Thursday June 18, 2026 

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Owen Jennings: Giovani is Unhappy

Giovani Riveri makes ‘healthy’ sandwiches and ‘coffee to die for’ in the centre of New York, right under the tallest skyscrapers. Giovani is not happy. Some of his best customers and biggest tippers have disappeared. Income is down again. Giovani knows why, too.

“It’s Mamdani. It’s his freakin’ taxes.” He nods up at the glass offices towering above his little bar. “Dey all going to Texas, man. Mamdani is driving the wealthy outa ere”.

Andrew Dickens: Is the Michelin guide worth taxpayer money?

The first Michelin rankings of New Zealand restaurants are out later this month.

Yesterday, Jesse Mulligan, the Herald’s restaurant reviewer, pointed out it’s going to be a very incomplete list of our best restaurants and worth little to most, including the high wealth tourists it’s supposed to attract.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Do we really need another special unit that costs more money?

Now, unfortunately, because it is an election year, we are apparently going to have the debate that we have every single election year: should we set up a special unit that costs each party's election promises independently?

And the answer to that question should be the same as it always is - no, we should not do this.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.6.26

Thursday June 18, 2026 

News:
Luxon meets iwi leaders as Treaty clause tensions continue to simmer
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has met with iwi leaders for the first time since they formally requested talks over the Government’s Treaty clause review, following months of growing tension between the Crown and the National Iwi Chairs Forum.

Luxon alongside Ministers Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith and Tama Potaka were at the meeting on Wednesday morning at the Beehive.

Timothy Welch: Cheaper fares won’t fix NZ’s public transport woes

Cheaper fares won’t fix NZ’s public transport woes – and neither will a few extra buses

Last week, within the space of 24 hours, voters heard two very different proposals to improve New Zealand’s public transport system.

On Wednesday, Labour promised to cap weekly fares at NZ$20 in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch – and $10 everywhere else – if elected to power in November.

On Thursday, Transport Minister Chris Bishop, of incumbent National, responded by suggesting the government could use its $450 million fuel emergency fund for more trains and buses at peak times.

One policy lowers the price. The other adds service.

Nicole Foss: An Actual Deal? I Very Much Doubt It.

The US, Iran, and the mediator -Pakistan – have all said that some kind of agreement is close. This is the first time all have agreed. Usually such statements come only from Trump and are merely for the purpose of market manipulation. However, there are significant caveats. What is being proposed is not actually a deal, but merely a memorandum of understanding (MOU). There are still huge differences in the public stance of both the US and Iran, and Israel has said it won’t agree to anything. The MOU is meant to be phase one of an agreement, involving a sixty day ceasefire during which further details are to be negotiate, leading to phase two.

Ivan Barnett: The Breach, The Silence, The Collapse

A Constitutional Warning to Parliament and the People of New Zealand

The Point of Collapse

New Zealand has reached a moment where silence is no longer a neutral act. It has become participation in the dismantling of our own democracy. For months, citizens have traced the internal drift of government institutions — ministries acting beyond mandate, ideological frameworks embedded without parliamentary approval, and decisions made without transparency or consent.

This is not speculation. This is not political theatre. This is a constitutional breach unfolding inside the machinery of the state.

Melanie Phillips: Cyrus no more

The Trump administration's apparent naivety towards Iran is either imbecility or dissimulation

The shock and distress in Israel are palpable. President Donald Trump’s apparent volte-face on Iran is being felt as an abandonment.

Roger Partridge: Cooking up a storm - Robust criticism no threat to Supreme Court

Warren Pyke is, by all accounts, a serious practitioner. Thirty-five years acting for the underprivileged, the vulnerable, the mentally ill, the villainous and a great many “ordinary folk” is real civil-liberties work. His reply in these pages, “Balance needed in criticisms of Lord Cooke and the Supreme Court,” takes issue with my June essay, “Lord Cooke's indictment.” Pyke is right that my column did not survey the whole output of the Supreme Court. It did not attempt to. Most of the court’s judgments doubtless are orthodox and well-reasoned, and nothing I wrote was meant to suggest otherwise. On that much, Pyke and I agree. The complaint was never with the body of the court’s work. It was with an increasing number of radical decisions.

