Breaking Views Update: Week of 2.8.26

Monday August 3, 2026 

News:
Five regional parks gain Māori names
Five of Auckland's best-known regional parks have been formally given Māori names and narratives, marking the first regional parks to be recognised through a long-running programme to restore and share traditional place names across Tāmaki Makaurau.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: New Zealand ignores the Kiwi who saw the future coming

In 1987, on a school trip to the German countryside, my maths teacher made a prediction. Dr Müller had worked at IBM before turning to teaching in our industrial city, Essen. One day, he mused, fast data connections would let him live in a place like this without giving anything up.

I was twelve and had just unpacked my first computer, an Amiga 500 with 512 kilobytes of memory. I found Dr Müller’s idea so fascinating, I still remember that conversation.

Dr Michael Johnston: Is university still worthwhile?

New Zealanders have long seen university as the best educational route to the good life. Trades and industry training is seen as a second-best option.

That attitude has always been based more on prejudice than reality. Skilled tradies are paid well and many go on to start lucrative businesses of their own.

It is time for a serious re-think of the way young people are prepared for the choices they face when they leave school.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: As they (RMA replacement Bills) stand, no

Last week, Eric Crampton made the case for passing the RMA replacement Bills, while noting some risks in their current form.

Nick Clark argued that Parliament should pause them.

I promised a verdict. Here it is: the Bills still need work. Deadlines loom if the government wants to pass them this term. And it may not have time to get them into shape.

Richard Eldred: BP Puts North Sea Business Up for Sale, Ending 60 Years of Production

BP is putting its entire North Sea business up for sale, drawing a line under 60 years of production in the region. The BBC has the story:

The decision follows a review of BP’s operations as it seeks to slim down the group. Its North Sea business has five production hubs – two in the central North Sea and three west of Shetland – and employs about 1,100 people. …

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Using Orbán tactics to purge opponents is wrong way to clean up Hungary

Ask a well-informed European to name the Council of Europe's constitutional advisory body, and you will usually get a pause. I had to look it up myself last week, which is awkward for a Europe columnist, and worse for one with a doctorate in law.

It is called the Venice Commission, created in May 1990, six months after the Berlin Wall came down. Its founding resolution gave it the job of providing emergency constitutional aid to states in transition.

Dave Patterson: Where Does the US Stand With Iran?

President Trump has let it be known that he is not putting up with Tehran’s negotiating games. In response to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s (IRGC) surprise attack, launching numerous ballistic missiles at American military facilities in Jordan on Tuesday night (July 28), America’s commander-in-chief said the strikes would be answered with ferocity. All incoming missiles were intercepted, and no damage was done, nor were US service members killed or injured. What the attack did accomplish, however, was to motivate the US president to act decisively. As Fox News reported: “The United States resumed airstrikes inside Iran Wednesday night in retaliation for Tehran’s attempted surprise ballistic-missile attack on American forces, as an Iran expert warned that the regime has become increasingly willing to test Washington despite its weakened military capabilities.”

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: The Big Debate

UK 

The Big Debate

A major debate is underway amongst the centre-right on energy and climate policies. This week, the Telegraph featured a series of opinion pieces by leading thinkers on the subject:

With half of country suffering from drought, Tim Stanley argued conservatives need to take climate change seriously – and our writers responded.

Dr Eric Crampton: A Grokwork Orange

It’s only going to get weirder from here, folks.

Trump did not like existing social media platforms, so he launched his own, Truth Social, in 2022.

He posts there a lot. Content really can be anything.

Ashley Church: Are the Palestinians the ‘real Jews’?

What defines an ancient identity?

Back in June I wrote an article pointing out the inconvenient fact that there has never, at any time in history, been a sovereign Palestinian state and that reference to one is an invented modern fiction.

Antisemitic commentators responded immediately.

