David Harvey: The VPN Ban

One of the problems faced by lawmakers is that the laws they make can only be enforced within the jurisdiction. That is what is referred to as the principle of territoriality. Laws do not have an extraterritorial effect. A person who steals something from a supermarket in Sydney cannot be prosecuted for theft in the New Zealand Courts. Why? Because the offence did not take place within the territorial jurisdiction of New Zealand.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 11 July 2026

Election 2026: Policy, candidates, and gambling websites

Here we are in an election year and the pledges continue to arrive, often with only the vaguest account of what will be cut, taxed, or borrowed to pay for them.

Spaniard: This is kaitiakitanga

There’s a place for everything. Customary matters should receive stewardship, empirical science should lead in technical arenas, and standover behaviour has no place in a modern democracy’s processes.

Ngai Tahu failed, catastrophically, as guardian/kaitiaki of Central Otago’s environment before other settlers arrived. It’s rich that, in response to the Santana Minerals Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project proposal for Central Otago, Ka Runaka, a local tribal sub-grouping, is now claiming a kaitiaki role.

Pee Kay: Government job vacancies

“We are one country, we deliver our public services to people on the basis of need, not ethnicity.”

So said our future Prime Minister on May 5, 2022, during a visit to Greymouth.

So, why do we still see government job vacancies like this?

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: NESO summertime madness

UK

NESO accused of cover-up over blackout threat

Britain’s grid operator has been accused of covering up system failures that threaten to trigger blackouts. Bosses at the National Energy Systems Operator allegedly ordered control-room staff to hide information that showed the grid was not being run securely, and to not to keep permanent records of operational decisions, to ensure there was no paper trail. Shadow Energy Sec Claire Coutinho has written to the ICO demanding it open an investigation into the alleged incidents.

Colinxy: Man’s Oldest Story

If humanity has a single shared story — a myth so ancient it predates nations, languages, and even our migration out of Africa — it is the story of the Pleiades. No other tale appears so consistently across cultures, continents, and epochs. While the details vary, the core narrative is astonishingly stable: a cluster of seven stars, often described as seven sisters, seven maidens, or seven beings, with the persistent puzzle that only six are visible to the naked eye.

Melanie Phillips: Amoral Andy sticks it to the Jews

Who cares that no-one knows how he'll govern Britain? He's passionate about Gaza

Well that didn’t take long, did it?

On the day that 322 politically bankrupt and panicky Labour MPs made it all but certain through their backing that Andy Burnham’s coup against Sir Keir Starmer had succeeded and he would replace him as prime minister, Burnham — whose only claim to fame is the common touch he brought to his role as mayor of Manchester — chose to celebrate by sticking it to the Jews.

Roger Partridge: A Guide to a Muscular Liberalism

Liberals can articulate their values without trampling on rights.

Every political tradition faces the question of what constitutes a good life. But only liberalism struggles so visibly to offer a straightforward answer. Authoritarians promise order and national greatness. Socialists promise equality. Post-liberal writers promise meaning and belonging through restored religious and civilizational authority—a life ordered to faith, family, and place.

Liberalism alone points nowhere in particular. Its answer—freedom—tells you what to protect, not what to do with it. Yet that silence is not emptiness. It reflects a wise limit: no one can know in advance the forms a flourishing life will take.

JC: Impey Looks the Goods at RNZ

There is an app where one can rate a headline for, among other things, readability. Negative headlines do not score well. Positive headlines do. Finding a positive headline for an article with negative connotations requires some thought. The headline for this article reads, at first glance, as though the new chair of Radio New Zealand will do well in navigating the future of the organisation. Far from it. What I mean by my headline is that Brent Impey is ‘one of them’. He seems to think that RNZ, in its present form, is perfectly positioned to carry all before it. I don’t think so.

Peter Dunne: New Zealand’s foreign policy

The rock and the hard place that has defined New Zealand’s foreign policy for the last decade or so is getting ever sharper and more uncomfortable.

