Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Did we witness Winston Peters' last speech as Foreign Minister?

Now, I think we may have just witnessed Winston Peters’ last major foreign policy speech as Foreign Minister, ever.

It is definitely the last one before the election, and if you follow the breadcrumbs he has been laying recently, it sounds like he does not want to be Foreign Minister next term.

Ryan Bridge: It's obvious National and Labour are fighting for centre votes

Labour has finally seen the light on interest deductibility.

That's where a landlord, like any other legitimate business in New Zealand, is able to deduct the expense of its capital borrowing, i.e. a mortgage, against taxable income.

After expenses, what's left over is taxed.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 20.9.26

Wednesday September 23, 2026 

News:
Auckland leaders’ warnings over Māori votes ignored by Govt, bruising relationships
Auckland’s top politicians warned Cabinet ministers the late abolition of voting rights for Māori board members could lead to “anger for generations” and an election campaign of “bitterness and division”.

The Mayor, Wayne Brown, his deputy Desley Simpson and a leading councillor Richard Hills sought an urgent meeting with the Minister for Auckland Simon Watts in July on the issue – but learned only in the past 10 days the abolition would go ahead.

Colinxy: What Is a “Right”?

Why the Modern Left Keeps Getting This Wrong

"A real Right protects you from the State. A fake Right requires the State to force someone else to serve you.

One of the most persistent confusions in modern politics, and one of the most destructive, is the idea that anything desirable can be rebranded as a “Right.” Healthcare, food, accommodation, internet access, “dignity,” “safety,” and whatever else is fashionable this week. If it is nice to have, the Left insists it must therefore be a Right.

Pee Kay: National… the “Party of Business”

Chris Luxon and Nicola Willis seem to have got their hands on a gun and have been happily shooting themselves in the foot!

The National Party’s latest election pitch, a drastic proposal to forcibly sever Pak’nSave from New World smacks of political desperation rather than sound economic strategy. Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis have championed a policy that raises far more troubling questions than it answers.

Kerre Woodham: The back and forth over education is doing our kids a disservice

Education. I simply do not understand, and I really do want to, how two sides can be so passionate about education and about the curriculum and what is truly important in a classroom and have two sides who want the very, very best for our children and yet be so diametrically opposed.

It's a conundrum.

Bob Edlin: New Plymouth’s Treaty lesson.....

....councils rushing restructuring plans mustn’t forget their consultation commitments

New Plymouth District Council staff have been being chided by councillors for not talking with mana whenua before taking a council reform proposal to Government. Their failure to comply with the consultation demands of the Treaty of Waitangi – inevitably – came into considerations.

How many councillors were dissatisfied with the staff is not clear. The council has a mayor and 14 councillors.

David Farrar: Labour sees sense

1 News reports:

Labour will make no changes to interest deductibility rules for residential landlords if elected, as party leader Chris Hipkins confirms he wouldn’t revisit the settings.

This is some rare common sense for Labour. They called it a tax break for landlords, when it was no such thing.

David Farrar: Heard that before

The Post reports:

Labour leader Chris Hipkins says he is not aiming to make state spending and taxation 33% of the economy, despite his party’s fiscal strategy suggesting it would eventually get there. …

National has attacked the 33% figure, arguing it shows that Labour will need to enact more than just the CGT, which is only expected to raise $1.5 billion within the forecast period ‒ which would not get anywhere close to raising revenue to 33%.

Dr Don Brash: Yet another reason the Waitangi Tribunal must go

Just when you think the Waitangi Tribunal has reached the absolute outer limit of its overreach, it manages to outdo itself.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Tribunal has – as pretty much always - found the Crown in breach of the Treaty.

The latest is that the Tribunal has now issued a finding claiming that the Coalition Government’s draft school curriculum rewrite breaches the Treaty of Waitangi. Their complaint is that an emphasis on a knowledge-rich curriculum—one structured around fundamental skills like reading, writing, science, and mathematics—is somehow an ideological violation of Treaty principles.

Rodney Hide: Greengrocer Czars

Everything government monopolises, it botches.

Roads: potholes and gridlock. Schools: a decade of the kids’ lives and too many still can’t read or write. Hospitals: you wait, and sometimes you die waiting. Welfare: we pay people — crooks included — not to work. The state’s core jobs are a mess. Always another review. Always another failure.

Now walk into a supermarket.

Tuesday September 22, 2026 

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Dame Elizabeth Rata: Episode 3 - A National Education System - Free, Compulsory, Secular

In the video below Episode 3 describes the free and compulsory features of the national system established by the 1877 Education Act. Achieving the difficult balance between state control and individual freedom is the ongoing creative tension of liberal democracy. This episode shows it in action. A distinctive New Zealand culture is emerging – one free from the constraints of tradition seeking to balance idealism and pragmatism. This striving for civil society's balance can be seen in the Act's attendance regulations.

JC: Ideas That Test My Strength

I’m talking about the latest collection of bird-brained ideas concerning supermarkets jumping out at us from political parties prior to the election. We are all only too well aware that the cost of living is the number one election issue. However, the ideas for solving the problem and help lower grocery prices speak more of desperation than reality. I realise there are people in voter land that could be sucked in with the rhetoric on display. But honestly, listening to what the politicians have on offer to solve the problem reveals they’re not very sharp either.

Geoff Parker: Who Decided New Zealand Needs A Democracy Overhaul?

Roy Murphy’s article, Overhauling Democracy, reports on a recent ‘Re:Shape’ “unconference” at Victoria University, where participants discussed whether New Zealand’s democratic system needs fundamental change.

There is nothing wrong with asking whether democracy can be improved. Better public participation, longer-term thinking and greater accountability are legitimate subjects for debate.

But there is a much bigger question that deserves to be asked:

Mike's Minute: Are politicians trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Oh the irony.

In the same week we got all that hot air about supermarkets and co-operative bust-ups, we got the food price index out of the stats department.

And as much as you may like to deny it, argue about it, or ignore it, these are statistics. They are not reckons, or supermarket isle chatter, or lazy street-side vox pops for the TV.

Ryan Bridge: Why is the state parenting our kids?

There's a thing happening with parents, responsibility and the state.

Kids are either misbehaving or not learning, parents are putting their hands up, and the state is having to regulate, what kids can and can't do.

I was watching the news last night and a researcher was telling the story of an early childhood teacher.

Pee Kay: The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree

This old adage most certainly applies when discussing Maori activist “usual suspects” and Maori politics.

The apple not falling far from the tree is more than just a comment on individual personalities. It is a lens through which we observe the construction of a power base, the propagation of ideology culminating in the transfer of power. It can also be said that traits, be they a drive for self-sufficiency, for power and wealth or a penchant for controversy, they are inherited as surely as DNA is inherited.

Peter Williams: The Parents Voice

A well connected new education interest group is ready to make an impact

Any organisation where Cameron Bagrie is the chair I’ll pay attention to.

Apart from his in-built advantages of being a proud son of Central Otago and an old boy of Waitaki Boys High School, he’s been a beacon of economic common sense in this country for twenty years.

One of his long standing mantra is that “ if you want to see the state of a nation’s economy in thirty years, look at its education system and achievement now.”

Guest Post: Baseload power over solar

A guest post on Kiwiblog by I am Spartacus.

Both National and Labour are promising to make the installation of roof top solar easier, in the belief that doing so will help the electricity supply.

It will and there’s something to be said for a dispersed system. However, it does not help on those days when there’s no sun there’s no wind, and everyone’s dinky little battery has run out of juice.