John Raine: Where to With Education and Research Policy

Cultural Re-Engineering through the Education System

The 2020s have been a period of cultural change in academia throughout the Western world. In countries such as the USA, Canada, the U.K. and Australia, where universities have been heavily captured by woke agendas, we have yet to see a marked loss of momentum in “progressive” left wing politics on campus. This embrace of postmodernism and identity politics has also pervaded the primary and secondary education system. It has also infected to some degree the country’s research system.

Ryan Bridge: My final election prediction, Qiulae's out

Nearly there.

Voting's already happening for Kiwis overseas.

Monday, we start in-country. Two weeks later it's all over and counting begins.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Is the TVNZ strike politically motivated?

I'm surprised because TVNZ journos basically never strike. The last time they did was 20 years ago, in 2006. Yet, when they finally decide to strike, they choose to do it just nine days before an election.

Surely they're smart enough to realise how political that's going to look.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 18.10.26

Friday October 23, 2026 

News:
Government funding deal for Māori Wardens breached law, High Court finds
A $10.8 million government deal to directly fund Māori Wardens was unlawful because it bypassed the statutory body given exclusive authority to supervise the volunteer group, a court has ruled.

In a High Court judgment delivered on Thursday, Justice La Hood declared the multi-year funding agreement between Te Puni Kōkiri and Ngā Wātene Māori o Aotearoa Charitable Trust breached the Maori Community Development Act 1962.

Gary Judd KC: A Story Is Not Enough

Witchcraft and all that

In A Halfling’s View, The Tyranny of a Good Story, subtitled “In praise of guides who can prove what they say — and against the fashion that pretends it doesn’t matter,” retired Judge David Harvey contrasts An account you can check, or an account you must swallow. He says:

Strip away the sentiment and the choice is stark.

David Harvey: Labour’s Online Policy

The great thing about the Left is that they never fail to disappoint. Rather like Cassandra I have been predicting that Labour and the Left would develop an interventionist Online Policy. In fact in September I suggested that when Hipkins announced Labour’s AI policy it was something of a Trojan Horse. One of the elements there was the presence of an Online Regulator.

Richard Prebble: What can we read into the TVNZ poll?

I have a reputation for being able to read polls. Pollsters used to ask me for my analysis. My immediate reaction is to wait and see if it is a trend.

Having got the product warning out of the way, the TVNZ-Verian poll has a good record of predicting election results, with one proviso. The polls have repeatedly misjudged minor-party support.

Simon O'Connor: The Most Important Boring Election

Why New Zealanders seem strangely uninspired by one of the most important elections in years.

I was reflecting on my reactions to the recent leader and ‘minor party’ debates. I’ve found them dull, full of predictable talking points, and carefully rehearsed responses. They seem less a contest of ideas and more an exercise in political management.

Yet, at the same time, I am very aware just how close this election is and how critical the result will be for the future of New Zealand.

Kerre Woodham: Free speech doesn't mean you can threaten people

There's a text here, "talk about a beat up by ZB on politicians and threats. If you raise the possibility and keep flagging potential problems, you may get what you predict. So stupid to highlight this on your news at this time," says Paul. I don't think that's true. I think there are very, very, very few people worldwide, even with all the problems that abound, that would act in the way that this 43 year old Australian has done. Very few. But what people need to understand is that violent words, violent rhetoric can breed violent actions, and it may help temper the kind of madness that you see online. And the attack on the Australian independent MP Helen Haines is absolutely horrific, and it will make the news. It is newsworthy.

Geoff Parker: Te Tiriti Is Not a Blank Cheque for Constitutional Transformation

Professor Carwyn Jones warns that the debate over Te Tiriti goes “to the heart of Aotearoa’s constitutional future”. He is right about one thing: this is a constitutional debate. But that makes the question of who gets to determine that future extremely important.

The problem is that Jones presents a particular modern interpretation of Te Tiriti as though it provides an established constitutional framework for New Zealand today. It does not.

Andrew Dickens: We need more dentists

There's an election promise to train more dentists in Otago – the first increase in training numbers in 10 years.

And if it comes to pass, you'll have to ask, why did this not happen earlier?

In John Key's day, economic policy supercharged our economy on the back of mass immigration and surging property prices.

David Farrar: IMF’s 2027 growth forecasts

The IMF has just published their forecasts for economic growth for 2027. They show that NZ is projected to have far better growth than many other countries. An extract:

Mike's Minute: Labour is fighting our memories - and time

Surely it's only one more day before Chris Hipkins gets to, just maybe, put the gangs in the rear-view mirror.

In his new found assessment that handing millions to the Mongrel Mob when last in government was "a mistake", he reveals the real issue he faces this election campaign;

Time.

The gap between what he did and what he now promises to do is too short. That is roughly why most governments get two terms.

JC: Good Luck Chippie – You’ll Need It

Hipkins’ bedfellows are bordering on the bizarre. If only we could have a leaders debate featuring Hipkins, Swarbrick, Waititi and Wong. Hipkins would find himself spending 90 minutes between three rocks and a hard place. The differences between Labour and the rest would be of such magnitude that split voting on the right, now vital to determining the outcome of the election, would become completely unnecessary.

The policy rubbish coming from the Greens, Māori Party and Opportunity Party can only mean they are not taking ‘thinking’ voters seriously – it’s more like they are taking us for fools. On election night they might just find out who the fools really are – themselves. They are certainly giving the impression they have absolutely no clue about the economy.

Thursday October 22, 2026 

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Anglo Saxon: Tax payer funded academic debunked on New Zealand's "illegal founding."

Anglo Saxon says Claire Charters is a radicalised academic with some outrageous claims and wild theories. Her salary comes out of our pockets.

Click to view

John Denton: The Tragedy of the Commons: Self-interest and NZ Politics

One of the more interesting paradoxes in economics is that individuals pursuing their own economic interests can collectively produce an outcome that leaves everyone worse off. This is the tragedy of the commons.

The idea was first clearly formulated in 1833 by William Forster Lloyd, an Oxford professor of political economy, as follows.

David Lillis: Education, Science and the Election

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...” Carl Sagan (1995).

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Is this the moment National started to win the election?

All right, it was either a rogue poll, or it was the moment National started to win this election. I think there's a good chance it's the latter.

If National is now winning the election, it will be because they have finally started talking about the things they're good at: education and crime. Thank you very much to the Mongrel Mob for the latter. Not that annoying "nine new taxes" nonsense that wasn't working.

David Harvey: Not A Right to Silence Issue

How Politicians Misunderstand Highly Nuanced Legal Concepts

The National Party announced a policy that proposes to remove the right to silence that can be invoked by adults who may (or may not) have information surrounding the cause of death of a child under 12.

The term “right to silence” has a number of meanings at law.