Dr Eric Crampton: New Zealand’s economic freedom is slipping while the world improves

It matters in its own right, as part of the basic bundle of civic, economic, and personal freedoms that we all should be able to enjoy. The State has no place in the bedrooms of the nation, and it shouldn’t have much place in its boardrooms either. So long as everything that’s going on in either venue is voluntary among consenting adults.

It also matters because of its consequences. If you follow former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s dictum that a cat’s colour matters far less than whether it can catch mice, economic freedom just works.

Paul Melville: Saving our soils from the evidence

New Zealand has faced many crises. Few have inspired such quiet resolve as the campaign to save our most productive soils from houses.

For almost 200 years, we built cities on our best dirt. Panmure was once market gardens. So was Naenae. Each time gardens were ransacked by houses, the growers blissfully moved to the next paddock out, like a bow wave ahead of a boat.

Richard Prebble: Who has the best record?

As I watched ACT’s candidates emerge from their campaign bus, a thought struck me.

ACT elected eleven MPs in 2023. David Seymour has not had to sack, demote, suspend or publicly discipline a single one of them.

Labour has been remarkably free of the disciplinary dramas that plagued its last government. David Parker and Peeni Henare have resigned.

Rodney Hide: Everything blew up in Elon Musk's face. Then he made a trillion dollars

You can't hate the media enough.

In April last year RNZ ran a CNN piece headlined "Everything is blowing up in Elon Musk's face".

It was a treat if you loathe the man. Musk was "the world's richest edgelord" (i.e. “someone who intentionally expresses shocking, offensive, nihilistic, or taboo opinions—mostly on internet forums—to appear cool, edgy, or superior rather than from genuine conviction”). He had lost US$100 billion in three months. Voters, customers, investors and the MAGA elite had all decided that "the Elon Musk show has lost the plot".

Lindsay Mitchell: National's new welfare policies only raise more questions

National has announced a five point welfare plan that applies almost entirely to Jobseeker/Work Ready beneficiaries.

The first is random testing for drugs. According to MSD Minister Louise Upston:

Rodney Hide: Tamatha Paul has found the immoral ones. She should check the caucus room

Green MP Tamatha Paul has settled the great moral question of the campaign. It is immoral to be a billionaire.

Jack Tame put the question to the two Chrises in Tuesday's TVNZ leaders' debate. Neither said yes. That night Tamatha took to TikTok: "The answer is yes. Here's why."

"Anybody who is a billionaire did not become billionaires because they earned it or because they deserve it." Their wealth "is parasitic. That means it grows and it infects and it eats everything in its path."

 Sunday October 11, 2026 

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Peter Williams: My “Dirty Work” Mention

Hager’s book has it all wrong

Although it’s been the most talked about book of the year, in some circles anyway, finding a copy of Dirty Work by Nicky Hager has proved to be a difficult assignment in my neighbourhood.

In the last week I’ve tried Paper Plus in Cromwell, Wanaka and Queenstown Airport and drawn a blank. There was no copy at the Auckland Domestic terminal’s so called bookshop either, nor at an independent bookseller in Wanaka.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 11.10.26

Sunday October 11, 2026 

News:
Te Kāika’s $1.3m loss is the bill for years of soft contract monitoring
Te Kāika, the Dunedin health and social services provider, has posted a $1.3m loss in its latest audit, with revenue from government grants and contracts down by nearly $4m in a year. Government probes are still running.

Duncan Garner: Māori Statutory Board Voting Rights Removed - Auckland Council Co-Governance Debate Explained

The coalition government has passed legislation under urgency removing voting rights for non-elected members on council committees, directly impacting the Auckland Māori Statutory Board.

While the fundamental argument rests on democratic accountability, that only elected representatives accountable to ratepayers should hold voting power, serious questions remain over how this change was delivered. Auckland Council leadership claims Minister Simon Watts assured them removing these voting rights was off the table, only to see the policy pushed through Parliament weeks later.

In this episode, Duncan Garner is joined by regular panelists Maurice Williamson and Ashley Church to analyze the governance decision, the ratepayer funding behind these boards, and the political fallout. They also look at the broader election campaign, poll numbers, and how major parties are navigating coalition politics heading into polling day.