Unable to challenge the core of my argument (because history is history) they changed tack and latched on to an old conspiracy theory: that the Palestinians and the Jews are genetically related and that, therefore, the Palestinians are the ‘real Jews’ while the people we now call Jews are outsiders.

Sunday August 2, 2026 

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Chris Lynch: Opportunity Party wanted to raise youth justice age to 25....

Opportunity Party wanted to raise youth justice age to 25, now can’t say what the limit should be

The Opportunity Party has scrubbed the age of 25 from a policy proposing a major expansion of New Zealand’s youth justice system.

An archived version of the party’s “Smart on Crime” policy, captured on March 5, explicitly promised to “raise the age of the youth court jurisdiction to 25, in line with developmental science”.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 1 August 2026

Election 2026: Buff Bros and Bad Ideas

In a week full of controversy, Green candidate for Waiariki, Tania Waikato, drew attention by posting photographs of scantily clad Māori men and women (including herself) alongside information about enrolling and switching electoral rolls. She calls it the “bikini baddies and buff bros” campaign, the media calls it a thirst trap, and I call it a red flag for the Green Party. I am not sure they have room for an ego of Waikato’s size in their caucus.

Tony Orman: The Political Power Culture is Wrong – and Dangerous to Democracy

The first paragraph of a recent article on website “Newsroom” said “Labour says it will “100 percent” repeal one of the most contentious parts of the Government’s Planning and Natural Environment Bills if it wins power.”

Power?

Power over who?

John McLean: Evolution Of New Zealanders Into Entitled Aoteachondriacs

The future’s uncertain, and the end is always near

Sit down and pour yourself a strong one. Or a cup of tea. It’s all the same to me. I’ve got news for you. You are going to DIE. And, in the overall scheme of things, your death will come soon. The longer you live, the more likely it is that your last few years will be unproductive and unpleasant. In old age (if you get that far), you’ll be a burden on your fellow New Zealanders. There is no “right to life”.

Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Both Labour and National are tiptoeing around Winston

Did you see even Don Brash reckons Luxon should fire Winston as Foreign Minister?

Before anyone gets their hopes up, this never going to happen. If the PM cut Winston loose, the government would fall apart. That would kill not only Luxon's current term but his ambitions for a second.

Rodney Hide: Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance

In “The Open Society and Its Enemies” (written during the Second World War, in New Zealand), Karl Popper identified a structural problem for liberal societies. Unlimited tolerance, he argued, is self-defeating. If a tolerant society extends unlimited tolerance even to those who are themselves intolerant — and who would, if they gained power, abolish the tolerant order — then the tolerant will eventually be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

Peter Williams: Stop the madness

Local government amalgamation deadlines nonsensical

From the wilds of Central Otago I am cheering loudly, clapping enthusiastically and hooping and hollering “go you good thing” to the councils in Taupo, Tararua and Rangitikei who are basically saying to the government “get stuffed.”

I write this on the last day of July. In ten days the deadline imposed by Local Government Minister Simon Watts for the country’s local authorities to find a dance partner or two runs out.

Peter Dunne: Opportunity Party Poaching National Voters

Christopher Luxon's ruling out any possibility of National working with the Opportunity Party after the election is not nearly as emphatic as it sounds.

This time three years ago Luxon was saying his party's strong preference was not to have to work with New Zealand First after the 2023 election, only to end up going into coalition together a couple of months later. In a similar vein, ACT's David Seymour originally specifically ruled out ever sitting around the Cabinet table with New Zealand First Ministers, only to join the post-election coalition because of the perceived greater good of keeping Labour out of office.

David Farrar: My hierarchy of needs for energy

The fuel crisis caused by the Middle East conflict has caused me to think a lot about how we should consider our energy needs in future.

The worst case scenario for the disruption to our energy supply was catastrophic. It wasn’t not enough petrol for cars. It was our industrial and agricultural industries grinding to a halt due to lack of diesel. It was potential food shortages due to lack of fertilisers. The worst case scenario was much more severe than anything else we have faced.