Breaking Views Update: Week of 9.11.25

Sunday November 9, 2025 

News:
Occupation brewing at Waiheke Station as Ngāti Pāoa settlement bill returns to Parliament
Ngāti Paoa Trust Board are settling in for a land occupation, as they continue to fight the inclusion of the Waiheke Station farm in the Ngāti Paoa Claims Settlement Bill.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will Mamdani be the next big thing or the next big disappointment?

I think I am more interested in seeing how Zohran Mamdani goes than any other Democrat that I can remember in a very, very, very long time, because I genuinely am not sure if this is gonna go brilliantly for him. And he's the next big thing, or he's the next big disappointment, because there is no way, is there? Like, no way at all he's gonna be able to do everything that he's promised. I mean, he might be able to do a rent freeze in New York City. Sure, that's an easy thing to do. That's a stroke of a pen. Off you go. But it might backfire. Like it might lead to fewer housing units being added, which ultimately makes the problem worse.

Ryan Bridge: How are the India FTA talks going?

So we've had a fifth round of talks with India on a free trade agreement. A senior government minister's in town with 42 of his mates.

This is a sign of good progress, but dairy farmers were hoping for a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow and it isn't going to happen.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time - 8 November 2025

The self-inflicted wound to Te Pāti Māori continues to bleed

Te Pāti Māori’s internal ructions continue to spill out in public like a wound that can’t be staunched. Despite calls from both sides for tikanga-based resolution, political shivs continue to be delivered via media and social media.

Mike's Minute: ACC and the work from home legal case

The ACC vs union work from home legal case is a good one and it became even better after the Westpac dispute in Australia last week.

There are two bits to these sorts of cases. One was the specific, as in what's in a contract, what's the wording, what have you agreed to and what haven't you agreed to.

Chris Morrison: The False Temperature Claims That Underpin the COP30 Alarmist Agenda

The next two weeks of COP30 will see three favourite climate scares relentlessly broadcast to promote the fast-fading hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. They are: breaching a 1.5°C global ‘threshold’ leading to runaway temperatures; human-caused tipping points producing unimaginable natural disasters; and attribution of single-event bad weather to the use of natural hydrocarbons.

Andrew Moran: Trump Seeks to Make Coal Great Again

The black rock to power advanced artificial intelligence.

Like Dutch tulips and the dot-com era, the world is euphoric over artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and robots. Humanity has been able to build technology that will eventually be sentient, requiring semiconductors, data centers, and industrial materials. Along the way, we forgot about one pressing need for advancing AI to the next level: energy. The White House thinks coal could potentially help power our appetite for generating AI slop and keeping Neo operating to fold the laundry and unload the dishwasher.

Melanie Phillips: Britain's shocking Jew-free zone

The scenes in Birmingham last night demonstrated Muslim control of British streets

It was never about Israeli football fans. It was always about Muslim Jew-hatred. And last night in Birmingham, we saw that in Britain it’s Islam that now controls the streets.

A Muslim mob presenting a serious threat of violence and disorder was allowed to stage a thuggish display of hatred of Jews, incitement against them and intimidation.

Kerre Woodham: Spend a dollar to save five - why wouldn't we fund weightloss drugs?

New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD, and the rates are going up. One in three adult New Zealanders is classified as obese, and one in 10 children. Even if you take into account, yes, yes, yes, a lot of the All Blacks front row are considered obese if you use the BMI. And yes, you might have a slow metabolism or it's your hormones and there's nothing you can do about it, that's still a lot of fat people and a lot of associated health issues.

Saturday November 8, 2025 

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Barrie Davis: The Colonist

You have arrived with five of your surviving eight children at the new settlement of Wellington, New Zealand on the 500-ton barque Olympus in April 1841.

The captain is John Whyte, there are 16 crew, and the ship’s surgeon is Isaac Featherston who would become Wellington’s leader and one of the colony’s most eminent politicians. On board are 27 married couple emigrants, including yourselves, 16 single men, 11 single women, and 45 children including 5 infants. The males are mostly farm workers with a sprinkling of trades and the females are mostly sempstresses and servants. The ship also carries four hundred barrels of flour to feed the new colony.