Kerre Woodham: Fairness and land acquisition for public works

Life isn't fair. It's one of the first lessons you learn. And it's not fair when you find yourself, or more accurately your home, right smack in the middle of a vital piece of infrastructure. There's been so many cases around the country over a long period of time, but more recently you had the buyout of houses after the Canterbury quakes. Technically the buyouts of more than 8,000 properties were structured as voluntary offers. However, many residents felt forced to accept because the Government explicitly stated that essential infrastructure and council services would cease in those zones. They would be no more. They'd be living in a literal no man's land. You had the buyout of 160 odd homes for the Waterview Tunnel. We've had 50 odd homes in Ranui in West Auckland bought by the council to make way for new floodplains and to uncover a buried piped stream. So if your house happened to be right over the top of that stream, you were gone.

Bob Edlin: Simeon Brown applies his scalpel to the Medical Council.....

Simeon Brown applies his scalpel to the Medical Council – but Treaty ideology has spread through the health system

The Post reports:


Health Min­is­ter Simeon Brown has removed the lead­er­ship of New Zea­l­and’s med­ical reg­u­lator, accus­ing the Med­ical Coun­cil of pur­su­ing an “ideo­lo­gical agenda” and becom­ing dis­trac­ted from its core respons­ib­il­it­ies.

David Farrar: Labour and Te Pati Maori

Politik reports:

But Labour may have got the jump on ACT with its leader announcing that it is highly unlikely to go into coalition with the Greens or Te Paati Maori, but instead will simply do confidence and supply agreements with the two parties.

This will actually make any Government less stable, and actually make Te Pāti Māori more powerful.

Wednesday June 17, 2026 

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Lindsay Mitchell: Quarter of a million children are now dependent on welfare

It's appalling that a quarter of a million children now need an income from the state to feed, clothe and house them.

Data released under the Official Information Act shows over a quarter of a million children were dependent on welfare at December 2025.

At 31 December 2025 there were 255,300 children aged 0-17 reliant on a caregiver on a main benefit (234,429); or on an Orphan/ Unsupported Child benefit (20,871).

Andrew Dickens: The grownups are in charge of infrastructure

Good Lord. Parliamentarians are actually doing something we've asked for.

They've come up with an Infrastructure Plan for the next 30 years and more remarkably it has rare cross party backing.

It was produced independently by the Infrastructure Commission.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Don't trifle with Erica Stanford

Ooh, let today be a warning to public servants considering trying to get one over Erica Stanford: they may want to rethink that approach and play with a straight bat instead, because Erica Stanford is not one to be trifled with.

Today, she has thrown her officials - her migration officials in particular - under the bus by revealing that they wasted more than $30 million on a biometrics data system that never actually materialised.

Mike's Minute: Are there winners from the Iran deal?

So, we got there. We have a deal. Iran is over – back to normality.

Like most wars, you can spin it any way you want.

In this case, the part relief plays is not to be underestimated.

JC: Driver’s Seat, Back Seat or Boot

I note the Electoral Commission is highlighting the discriminatory nature of the election process, whereby people of a certain colour and ethnicity are offered a choice of either of two rolls on which they can register. How is it that this archaic piece of nonsense is allowed to exist? The only purpose it is serving is to remind the rest of the residing ‘peasants’ that in 2026 we have still not attained ‘one country’ status. It serves to remind us that, in the area that defines what a democratic country is – the rights of the individual – we are a country divided by race. It serves to remind us that a certain minority get a political choice the rest of us are not entitled to.

Colinxy: Labour’s “Three Free GP Visits”......

Labour’s “Three Free GP Visits”: A Policy That Solves Nothing Except Labour’s Need for a Slogan

Labour’s Health Spokesperson, Ayesha Jennifer Verrall, is often introduced to the public with the reassuring phrase “she’s a doctor.” True—though her practising licence appears to have lapsed…and she is now the face of Labour’s latest health‑sector miracle cure: three free GP visits for every New Zealander.

“Free,” of course, being the political euphemism for taxpayer‑funded, which in turn is the bureaucratic euphemism for you will pay for this, just not at the counter.