Since the thaw in relations with the United States after the 1980s nuclear row, New Zealand has been a reluctant friend. Consistent with what it holds to be an independent foreign policy, New Zealand has supported the United States on some issues and opposed it on others. For example, it provided significant military and operational support to the United States-led Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in the early 2000s but opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 because it had not had the approval of the United Nations.

Saturday July 11, 2026 

                   ⇩

Peter Hemmingson: Matariki and Kwanzaa – Sister-Celebrations of Marxist-Leninist Identity Politics

Organised Matariki Festivals are a comparatively recent fabrication.

The Carter Observatory's learning and programming manager, John Field, said in a 2013 article published on www.stuff.co.nz:

"If you went back about 15 years, no-one had heard of Matariki. It was only celebrated in the far north or middle of the North Island," he said. "After Te Reo became more popular, Matariki became much more of a celebration."

Matt Ridley: The most important thing to happen in 1776

Happy Independence Day, rational optimist. As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, Matt Ridley reflects on the 1776 innovation that made it possible for democracy and free enterprise to flourish... Enjoy.

The Declaration of Independence, written 250 years ago this week, was a bright torch of the Enlightenment. So was Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, also published 250 years ago this year. But for me the most momentous happening in 1776 was the inauguration of James Watt’s first practical steam engine.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 5.7.26

Saturday July 11, 2026 

News:
Matariki Pā: Ancient site returned to local hapū after more than a century in private ownership
A significant ancestral pā site near the mouth of the Clarence River in Kaikōura has been returned to Ngāti Kurī, marking the end of more than a century of the land being in private hands.

The purchase of Matariki Pā — 45 hectares of land north of the Waiau Toa Clarence River — was finalised in June through Te Rūnanga o Kaikōura and the Murray family, who had owned the property since the early 1900s.

Clive Bibby: Time passes but real friendships endure

A recent encounter with an old school mate from 1958 has provided the opportunity to share a story which reflects on a bygone era that helped to make us what we are today.

Sadly, due to the selfish and deliberately divisive activities of some modern politicians and community leaders, those days of racial harmony appear lost forever.

Caleb Anderson: Information and intelligence are not the same thing

It seems that we live in an age of abundant information. But is this making us more, or perhaps less, intelligent? Why, with vast amounts of information at our fingertips, are we more uncertain, divided, and confused, on so many fronts?

We are swimming in information and drowning in confusion.

Colinxy: Why the Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor.....

Why the Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor — And How Unions Used It to Enforce Racial Exclusion

Few policies enjoy such unearned moral prestige as the minimum wage. It is presented as a simple act of compassion: raise the legal wage floor, and the poor will rise with it. Politicians love it because it costs them nothing. Activists love it because it sounds righteous. Unions love it because it protects their members from competition.

John McLean: Jagose Stays Close

The frightful former Solicitor-General who refuses to go way

The New Zealand Law Association is doing an admirable job enabling subversive, activist lawyers to expose themselves. The Association is a divine reincarnation of the former Auckland District Law Society. Unlike the New Zealand Law Society, the NZ Law Assn has no statutory authority and doesn’t try to hound un-Woke lawyers out of the legal profession. I’ve previously covered the Law Society’s brutal, unlawful hounding of heterodox lawyers:

John MacDonald: Time to think bigger than solar panels on the roof

Whatever happened to this country’s ability to think big on the energy front?

And why is it that we’re not doing the same with solar energy and why are our politicians relying on households to do the heavy lifting?

I mention thinking big intentionally. Because that’s what we did back in the 1970s and 1980s, especially with the big hydro power schemes.

Brendan O'Neill: How Britain’s cops became the armed wing of wokeness

From arresting critics of Muhammad to mistreating white men, the police have become the enforcers of woke tyranny.

Insulting Muhammad. Criticising a local councillor. Being a white lad who gets punched in the head by a gang of black kids. In Britain in 2026, these are the ‘crimes’ that get the cops off their a***s. They might not be able to find the lowlifes who burgled your home or the gang members who groomed your daughter. But they’ll come running if you diss Islam or have a pop at a Green politician or commit the heinous sin of being white and male on a night out. Welcome to your two-tier tyranny.