Breaking Views Update: Week of 27.9.26

Sunday September 27, 2026 

News:
NZ First vow to 'immediately abolish' Waitangi Tribunal if elected
New Zealand First has pledged to replace the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal if elected, calling the board a "make-work organisation".

Speaking from Tauranga's Holy Trinity Church at a public meeting this afternoon, Winston Peters said the party would "immediately abolish" the tribunal, creating the Treaty of Waitangi Completion Commission as an alternative.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 26 September 2026

Just who is engaging in dirty politics?

After several days of breathless speculation and a launch that excited as many as 200 New Zealanders and the media, Nicky Hager finally released Dirty Work: The Taxpayers’ Union and New Zealand’s Hard Right. Like a dead cat whacked on the dining table the day before Parliament rose for the end of term, it was intended to impact the election.

Alwyn Poole: Two quick education notes.

1. More good news on attendance now that Term 2 2026 data is official.

“Nationally, 64.3% of students met the criteria for regular attendance (present more than
90% of the term). This is an increase of 5.9 percentage points from Term 2 2025.”

69.5% was the pre-covid high (2015) and it is very good to see the trend going in the right direction.

Bob Edlin: Maori Party announces a pot of gold....

.....or rather, $66m a year – for a new commission at the end of the rainbow

If you think it’s great to learn something that extends your vocabulary, read on.

Then again, maybe it’s not a new word for you, and the writer of this article will be exposing himself as a bloke who hasn’t been paying attention to something which was incorporated long ago in media reports along with a raft of other te reo words.

Centrist: Wealth tax wins 64% support....

.....with a $10m threshold and family homes excluded

Despite the debate over tax policy, only 8% identified taxation among the country’s top concerns.

Almost two-thirds of respondents support a wealth tax targeting individual net assets above $10 million while exempting family homes, according to new Ipsos polling.

Guest Post: Can governments really force people to save more?....

......Do Australians save more than Kiwis?

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Michael Littlewood:

It’s difficult to compare countries’ retirement income systems but, in a new report, I have tried, as I describe the differences and similarities between New Zealand and Australia. We hear a great deal about Australia, probably because most of our financial service providers are Australian-owned and their own incomes reflect funds under their management.

David Lillis: Shakespeare in our Curriculum

The New Curriculum

The ongoing work on education under Erica Stanford has come in for a great deal of criticism over the last few months especially. The new curriculum has received particular censure, and the compulsory inclusion of Shakespeare in the English curriculum seems to have presented issues for some parties (Lillis, 2025). Indeed, New Zealand needs a balanced curriculum that reflects the multicultural nature of our society and therefore of our primary and secondary students, and surely a Eurocentric curriculum for New Zealand would be ill-posed and therefore completely unacceptable.

Javier Milei: Address to the UN

His Excellency Javier Milei, President of the Argentine Republic, Address to the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, September 23, 2026

Today I address you for the third time as President of all Argentines.

David Farrar: Labour committed to bribing the media

 

The Post reports:

Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins has committed to reviving the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, which has been left languishing on Parliament’s order paper since 2024, and said the party will campaign on it at the election.

Richard Prebble: Is breaking up Foodstuffs consistent with centre-right values?

A National Party apologist writing in the Herald this week argued that being in favour of markets does not mean being in favour of big business.

When does National believe a successful company has become too big to enjoy property rights, freedom of contract and the protection of the rule of law?

Rodney Hide: Israel is The Great Decolonisation

Chlöe Swarbrick wants “decolonisation” language for Palestine and a map with no Israel on it. Apply her own standard honestly, and Israel is the decolonisation.

At Auckland Domain in November 2023 she led the chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” When challenged, she did not drop it. She called the objection a “purposeful distraction… being used the world over to shut down peace activists.” On Q+A she kept the same talking point: “Palestinian freedom is necessary if we are to have longstanding freedom and justice in the region,” and treated pushback as an “intentional misunderstanding” that paints that freedom as violence. Later she spoke of Palestinians “made refugees in their own land,” and of ending “merciless violence against the Palestinian people on their own land.”

Saturday September 26, 2026 

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David Round: Forest and Bird Drift Left

As you may know, I resigned as a member of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society a couple of years ago, dismayed that its enthusiasm for undefined but radical ‘Treaty principles’ was actually harming the conservation cause. F&B’s complete refusal to respond to any of my letters did not help.

Clive Bibby: Responding to a changing economy

Having just relocated to the Naki from our beloved East Coast, I am able to view the Government’s handling of a changing economy from a different regional perspective.

And while there appear to be similar debilitating pressures on the family budget, no matter which part of the country you regard as home, there are also distinct differences based both on how citizens are handling the hard times but also the remedies they are using in trying to accommodate them.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 20.9.26

Saturday September 26, 2026 

News:
Māori words in curriculum shouldn't be controversial, principals say
Principals and a Māori language advocate are angry and disappointed by the Education Ministry's treatment of te reo Māori and the secrecy that has surrounded it.

Multiple Education Ministry whistleblowers have told RNZ this week that managers told them to delete the term Aotearoa and other Māori words from official documents.

Dame Elizabeth Rata: Episode 4 - Secularism and Moral Instruction

In the video below, Episode 4 explains why public schools were secular. The purpose was to create a tolerant and cohesive civil society for New Zealand's liberal democracy. Secularism was neither pro-or anti-religion.

Mike's Minute: Council amalgamation – something else this Govt didn't deliver

Andrew Little had a good crack at the Government over council amalgamation.

He got interrupted by an alarm but made his point and his disappointment is well-founded.

My major criticism of this Government is they said a lot of stuff they simply didn’t deliver on.

David Harvey: Sunset for the Broadcasting Standards Authority

A Bill that is Better Late Than Never

The Broadcasting (Disestablishment of Broadcasting Standards Authority) Amendment Bill was introduced into Parliament on 22 September 2026 – one day before the House rises for the final time before the election.

It will not get a first reading in the current session and the plan is that it will remain, hopefully to be picked up and advanced by a returned version of the current coalition Government.

What this amounts to is a symbolic gesture and an expression of hope.

Rodney Hide: The model you can’t read

My earlier column was motivated by a Seek ad. This one is what that ad named and DOC will not publish.

A “new DOC Treaty Operating Model.”

Type those words into the department’s own website. Nothing. Search the last annual report. Still “Treaty Relationships.” Scoop, Beehive, Cabinet papers in the public domain: blank.

Roger Partridge: Your Business, Their Election Promise

The 2026 election campaign has not got off to a good start for business – or for the country. National, Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First have each made dangerous promises to intervene in private commercial arrangements. The tally so far includes supermarket ownership, retirement village contracts, commercial leases and the price of food.

None of these interventions rests on a finding that anyone has broken the law. No court judgment, no Commerce Commission determination, nothing.

That matters. Businesses invest when they can rely on owning what they build. Firms sign contracts when they can rely on the terms being honoured. Disregard either and the effect on the economy is chilling.