Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.12.25

Thursday December 18, 2025 

News
Historic agreement for Top of South Island land:
The ownership of approximately 7,583 acres (3,068 hectares) of Top of the South land will be restored to descendants of its original owners following a long-standing private litigation, Attorney General Judith Collins and Conservation Minister Tama Potaka announced today.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Nicola Willis needs to be braver and cut more

It's no surprise that Nicola Willis has pushed out the surplus by another year.

That now makes it three years in two years, as in she has delayed surplus by three years in just the space of the two years she’s been at the Finance Minister’s desk.

Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Can we appreciate the good economic news coming out?

I know you shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch, but can we just take a minute to look at the good economic news coming out?

Government books aside, tomorrow's GDP read will show we bounced back with a spring in Q3 - close to 1 percent growth, they reckon.

Pee Kay: An Open Letter to Simeon Brown

They slap us in the face, call us racists, condemn “white privilege” and at the same time they have the effrontery to abuse taxpayer generosity with mismanagement of government funded Maori Health Providers!

This is my follow up to PDM’s posting last week of Peter Williams article, The Dysfunctional Maori Health Trusts, by way of an open letter sent to the Minister of Health, Simeon Brown.

Dr Will Jones: New Homes Must be Bird-Friendly Despite Reeves War on “Green Tape”

New homes will have to include special bricks for endangered birds such as swifts under Labour’s new planning rules, despite Rachel Reeves’s war on “green tape”. The Telegraph has the story.

In a shake-up of England’s planning rules, Labour will insist that new builds are fitted with nature-friendly features such as swift bricks, hollow nesting boxes for the bird species that fit into walls.

Centrist: Luxon brushes off coup talk, says he rebuilt National from “civil war”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is pushing back hard on leadership speculation, telling media he will “absolutely” lead National into the 2026 election and portraying the chatter as media habit formed during National’s unstable years.

Luxon framed himself as the fixer who dragged the party back from chaos, saying: “The National Party was in a state of civil war, we’d had five leaders in five years.”

Brendan O'Neill: The hatred for the Jewish State is endangering the Jewish people

After Bondi, we can deny it no longer – bourgeois Israelophobia has aided and abetted a lethal new violence.

Let me get this right – we’re expected to believe it is entirely coincidental that there has been a spike in anti-Jewish violence at the exact same time as hatred for the Jewish State has soared? We’re meant to think there is no connection whatsoever between today’s frothing bourgeois animus for the Jewish nation and the rise in disdain for the Jewish people? You’re telling us the targeting of Jews in the West is wholly unrelated to the Western elites’ ceaseless damning of the Jewish homeland as a uniquely barbarous entity?

Kerre Woodham: How do we heal our country's divisions?

I remember back when I first started talkback, a million years ago at nighttime, it must have been the semicentennial of the waterfront workers strike of '51, or the lockout, depending on which side you're on. It was the biggest industrial confrontation in New Zealand's history for those who don't know of it. It was 151 days from February to July, and at its peak, 22,000 waterside workers, or wharfies, and associated unions were off the job, out of a population of just under 2 million.

David Farrar: Yes there should be a by-election in Papatoetoe

Radio NZ reports:

A district court judge has reserved his decision on whether a by-election is needed in an Auckland local body election.

The hearing followed a petition by former Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board member Lehopoaome Vi Hausia, who claimed to have received reports of voting papers being stolen from residents and submitted without their consent.

David Farrar: TPM skip electorate offices, as well as Parliament!

The Herald reports:

Te Pāti Māori has broken with tradition and decided against running MP constituent offices in their electorates, despite getting additional funding for the large electorates it won at the 2023 election.

New Zealand First, as well, has decided not to run any offices in the community – but it has no electorate MPs.

Wednesday December 17, 2025 

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Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Another fiscal result telling us what we already know

Well, of course you heard it here first last Monday - the surplus has been pushed out again.

It's like waiting for Christmas when you're a ten-year-old, the whole month of December feels like an eternity.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Bondi attack was a race relations problem

This business of Australia tightening up its gun laws feels like it runs the risk of distracting from the bigger problems over there.

I don’t think guns were the problem on Sunday. Australia already has some of the tightest gun laws in the world.

Pee Kay: DOC’s OIA Response

In late October I posted an article about Northland iwi, Ngatiwai, landing on one of the strictly protected Poor Knights Islands, raising a flag and concreting in a carved pou in protest at the amendment to the Marine and Coastal Area Act.

Click to view

Ani O'Brien: Bondi Terror - Can we look back in anger yet?

Tolerance must not be a suicide pact

If you were shocked by what happened at Bondi last night you have ignored every warning sign.

You might be horrified. In fact, if you are, you are human. But if you are surprised you have not been paying even minimal attention to what has been happening across Western cities for the past two years. The last twenty plus years really. This was the inevitable direction of travel.

Dr Will Jones: Right Wins Chile Election on Mass Deportation Platform

The Right has won the Presidential election in Chile, with conservative Jose Antonio Kast defeating his communist rival on a platform of cracking down on crime and deporting hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. The Telegraph has more.

Philip Crump: The Architecture of a Capable State - Why Cuts, Cosmetic Fixes and Good Intentions are not enough

Keynote address to the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union AGM – 15 December 2025

This is the text of a keynote address I delivered to the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union AGM on 15 December 2025. It is offered in a personal capacity and reflects an institutional and structural analysis of how the State is organised to deliver outcomes. It is not an endorsement of any organisation, political party, or policy programme.

Bruce Cotterill: Christopher Luxon leadership - Why National would be ‘nuts’ to roll him

The past couple of weeks have seen plenty of conjecture about the future of Christopher Luxon as the leader of the National Party and hence, Prime Minister.

I don’t know if the rumbles about Chris Bishop rolling him are true or not. And I’m no political strategist. But let me say this. The National Party would be “nuts” to drop Luxon now.

JC: West Not Fit For Purpose

The world right now is probably in its most dangerous state since WWII. The West is showing that there is a reluctance to accept reality. Allowing situations to develop as they are is inviting more trouble further down the track. Talkfests that fail to produce the action required are largely a waste of time. The policies introduced will not solve the problems we are currently facing.

David Farrar: The ever growing black market

1 News reported:

The latest estimates put the market share for illegal tobacco sales between 25% and 65%, illicit tobacco and e-cigarette commissioner Amber Shuhyta told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday night.