Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Are the insurance companies doing us a favour on flood-prone areas?

The thing we’d been warned about with climate change has now happened - AA Insurance has stopped offering new insurance policies for Westport because of the risk of flooding.

At the very end of last year, AA Insurance wrote to the Buller District mayor advising that the company would be putting a - what they call temporary - stop to new insurance policies for properties in the 7825 postcode, which includes Westport, Carters Beach, and Cape Foulwind.

Ryan Bridge: Here we go again with privacy breaches

This week we've heard about another privacy breach.

We don't strangers on the street everything about ourselves but for some reason, when a business does it online, who we also don't know or trust, you just cannot shut us up.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 25.1.26

Friday January 30, 2026 

News:
Hastings councillor Steve Gibson skips planning session at marae over te reo and faith concerns
A newly elected Hastings District councillor chose not to attend a strategic planning session held on a marae because he felt uncomfortable about the process, the late notice and the nature of the agenda.

Steve Gibson said there were several reasons for his discomfort about the Hastings District Council meeting.

Geoff Parker: Democracy Needs Neutral Ground

Local government exists to serve everyone — and that requires neutral ground.

The debate surrounding Hastings District councillor Steve Gibson’s decision not to attend a strategic planning session held on a marae is not about disrespect or cultural hostility. It is about whether official council business should be conducted in settings that are secular, linguistically accessible, and free from cultural or spiritual expectations, so every elected representative can participate equally and without pressure to conform.

Mike's Minute: Build what is wanted and housing can't fail

Bit of 'rubber hitting the road' research on unsold real estate for you.

A real estate consultancy company looked at the amount of unsold stock when it came to apartments in Auckland.

There are a record number. 541 to be precise, which is 20% of everything that has been built in the past three years.

Ani O'Brien: At what age does adulthood begin in 2026?

We have to stop infantilising young people.

Reading a recent Stuff article about a 26 year old woman leading the East Cape flood response, I felt two things at once. The first was admiration. In the middle of chaos, she stepped up, coordinated people, trusted her instincts, and helped her community through a genuinely frightening weather event. That deserves recognition. But the second feeling was discomfort, not with her, but with the framing. The article treats her age as the most remarkable thing about the story, as if competent leadership at 26 is an anomaly rather than a perfectly ordinary human possibility.

Michael Rainsborough: The End of the World Order as We Know It – Nice of You to Notice

For the past week the global commentariat has been behaving like someone who suddenly realises, halfway through his morning espresso, that his house burned down sometime last Tuesday and everyone else has been politely stepping around the ashes ever since.

Donald Trump announces, quite openly, that the United States wants to take Greenland, one way or another. Washington sharpens the tariff knife. NATO’s obituary is proclaimed yet again. The United States, we are solemnly informed, can no longer be trusted as an ally and that it is even a predatory state. The West is finished.

Cue panic. Cue Davos. Cue the anguished cries of people who have not had to think seriously about power since the mid-1980s.

Peter Dunne: It is frequently said that the real test of political leadership comes in a crisis

Dame Jacinda Ardern transformed a hitherto ho-hum Prime Ministership that had been looking decidedly one-term with her response to the Christchurch Mosque attacks in 2019. Her handling of the Covid19 outbreak a year later cemented her reputation as a compassionate and empathetic leader who was good in a crisis.

Matua Kahurangi: No wonder Te Pāti Māori wants to abolish prisons when Māori make up most of the inmates

Te Pāti Māori says it wants to abolish prisons by 2040. Māori make up the majority of New Zealand’s prison population. Of course Te Pāti Māori wants prisons gone. It is the most self-interested justice policy imaginable.

At last count, more than half of all prisoners are Māori. Those figures are confronting, uncomfortable but let’s be honest - not really surprising. Instead of asking why violent offending, repeat offending and serious crime are so concentrated, Te Pāti Māori’s answer is to remove the very system that holds offenders accountable.

Kerre Woodham: The slow decline of NZ postal services

The arrival of Netflix and other film streaming services was the death knell for video rental stores. Five years after Netflix arrived in New Zealand in 2015, the majority of stores, once mainstays of our weekends —who didn't go in and spend an hour or so in the video rental store trying to decide what to choose for the weekend?— had closed across the country.

Yet despite 99% of New Zealanders saying they used email regularly in that same year, 2015, postal services have endured. Now sure, they've reduced as mail volumes have dropped off. 2015 was a big year because that's when postal deliveries went from six days a week to three as the mail volumes declined. But at least my toll payment notices and my cards from Aunt Barbara are still arriving in my letterbox three days a week.

Bob Edlin: Health workers are kicking off their day with a karakia....

Health workers are kicking off their day with a karakia, but Act MP ensures it is in their own time and not compulsory

The National Public Health Service has been getting along – it seems – on a wing and a prayer.

The Platform’s Tina Nixon drew PoO’s attention to the spiritual side of the service’s daily rituals and routines in an interview with Act MP Todd Stephenson.

Ewen McQueen: Zero Day comes for the Iranian regime

Last year reports emerged that Tehran, the capital city of Iran, was running out of water. One expert predicted that “zero day” was not far off. As the Islamic regime now enters its final days, it seems that prediction was also a harbinger of what comes for the Ayatollah and those who prop up his brutal rule.

And it is a day which cannot come soon enough. It is now becoming apparent that after the regime put the country into a communications black-out three weeks ago, it engaged in a brutal massacre of its own citizens. Security forces opened fire on huge crowds rallying in cities across the country calling for an end to the Islamic theocracy. Numbers killed are being reported at over 30,000. It was a bloodbath.

Thursday January 29, 2026 

                    ⇩

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Politics will be a little less fun without Ju‑Co in it

Right, so the biggest political news of the day is that Judith Collins has announced she’s retiring from politics to take up a new job as the head of the Law Commission mid‑year.

I, for one, am going to miss Judith Collins being in politics, because she has that thing very few politicians have.

Ryan Bridge: What was the point in fees free?

Reading this story this morning about fees free - you've got to wonder how the policy got through the boffins in wellington.

It has, by all accounts, failed to achieve it's objective.

David Farrar: Collins to head up Law Commission

The Government has announced:

Minister and National MP for Papakura Hon Judith Collins KC is honoured that she will be appointed President of the Law Commission: Te Aka Matua o te Ture following a political career spanning 24 years.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today announced Ms Collins will be appointed to the Law Commission from mid-2026.

Matua Kahurangi: $1m for marae, everyone else gets a pat on the back

Firstly, I am going to start this off by acknowledging all the marae that opened their doors and helped communities affected by the recent severe weather. That help mattered. People were fed, housed and looked after when things were rough. No one sensible is denying that.

But do they really need a dedicated $1 million on top?

Mike's Minute: Why we should, and shouldn't, pay attention to polls

There are reasons to ignore political polls this year.

And some reasons not to.

Dr Will Jones: Industry is Being Sacrificed to Net Zero Ideology, Says Siemens Energy Boss

Europe is sacrificing industry to Net Zero ideology, the Chairman of Siemens Energy has warned, with strict emission targets crippling manufacturing in Germany. The Telegraph has more.

Tim Donner: The Left Embraces Anarchy

Democrats pile on as Minnesota becomes indistinguishable from a Third World banana republic.

What do the leaders of a political party do when their hated enemy is dominating the stage and grabbing all the headlines for actions of seismic proportions? They welcome any port in the storm. And for Democrats and the left in 2026, endlessly frustrated by the many historic accomplishments of President Donald Trump, that means embracing anarchy, defined as a state of disorder due to the absence or nonrecognition of authority or other controlling systems.