Mike Butler: Councillors who prefer the local tribe

“Gross misjudgement and disrespect” was the lead headline in the Hawke’s Bay Today on Friday after a meeting of the Napier City Council when the new mayor proposed not to include “mana whenua voices and voting rights” on standing committees.

In response, a new Maori ward councillor, Shyann Raihania, proposed an amendment which would retain two “Nga Manukanuka o te iwi” councillors voting to represent tribal interests on those committees.

John McLean: Critical Social Justice "Criticisms Of Reforms

A Woke battle for victimhood supremacy drowns out mature debate on resource management reforms

The current Government has proposed legislation designed to reform New Zealand’s resource management laws. National Party Government Minister Christopher Bishop is leading the reforms.

David Harvey: Tikanga and the law - evolution or a quiet revolution?

In a recent paper, Ellis v R: A Revolution in Aotearoa New Zealand, Emeritus Professor Peter Watts KC argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Ellis v R marked a revolutionary break from New Zealand’s constitutional foundations.

By declaring tikanga relevant to any issue of common law or statutory interpretation, he says, the court has fundamentally transformed our legal system without democratic mandate.

Damien Grant: Outside the headlines, a cohort of outstanding ministers is actually delivering

When I am in the beating heart of Auckland, although it has a distinct atrial flutter these days, I like to admire the old Central Post Office. The CPO was built over a century ago; before electrification, cranes, building consents and Worksafe improved construction.

Across Quay St we have the Ferry Building, a similar vintage, but the real magic lies beneath.

Centrist: Government unveils app, but next year it becomes New Zealand’s digital ID platform

The government has launched its new Govt.nz app, marketed as a convenient place to find information, bookmark services, and receive emergency alerts.

However, the real transformation arrives next year. Minister for Digitising Government Judith Collins told RNZ’s Morning Report that digital driver’s licences and other identity credentials will be added once legislation passes early in 2026.

Duggan Flanakin: The U.S. re-enters the rare-earths race

Hardly anyone in 1972 saw President Nixon’s decision to reopen diplomatic relations with the Peoples’ Republic of China as the beginning of a half-century of America surrendering its mining and manufacturing superiority to the fledgling Communist regime.

Successive administrations did little or nothing to halt the export of American skilled labor jobs, or even to promote skilled American labor as vital to national security. Unlike his predecessors, President Trump determined to promote American labor and restore mining and manufacturing as the pathway to a stronger nation and a prosperous economy.

Melanie Phillips: The humanitarian front against Israel

Mass murder has been branded as conscience to mess with people’s minds

Amazing news: Amnesty International has now acknowledged that night follows day!

Well, almost. In a report just published, Amnesty has stated for the first time that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and torture, on and after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Brendan O'Neill: It is not racist to tell the truth about Britain’s rape gangs

Why is the left so hell-bent on burying the truth of what was done to working-class girls?

Here’s a surefire way to know if you’ve lost the moral plot – you get angrier about the public discussion of mass rape than you do about the mass raping itself. Your moral conscience gets more fired up by people talking about the industrial-scale abuse of working-class girls than it does by the abuse itself. You’re more horrified by the phrase ‘Pakistani rape gang’ than you are by the existence of Pakistani rape gangs. If any of that applies to you, then your morals have been well and truly shattered on the wheel of cultural relativism, classism and cowardice.

James Alexander: America’s National Security Warning to Europe

There is value in following Trump’s comments. I wanted to see the recent interview in which he said “Europe is weak”, and this led me to something more serious, more apparently serious, I should say (since they are related): the recent publication of the ‘National Security Strategy of the United States of America‘. A primary document. I found it, and printed it out: 30 pages. And it is a good read: well-written, lacking the sort of matron-in-the-asylum-in-denial tone that afflicts the style in which HM Government documents are written.

Sunday December 14, 2025 

                    ⇩

Geoff Parker: New Zealanders Aren’t “Leaving the Government Behind” - They’re Pushing Back

Jack McDonald says voters are “looking forwards, not backwards.” He’s partly right. New Zealanders are looking forward — but what they’re leaving behind is a decade of cultural and ideological overreach that crept into public policy with little public consent.

Peter Williams: The Silence After the Scoop

One of the curiosities of modern journalism is not how often stories are missed, but how often they are found, laid bare — and then quietly abandoned.

A week ago, the Otago Daily Times published what I regard as the most substantial piece of investigative journalism produced by a New Zealand newspaper this year. Across four full pages, with a front-page splash, the ODT examined allegations of serious governance and financial failings at Te Kaika, a Dunedin health hub operated by Otepoti Health Limited, a Māori health and social services trust. The sums involved run into many millions of dollars of taxpayer funding. The issues raised went to conflicts of interest, board oversight, accountability, and the blurred line between public money and private control.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.12.25

Sunday December 14, 2025 

News:
Māori rock art one of a dozen research areas to get $1.16m funding boost

Māori rock art is one of a dozen research areas chosen by the Royal Society to get a funding boost.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Net Zero is structurally doomed

UK

New NZW reports: Net Zero is structurally doomed

This week, Net Zero Watch published two new reports and fresh polling that exploring public attitudes towards Net Zero.

Insights From Social Media: Compulsory Tikanga In Law School - When Cultural Ideology Replaces Legal Education

Tom Henry re-writes > New Zealand’s law schools have been re-engineered. All law students must pass a dedicated course on Tikanga Māori as a core component of their law degree to meet the requirements for legal practice. Advocates call it progress, a justice system “reflecting us all.” In reality, it’s an ideological project packaged as reform.

Tikanga Isn’t a Legal System — And Never Was.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time - 13 December 2025

Could RMA reform being the defining moment of this term of parliament?

The Government’s unveiling of the twin laws to replace the universally loathed Resource Management Act: Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill, could end up being the defining policy legacy of this term.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Greyhound racing law change is legal overreach

Let me state this clearly at the outset: I have never placed a bet on a greyhound. I have never owned a greyhound. If I were a dog, I would likely prefer a soft sofa to a hard track.

I am not writing this because I have a passion for racing, either. I am writing this because I have a passion for the Rule of Law.

Kerre Woodham: Willis and Richardson debating would be a pointless waste of time

Do you see any advantage or benefit to the country in having a former Finance Minister and the current one debating fiscal policy?

The current Finance Minister, Nicola Willis, has challenged the former Finance Minister, Ruth Richardson, to a debate. Now, that is misguided in my view, but to be fair, she was grievously provoked. Ruth Richardson is the chair of the Taxpayers' Union. The Taxpayers' Union is a pressure group, a ginger group, founded in 2013 to scrutinise government spending, publicise government waste, and promote an efficient tax system.

Bob Edlin: Kaipara champions the rights of Māori women in prison....

Kaipara champions the rights of Māori women in prison – and is given a reminder of what our voting laws demand

Māori Party MP Oriini Kaipara went out to bat for democracy – hurrah! – at Question Time in Parliament yesterday. But her mission, more pointedly, was to expose the discrimination against Māori which (she would have us believe) will result from government proposals to change electoral legislation.

In the upshot, she was reminded of what the law now requires.

Saturday December 13, 2025 

                    ⇩