Damien Grant: We think we vote for radically different futures....

.....History proves we don’t

If your team won yesterday you may be feeling a twinge of joy. If not, perhaps you are feeling a sense of disappointment. Either way, let me bring you back to an equilibrium.

Elections, with a very few consequential exceptions, do not matter.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.11.26

Monday November 9, 2026 

News:
Auckland Council doubles down on diversity dollar
Auckland Council wants to double the proportion of its suppliers that are Māori and Pasifika-owned, as it looks to direct more of the region’s spending towards businesses helping drive the city’s economic future.

The council said it currently sources 5% of its goods and services from Māori and Pasifika suppliers and had set a target of 10% by 2034.

Colinxy: The Coalition Looks Set to Survive Another Election

Barring an unexpected twist from the special votes, the Coalition appears set to continue governing after yesterday’s election. While commentators are already searching for scenarios that might upend the result, the arithmetic currently favours continuing the existing arrangement.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Government can’t keep borrowing to prop up New Zealand households

Almost 180,000 more New Zealand citizens have left the country than have returned in the past four years. Most have gone to Australia.

Higher incomes in Australia are likely a factor. Australians earn about 30 percent more per person than New Zealanders. That gap is worth roughly $20,000 a year for every New Zealander, or about $105 billion in total.

Many New Zealanders will not be aware of the extent of the shortfall because heavy government borrowing has been bolstering household incomes unsustainably.

Nick Clark: The rates cap that can put rates up

Just before Parliament was dissolved for the election, the Government introduced the Local Government (Rates Capping) Amendment Bill. There was just enough time to call for submissions before MPs headed off on campaign.

Under the legislation, councils would not be able to increase their rates by more than a set percentage (four percent as drafted in the Bill) without central Government permission. That much is clear from the Bill's name.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Why New Zealanders earn less, and what can be done about it

Higher incomes in Australia draw New Zealanders across the Tasman. Many of those who remain here struggle with a high cost of living relative to their income.

The income gap with Australia is large. In 2024, Australians earned about 30 percent more income per person than New Zealanders, according to an OECD measure. That gap comes to $20,000 per person.

Bruce Cotterill: Netball NZ leaders are failing the sport off court

Netball New Zealand’s new administrative line-up needed, to borrow a basketball term, a “slam dunk” as they dealt with the first few months under the new regime. With a few wins under their belt, they would have created the opportunity to start rebuilding trust after the debacle of the last 18 months.

But they’ve missed the chance. They’re looking shambolic all over again. And they’ve made things worse, not better.

Bob Edlin: It’s a name known to the hundreds of people who attended her funeral.....

....but the police don’t want you to know it

Stuff reports some bemusing law-and-order thinking in an article headed –

She died violently in her home. Why police don’t want you to know her name

Police have moved to block Stuff from revealing the name of a highly respected mother and grandmother who was the victim of a homicide in the small Bay of Plenty community of Kawerau.

David Farrar: Would they do this to a Chinese DJ?

The Free Speech Union released:

Twisted Frequency, a New Year music festival in Golden Bay, has cancelled Israeli DJ Dekel because he has not spoken out against Israel.

The festival says it was told Dekel had been a commander in the Israeli Defence Force and had performed in Israel in recent years. When it heard this, it contacted his management to cancel the booking.

 Sunday November 8, 2026 

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Rodney Hide: Nine hundred thousand votes

That's how many National party votes there will be once the specials are counted. Every one of them went down the toilet.

On that projection National has 41 electorates. Those party votes entitle it to 34 seats. The extra seven come from the electorates, not from the party vote. Christopher Luxon could have stacked another hundred thousand party votes on the pile and he would not have gained a single MP.

Richard Prebble: The two Christophers

Regardless of the final result, this election has been a disastrous performance by both Christophers. On election night neither National nor Labour received 30 per cent of the party vote.

Labour has 15 list MPs only because it performed so poorly in the electorates.

Labour has paid the price for failing to replace Chris Hipkins.

National’s failure is even more extraordinary.

Matt Ridley: how seriously should we take AI doom warnings?

Imagine an artificial intelligence making copies of itself...the first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of ten hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined.

Peter Robinson: The President Who Didn’t Love a Wall

What did the 1987 Berlin Wall Address mean to prisoners of communism—and what does it mean today?

In this essay, my esteemed colleague and President Reagan’s former speechwriter, Peter Robinson, tells the story behind the iconic Berlin Wall Address and its legacy thirty-nine years later. To read my reflections on twenty-first-century lessons derived from this speech, click here. –H.R. McMaster

David Farrar: A Labour led Government is incredibly improbable

The results so far have 67 seats for the Government parties and 64 seats for the others.

National has 42 electorate seats. Those with a small majority are:

Dame Elizabeth Rata: Episode 10 - Science 1877 - 1899

In the video below Episode 10 is about how science began in New Zealand schools and explains how the subject quickly produced so many first-class scientists. Much of the credit for its inclusion in the syllabus and its quality goes to the inspectors. Many were scientists themselves. They understood how modern science enabled young people to be taught about the workings of the universe. It was the latest understanding – "Science is a line of study which has for its object the imparting of the fundamental laws which regulate the phenomena of the world in which we live".

Guest Post: Who’s in charge of running the country if coalition negotiations drag on?

Guest Post - Neil Sands on Law News

As the government prepares to enter the official caretaker period on November 7, Professor Philip Joseph KC ponders what he calls the $64,000 question – what happens if a disgruntled leader goes rogue and ignores the caretaker convention setting out the orderly transition of power in New Zealand’s democracy?

“We just don’t know how the situation would unfold,” Joseph, a legal academic at the University of Canterbury specialising in constitutional law, told LawNews. “It’s never happened, that’s the first point to make.

Centrist: All nine boot camp youths reoffended....

....but violent crime fell 72%, new figures reveal

All nine surviving participants in the government's original military-style boot camp pilot reoffended within a year of leaving residential care, but violent offences fell by 72%, according to previously unpublished figures obtained by Centrist under the Official Information Act.

Colinxy: The Antifa Cult

One of the peculiar features of modern politics is that movements often become the very thing they claim to oppose. No contemporary group illustrates this paradox more clearly than Antifa.

The name itself is a form of political camouflage. “Antifa” is simply short for “anti-fascist”, and that label does much of the movement’s rhetorical heavy lifting. After all, who could possibly object to opposing fascism? By defining itself as anti-fascist, the movement attempts to claim the moral high ground before any argument has even begun.

Christopher Freiman: Can the Wealthy Buy Elections?

When Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire (albeit briefly), many people objected. They argued that no one should have that much money when others have so much less. As Musk leveraged that fortune in an attempt to shape electoral outcomes, some despaired. Tuesday’s results indicate that was a poor investment, but it’s his half a billion to waste.