2) A good chunk of the buyers are first timers.

It’s the debate we should at least acknowledge has been, for now, partially solved.

Sunday March 15, 2026 

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Colinxy: Prelude to the Waikato Invasion (New Zealand Wars)

Modern revisionist narratives often portray the 1863 invasion of the Waikato as an unprovoked act of imperial aggression — sometimes even “illegal” by contemporary standards. But this framing collapses under scrutiny. It ignores the political context, the escalating violence around Auckland, and the strategic threat posed by the Kīngitanga (the Māori King Movement), which had become the centre of organised resistance to the Crown.

The reality is more complex and far less convenient for those who want a simple morality tale.

Stephen Weese: The Inevitability of Self-Driving Cars

The future is now.

When you think of self-driving cars, you may imagine scenes from a sci-fi movie, with sleek silver cars sliding perfectly into and out of the flow of traffic. Pedestrians simply express their desire for a car, and in moments one appears.

Just as easily, you might also think of media reports you’ve seen about crashes and other malfunctions of these vehicles in the recent past. You may even think of both and think that the sci-fi depiction is far-fetched and unlikely. The reality is actually simpler: self-driving cars are inevitable.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 14 March 2026

The Royal Commission the media pretended didn’t happen

The report from the second phase of the Royal Commission into New Zealand’s COVID-19 response was released this week and much of the media treated it as little more than a historical tidy-up. The dominant narrative has been the ol’ New Zealand did well early, ministers were under pressure, mistakes were inevitable but no big deal. But the report contains findings that deserve far more scrutiny. It raises serious questions about the extended Auckland lockdown, the legality of the Christmas boundary, and the roughly $60 billion spent during the pandemic of which around $30 billion of which was not directly related to COVID response measures.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Australia and New Zealand are paying the price for abandoning reform

Within a fortnight last month, Australia and New Zealand placed opposite bets on their economic futures. The Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates to 3.85 per cent. Across the Tasman, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand held at 2.25 per cent, with Governor Anna Breman signalling that monetary policy would stay loose for some time.

So, one economy is apparently running too hot while the other cannot get off the floor. Surely, they face different problems requiring different medicine?

Elliot Ikilei: District plan means farmers will be extorted by the iwi mafia

Rural New Zealand is under siege from a planning system that is taking a leaf out of the Sopranos' book and turning productive farmland into a maze of red tape and mafia stand over tactics.

Farmers in Gore are staring down a new reality that before they dig a silage pit, build a shed, fix a farm track, or dozens of other everyday farming activities, resource consents must be assessed against Ngāi Tahu cultural values like mauri (life force), wairua (spiritual connections), whakapapa (relationships between all life forms), and utu (restoring balance).

Bob Edlin: Massey remains mute on the matter of science money....

Massey remains mute on the matter of science money, mysticism and a kumara patch

A week ago, the Taxpayers Union was being bombarded with emails on its exposé of the $156,132 “science challenge” which resulted in the establishment of a kūmara patch, funded through Massey University.

Not a big kumara patch – just 3 by 3 metres, the union reported.

Mike's Minute: My observations on week two of the war

My observations on week two of the war.

I'm as convinced as ever I was that this thing is over in the four week-ish window they said it would be.

If true, it means we should not have spent the week guessing when it will be over because we have already been told.