Steven Gaskell: Classroom or Chapel?

Kiwi Kids Now Getting Schooled in Māori Gods Instead of Maths

Chris Hipkins may call the Government’s decision to remove the Treaty clause from school boards a “victory for Hobson’s Pledge,” but it’s really a victory for democracy and for restoring common sense to education. Parents and volunteers join school boards to help kids learn, not to interpret 1840 documents or preach ideology. Education Minister Erica Stanford is right: the Crown, not local school committees, is accountable for the Treaty.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 2.11.25

Saturday November 8, 2025 

News:
Former Minister back for another term
Houkura advocates for the collective voice and aspirations of mana whenua and mātāwaka in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), ensuring that their perspectives related to issues Māori are facing in Tāmaki Makaurau are woven into governance, decision-making, and outcomes for Māori communities. Houkura has statutory responsibilities to assist with the design and execution of Auckland Council’s strategies, policies, and political direction to ensure the impact on Māori is considered and addressed.

Dr Michael John Schmidt: He Is Only a Manager

Luxon is no leader.

Christopher Luxon did not create New Zealand’s demographic bind – but in response he has chosen to fall back on what he knows: legacy managing, not leading. The result is that he is pursuing a managed-decline strategy.

The distinction matters. The country’s fertility rate has collapsed to a record low of 1.49 births per woman and our ageing population is placing unsustainable pressure on a superannuation system that was never designed for longevity at this scale. Yet Luxon’s Government continues to reinforce the very frameworks that deepen the crisis. This is not leadership – it is strategic negligence.

Matua Kahurangi: Racism in our rivers - Māori elites claim water for their own

The latest High Court case over Māori freshwater rights is being hailed as “landmark” by some. Peel back the layers, and what we’re really seeing is the definition of modern-day racism - a race claiming exclusive control over a resource that belongs to everyone.

Water is life. It sustains us all, Māori and European Kiwi’s alike. However in 2025, a coalition of iwi collectives and Māori landowner organisations is arguing that because of their ancestry, they should have special authority over New Zealand’s freshwater. Never mind the fact that most of the population has no say. Never mind that everyday Māori, those struggling to pay rent, heat their homes, and put kai on the table, will not see a cent of any benefit.

JC: Māori Party Stays True to Its Roots

These people are doing an excellent job of destroying themselves and should be left to get on with their nonsense.

At first glance the headline may appear to have positive connotations. You would be wrong. For some time now we have been watching the unedifying spectacle of two factions within the Māori Party at war with each other. This is where ‘true to its roots’ resonates. Māori have historically been a warrior race. But for the advent of more civility brought about by the, according to the Māori Party, dreadful happening of colonisation, tribal factions might still be at each other’s throats.

David Farrar: Can you waka jump when you have overhang?

It seems clear that the Tamihere faction wants to expel Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Takuta Ferris from Te Pati Maori, and possibly to also waka jump them from Parliament, causing by-elections.

At first glance they should be able to do this, as you only needs a two thirds majority in caucus to expect MPs under the Electoral Act. So four of of six in favour would qualify.

Mike's Minute: The PM lacked a backbone this week

Another missed opportunity this week driven by fear and blunt honesty, or lack of it.

When asked on Wednesday in Parliament whether the Government was going to change the law to ban homeless people from camping in downtown areas of this country, the Prime Minister gave us an answer of a scared person.

Kerre Woodham: What's the attitude towards sick days?

It's one of those circular discussions, really, where people are extremely staunch in their opinion and no amount of debate can bring them over to the other side. A bit like the secondary tax discussion – you either think you're paying more tax, or you don't, you understand that it all comes out in the wash.

Bob Edlin: Why an academic won’t tender an opinion on the Free Speech Union.....

Why an academic won’t tender an opinion on the Free Speech Union – it’s to avoid bullying (but how are our MPs protected?)

PoO was occasioned to check out the meaning of bullying today on reading of an academic who feared being bullied by the Free Speech Union,

We suspect the academic in question (unnamed) has confused bullying with debate.

But maybe we are wrong.