Breaking Views Update: Week of 16.11.25

Friday November 21, 2025 

News:
Changes for schools and universities
Parliament has passed the Education and Training Amendment Act 2025, which brings in some important changes for schools and universities.

Ryan Bridge: Are we on the cusp of an economic turn around?

We've got a bunch of new economic numbers this morning.

The recovery is underway. Finally.

We've had false dawns before, so I'm not overcooking this, but things are moving in the right direction. Investor confidence is up for Q3.

Ani O'Brien: Parole Board called it "managed risk", now a woman is dead

Inside the offender-first justice system that keeps releasing New Zealand’s monsters

We can all see it. Our Government can see it. They’ve made legislative changes, but the judiciary digs in. Our justice system bends over backwards for offenders while the people they’ve terrorised are told to “trust the process.” Officials love to talk about “risk management” and “rehabilitation,” but for victims, in particular women living with the consequences of male violence, those phrases are code for one thing: he’ll keep getting second chances until he kills someone.

Craig Rucker: COP30 - The UN wants trillions more!

In Brazil, they call it a “mutirão,” meaning the community pitching in together to accomplish a common goal.

At COP30 in Belém, it means you do the paying, and the UN pitches in by doing the collecting.

Chris Lynch: Government move on puberty blockers follows strong push from New Zealand First

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has welcomed the Government’s decision to halt any new prescribing of puberty blockers, saying his party had pushed for the change throughout the election campaign.

Dr Eric Crampton: If this is employment law, the law needs to change

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that Uber did not merely facilitate connections between four drivers and their various passengers – as Uber has maintained. And that the four drivers were not contractors for Uber either.

Instead, those drivers were Uber employees while logged into the app.

If they were employees, it’s a strange sort of employment relationship.

Matua Kahurangi: It's time To abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority....

ACT’s Laura McClure is right: It's time To abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority

ACT MP Laura McClure has sparked a necessary debate with her member’s bill to abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority, calling time on what she describes as an outdated and unnecessary institution. After years of creeping overreach, ballooning levies, and increasingly irrelevant regulation, her proposal lands at exactly the right moment.

Kerre Woodham: What makes NZ workplaces so dangerous?

It's the 15th anniversary today of the Pike River mine disaster, and on this anniversary, unions are calling for a corporate manslaughter law to be enshrined in legislation, as it is in other countries like the UK, Australia, Canada.

Alwyn Poole: Equity of Opportunity in Education

A Summary of Cameron Bagrie’s Business Desk Piece on Education (all quotes below)

– Do we have equality of opportunity in schooling? We’d like to think so. I’ve heard many politicians talk about it. We do not have it.

– Education is one of my bugbears that I consider an essential part of the economic formula for addressing social challenges and increasing living standards.

David Farrar: $2.3 billion saved on ferries

Winston Peters announced:

The Government has saved the taxpayer billions with two new Interislander ferries from Guangzhou Shipyard International and no-nonsense infrastructure in Picton and Wellington, Rail Minister Winston Peters announced today.

“Two new ferries serving road and rail will enter Cook Strait service in 2029, thanks to a $596 million fixed price contract between Ferry Holdings and experienced shipbuilder Guangzhou Shipyard International,” Mr Peters says.

Richard Prebble: A Year Is an Eternity in Politics — Luxon Knows It, Trump Fears It

If a week is a long time in politics, a year is an eternity. Both Prime Minister Luxon and President Trump must hope so — though for one of them, time may already have run out.

In New Zealand, the National-led coalition is somehow trailing Labour in the polls on economic management. Labour took office with a wonderful set of books, inflation under control, and the economy growing. They left behind deficits, debt, inflation, and a recession. Yet today Labour leads on the very issue they mismanaged. If the coalition cannot reverse that number, it signals defeat.

Mike's Minute: This is why the govt shouldn't mess with markets

This is how we end up in trouble. Things are said that aren't challenged.

Here's the headline: "NZ will be dumping ground for high emission cars".

That was a claim from an EV lobby group. I wonder why they would say that?

 Thursday November 20, 2025 

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Clive Bibby: Running on Empty- it doesn't have to signal the end is nigh

In some ways, I'm quite proud of the fact that most of my adult life has been spent struggling to survive during events that are not of our making - we are survivors!

My guess is that a good dollop of the population can identify with that rather negative claim but it would be a mistake to assume that those like me are living an unfulfilled existence.

Steven Gaskell: When “Identity” Becomes a Funding Strategy: The Magically Expanding Population

For decades we’ve been told that the rapidly expanding Māori population is a triumph of cultural revival a demographic renaissance driven by pride, resilience, and whakapapa. A neat story, certainly, but one that becomes a little less poetic the moment you look at how the numbers are actually assembled. Because the “doubling” of the Māori population since 1991 isn’t the result of a baby boom or sudden historic revelation. It’s the product of an increasingly flexible, politically convenient definition of ethnicity one that can expand or contract depending on who’s filling out the census and what benefits are attached to ticking the right box.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Breakers proved why sport needs to stay out of politics

There would not be a drama today about the Breakers basketball team not wanting to wear the rainbow flag on their jerseys if the basketball league had stayed out of politics in the first place.

Now, if you haven't caught up on this, there is unnecessary upset today because it's emerged that the entire Breakers team will not wear that little rainbow Pride flag on their jerseys during Pride Round next year because some of the players don't want to.

Garrick Tremain: His decision with Euthanasia - Part 4

In the final part of this 4-part interview on The Platform, terminally ill Garrick Tremain talks to Sean Plunket about his decision with Euthanasia.

Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Chris Bishop has done a Tory Whanau

The story about Chris Bishop and the funding switcheroo is mostly a beat up, I think, and nobody will care. He's the Housing Minister, the Transport Minister, and the MP for Hutt South.

Basically, some Kainga Ora housing project cash was transferred to transport to pay for a bridge. He signed it off - so far, who cares, right?

Dr Michael John Schmidt: Luxon’s Cosplay Will Lead to Failure

I’ve written two prior essays on this: one dissecting the structural incoherence of NZ’s proposed social media legislation and another diagnosing Christopher Luxon’s managerial style. Though the first wasn’t targeted at him directly, his recent promise to pass the Social Media (Age-Restricted Users) Bill before Christmas 2025 proves both points. It’s a convergence of strategic failure and performative urgency – a case study in cosplay politics.

Luxon is not leading. He is floundering to achieve ‘something’ that might resemble leadership. But what he’s delivering is symbolic action dressed up as governance – hollow in conception and dangerous in its implications.

Dr Michael Bassett: Whose Auckland Festival

As I was looking over the programme for next March’s Auckland Arts Festival I was struck by the large number of events with a Maori theme. Open the cover and the introduction is headed Toitu Te Reo with a large piece of text in Maori. Then Ihi. Wehi. Mana featuring a group of Maori adorned with stick-on chin tattoos. Then He Manu Tioriori follows with a further long burst in Te Reo. Then ONO with Moana & the Tribe, featuring another column of Te Reo. And there’s a “free” Whanau Day for the citizens of Tamaki Makaurau!