Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.11.26

Wednesday November 11, 2026 

News:
Farmer questions iwi conditions on effluent consent
A North Island farmer says he’s baffled by some of the conditions set by an iwi for sign-off on his effluent discharge to land consent.

Iwi approval hinged on him agreeing not to use palm kernel as supplementary feed, and to host karakia and a blessing before the start of any project on his farm.

Geoff Parker: National's Treaty Retreat - Vanessa Weenink Has It Backwards

Outgoing National MP Vanessa Weenink says ACT and its coalition partners pushed National too far to the right on Treaty issues, damaging the party and hurting the country.

With respect, she has the argument backwards.

Richard Prebble: Is bottom trawling worth another election?

“Wong not budging on bottom lines even if it risks another election.”

That is the Herald headline.

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong says her five demands are “very reasonable”. It is up to the other parties to agree.

Are we to have another election unless the other parties agree to phase out bottom trawling?

Rodney Hide: Specials

The specials could sink Luxon's majority. They probably won't.

On election night the centre-right won. National took 42 seats, ACT 13 and NZ First 12. That's 67. Labour, the Greens, Opportunity and Te Pāti Māori have 64 between them.

The House is 131 seats, so a majority is 66. The centre-right has one seat to spare.

One seat is not much. And there are still 399,365 votes to count.

David Harvey: Election Commentary

Television can play a vital public service role in reporting the outcome of an election. As a means of informing the public and analysing the data, election commentators play a vital role.

But it is a serious business. And should be taken seriously. And in the US the major networks do just that. Watching election night results on US TV – say CNN, ABC or NBC – is a joy. Excellent reporting. Deep and well articulated analysis. Informative and eye-catching graphics to illustrate what is going on and finally that very important element essential to a broadcast about an electoral outcome – gravitas.

Roger Partridge: Knife-edge Kiwi election shows National forgetting John Key’s lessons

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s centre-right coalition leads on Saturday’s election-night count, though special votes could yet unseat it. In a bruising night for Luxon’s National Party, the finance minister, Nicola Willis, is out, along with Paul Goldsmith, the justice and defence minister; Chris Bishop, the attorney-general and housing and transport minister; and the Speaker, Gerry Brownlee.

On the night, Labour won 3,650 more party votes than National but six fewer seats. Preliminary results give National and its coalition partners – ACT, a classical liberal party, and New Zealand First, a populist one – 67 seats, one more than they need in a Parliament of 131 MPs.

Kerre Woodham: Where do we go from here?

And here we are, right back where we started on Friday. I hope you had a wonderful weekend and you got along and voted. We went as a family on Saturday and there was a sausage sizzle at the local school and it was all very straightforward. Showed my voter card, my smart voter card on my phone and in we went and all went off and did our own thing really.

I think there was one clear winner on Saturday night and that would be the pollsters. They got it bang to rights all the way through. I took some screenshots of polls leading into election night just to see and they were pretty much bang to rights. People are fed up with the two main parties, Opportunity was always going to get in and too close to call between the right and left blocks.

Bob Edlin: TVNZ’s including Paul Henry on election-night panel.....

......shows that Michael Laws can hope to be rehabilitated (some day) too

Few would be surprised to learn that TVNZ big-wigs stood by the decision to put an ACT candidate on its election-night panel.

There should be scant surprise, either, that his place on the panel was defended by the candidate, former broadcaster and TVNZ board member Paul Henry.

David Farrar: Reflections on the election outcome

The election outcome has me both relieved, and sad. It’s an emotional conflict which I have had a lot of lately (a family member recently died after a long period with Alzheimers).

I am relieved because it is very likely the current Government will continue, and all the reforms of the last three years won’t be rolled back. The area where I am most relieved is education. I can handle a country with higher debt, higher deficit and even higher taxes. But what I can’t handle is a country which tolerates the kids of today being two years behind, achievement wise, the kids of 25 years ago. Nothing despaired me more than Labour saying it will abolish the minimum one hour a day in primary schools for each of reading, writing and maths.

Lindsay Mitchell: Why is Luxon courting Opportunity?

Someone who applied for a job as Party Leader on SEEK has brought a team of seven into parliament.

Rodney Hide's analogy of Opportunity as the manufactured Monkees, an American imitation of the Beatles - along with a highly lucrative TV show - is apt. Qiulae Wong as Davy Jones is the recruited charismatic leader.

I was asked, "But if TOP are the Monkees, who are the Beatles?"

Rodney Hide: Wasted Electorate Votes

It’s not just the party votes for National that were wasted Saturday night. So too were the electorate votes for ACT and New Zealand First.

These votes did not add one extra MP to the centre right. That was 210,914 votes wasted.

And it mattered. The fate of the election may hang on Wairarapa. The margin there is just 139 votes in National’s favour. The specials could flip it. New Zealand First’s Ron Mark got 3,555 votes in that electorate. And didn’t get in. Those votes may well have cost the centre right the election.

 Tuesday November 10, 2026 

                   ⇩

Steven Gaskell: Helen Clark's Democracy Suddenly Needs Fixing – Funny That!

Well, here's an interesting development. Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark is questioning whether the 2026 election might be "flawed". Apparently, our electoral system, voting rules and campaign funding have all become major concerns. Funny how these things seem to attract so much attention when the election numbers aren't going the way some people expected.

Caleb Anderson: State media coverage of the 2026 election warrants scrutiny

It is now widely believed, by a significant portion of the population, that state media, in its current form, is incapable of moderating its left wing bias. It seems wedded to ideological positions that make neutrality near impossible, has even given up attempts at even the appearance of neutrality, and is happy to wear its bias on its sleeves. 

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: There's no way Labour can go into 2029 with Chris Hipkins

So the talk has already turned, not surprisingly, to whether either of the Chrises will keep their jobs after the election.

Let's deal with Chris Hipkins first.

Chippy's gone, right?

Ryan Bridge: Our leaders should be attending APEC even in caretaker mode

Trump's going. Xi's going. Even Putin will be there.

But what about Christopher Luxon or Chris Hipkins?

The APEC Leaders meeting is next week up in China. Shenzhen.

Ani O'Brien: Before accusing the centre-Right of gaming the system.....

.....the Left should check out its own vote-splitting ‘rorts’

I have never given both my party vote and my electorate vote to the same party. It turns out I have been “rorting the system” in a “disturbing” manner all this time.

Never mind that as my politics have evolved, I have split my vote for both the Left and the Right. Never mind that we are given two votes because those votes do different things and if we were meant to use them only for the same party, there would be no point having two votes at all.

Pee Kay: Two Boring Chris’s; which one will call Qiulae?

“Two Boring Chris’s,” was my wife’s opinion and “…may the dullest Chris win” was the headline in the Herald a day or so before polling day.

Let’s be honest; was either Chris Luxon or Chris Hipkins ever capable of inspiring a single shred of genuine passion, let alone shifting political allegiances and forcing a radical change of vote? Hell no.

Ashley Church: A huge wake-up call for National

If you’re confused about what happened on election night, you’re probably not alone. After weeks of being told that this was going to be one of the closest elections in New Zealand’s history, we’ve ended up with a result that appears to leave the country in political limbo. Nobody has claimed victory, the special votes haven’t been counted, and there’s still talk of the possibility of a Labour-led government.

Richard Prebble: A landslide

Under First Past the Post, National would have won a landslide victory on Saturday’s electorate results.

National won 42 of the 71 electorates. All the other parties combined won just 29.

National would have had a majority of 13 seats over all the other parties combined and could have governed alone.