Click to view

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 10 October 2026

Election 2026: Three polls, two leaders, and absolutely no clarity

‘Tis the season of polls and 3 were released this week. The RNZ-Reid Research poll had Labour on 30.8%, National on 25.9%, the Greens on 14.8%, New Zealand First on 10.6%, ACT on 9%, and Opportunity on 5.5%. The 1News-Verian poll told a slightly different story, with National ahead of Labour at 29% to 28%, the Greens on 16%, New Zealand First on 10%, ACT on 9%, and Opportunity on 7%. Notably both put Opportunity in the position of potentially deciding the next government.

John McLean: The National Party's Death Wish

Kisses of death The Nats are planting on their party and ordinary New Zealanders’ prospects

The National Party is repeating an ordained-from-on-high mantra that New Zealand voters must two-ticks National at the next general i.e., give both their electorate and party votes to the nosediving Nats.

That voting, they say, is the best way to help ensure another National-led coalition Government. At the National Party’s campaign launch on Sunday 27 September, ex-National Party Prime Minister John Key cajoled voters to two-ticks Nats and labelled all New Zealanders who are contemplating voting otherwise “stupid”. Two-ticks Nats is therefore clearly official, mandated Nats messaging, which campaign manager Simeon Brown repeated on media outlet The Platform (where PM Luxon refuses to appear) on Wednesday, 7 October.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Britain spends £1.5bn switching wind off and gas on

Britain has already spent more this year switching wind farms off and gas plants on than it did throughout last year. The bill: £1.51bn. Energy suppliers, meanwhile, warn of the worst winter crisis since 2022. Labour’s promise of cheaper energy looks increasingly expensive to deliver.

David Harvey: A Stupid Question

The Morality of Billionaires

One of the more absurd questions to emerge in the Leaders Debate on Tuesday 6 October focused upon the morality of wealth and whether it was morally acceptable to be a billionaire. The absurdity continued into the “Futures” debate the next evening.

In my view the question should have been rejected at the outset. To ask whether being a billionaire is acceptable or moral assumes wealth needs moral permission, as if the default is guilt.

Kerre Woodham: Why does everyone have to march to Labour's educational drumbeat?

This election is highlighting yet another war being fought on the ideological battleground that is education. Charter schools, as they operate now, are in the sights of Labour because they're doing something different. To be fair, Labour's never liked the idea of schools operating under their own curriculum. Nothing new there. As Chris Hipkins told Mike Hosking this morning, they're all for new ideas in education, so long as the schools follow the party line.

Karl du Fresne: I wrote this in 2008 and wouldn't change a word

I wrote this column about MMP 18 years ago and wouldn’t change a word. Some of the references are dated (United Future, the Tight Five, Alamein Koopu) but the system remains as flawed now as it was then.

This year, in case it has escaped your attention, is an election year. And as with every election since 1996, it will be conducted under the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system.

Major General John G Howard: Two steps behind - why Wellington needs faster intelligence

This year's NZSIS Security Threat Environment report lists many threats facing New Zealand. But one of the biggest is not on its list: the Government has more useful intelligence than ever before, yet it is not digesting that intelligence fast enough to matter.

Ministers need faster briefings that turn intelligence into policy choices before events move on. To achieve this, Cabinet requires a decision-support process fit for today.

Dr Michael Johnston: Ritual Punishment

Human beings have a tendency to blame and punish others for their misfortunes.

The ancient Greeks turned this tendency into a ritual called pharmakos. When plague, famine or another disaster struck a city, its people drove one of their own out to purge their misfortune. Victims of pharmakos had done nothing to cause the calamity, although they were usually considered socially undesirable.

The election campaign has revived this ancient ritual.

Ele Ludemann: When aggressors become victims

If people had used the March 15th Christchurch mosque attacks to vilify the victims, there would have been national and international outrage.

But since Hamas invaded Israel three years ago, torturing, raping and imprisoning innocent people of all ages, it’s the victims who have been vilified with Jews all over the world subject to verbal and physical attacks.

The attacks have been minimised and those who took part in the atrocities excused, even supported.

 Saturday October 10, 2026 

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