Colinxy: Annual Māori Whine Day

February 6th is officially meant to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi — a foundational moment in New Zealand’s history. For a time, the day was even rebranded as New Zealand Day, an attempt to emphasise national unity rather than grievance. But over the years, the occasion has drifted far from celebration. In practice, it has increasingly become what many now see as an annual grievance ritual, where the loudest voices dominate the headlines.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.2.26

Sunday February 8, 2026 

News:
“Water Is Life” — Māori Leaders Call for National Responsibility Over Water
The leaders are urging changes in how water is governed in Aotearoa, with priorities that include:

 > co-governance and co-management arrangements that ensure Māori decision-making is embedded at all levels,

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 7 February 2026

Waitangi Week 2026: unity, utu and political theatre

This year Waitangi Day was a battlefield and not because of the usual hecklers and protestors, but because Māoridom is at war with itself.

Insights From Social Media: Seems a bit undemocratic to me?

Politicians of most stripes go on and on about “CO GOVERNANCE”

Now I do understand how MPs duly elected, although my concept of democracy does not actually embrace List MPs selected by a Party then becoming MPs through the proportional votes cast for that Party as a valid expression of Democracy, largely due to the simple fact I as a citizen have no part in establishing that “List” for any of the half dozen or so Parties.
That accepted we are said to have a functioning democracy even though there is no way a simple majority can eliminate an individual MP and we end up with shirt lifters , paedophiles, shop lifters, alcoholics, fraudsters and the mentally deranged, sitting in a chamber of horrors legislating for all.

Julian Adorney: Free Speech Is Under Attack Across the World

For the past few years, the world has been falling into what Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s Matthew Harwood calls a “free speech recession.”

It’s tempting for those of us who grew up in a robust culture of free speech to think that the problem is just limited to authoritarian regimes like China and Iran and Russia. But unfortunately the problem runs much deeper. Many developed countries, including countries that pride themselves on their democracy and international respectability, are deciding that they ought to have the power to imprison citizens who say anything that these countries’ leaders disagree with.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: All out war

UK

The war on fun

Ed Miliband was reported to be considering a tax on domestic ferry journeys, a move which might add 15% to prices. In a separate development in Labour’s war on fun, it was reported that he is also considering “guilt tripping” people when they try to book flights. Writing in the Times, Jeremy Clarkson said the Net Zero was ‘inhuman’.

Graeme Spencer: Waitangi Day

Waitangi Day , it's hard to contain the excitement. A day where politicians are vilified when they don't attend and abused when they do.

How sad it is to be missing out on the delightful custom of rubbing noses with a fat, half caste that blames you for every misfortune that has ever befell him/her.

Melanie Phillips: The West’s pragmatic fallacy

When people are called pragmatic, it’s meant to imply reasonableness, the ability to compromise, occupying the sensible middle ground.

That compliment may often be justified. However, as the obverse of principle, pragmatism has also been the West’s progressive undoing.

US President Donald Trump is an arch pragmatist. His “art of the deal” is based on beating down the other side through negotiations in which he plays a superior hand.

Dr Benno Blaschke: When infrastructure becomes an excuse

Auckland is deciding where the next generation of homes will go. Plan Change 120 is a proposal to rewrite the city’s planning rules. It would concentrate new housing near train stations and town centres. Further submissions open later this month.

The outcome will shape whether the next generation can afford to live in the city where they grew up.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: New Zealand’s new reality

For the first time since the Second World War, New Zealand is being asked to make major economic decisions under direct threat from an ally.

New Zealand is negotiating a minerals deal with the United States. On Tuesday, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Bede Corry met US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in Washington. A joint statement confirmed talks on a “critical minerals framework”. The talks are moving fast.

David Farrar: New Zealand Emancipation Day

Today we celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi – a day which should be called Emancipation Day. For on the 6th of February 1840, slavery became illegal in New Zealand. The granting of British citizenship to Maori freed the slaves in law (the practice took a while longer to end)

Slavery was not a fringe part of New Zealand prior to 1840. To quote NZ Geographic:

Saturday February 7, 2026 

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Mike Butler: Waitangi heckles and what’s ahead

The squabbles and heckles at Waitangi on Thursday and Friday can be rooted to fear of losing preferential treatment, according to my chosen research assistant. However, there is a qualifier.

Maori reactions were framed in terms of losing what they say is treaty guaranteed status, tino rangatiratanga (chiefly authority), and partnership obligations.

Geoff Parker: Three Flags, One Country

How missionary ensigns and modern protest symbols came to fly over a single civic state

Before European contact, Māori had no flags or symbols representing a single nation or tribe. Identity and authority were expressed through iwi, hapū, and hapū-based networks, not emblems. Yet today New Zealand naively — and without public mandate — flies flags from public buildings that are not the flag of New Zealand. We are told this reflects history, respect, and recognition. In reality, it reflects the modern imposition of symbols to advance political claims they were never designed to carry.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 1.2.26

Saturday February 7, 2026 

News:
RIF funding supports 100 new homes in Kaikohe
The Government is investing $4 million from the Regional Infrastructure Fund for infrastructure to support the Bisset Road social housing project in Kaikohe, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka say.

The Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF) will support essential infrastructure such as roads, stormwater and wastewater, and infrastructure for carrying utilities like power and telecommunications.

Ani O'Brien: Waitangi 2026 - the year of in-fighting on the Left

Labour and Te Pāti Māori competed in the drama stakes airing their dirty laundry

Waitangi Day is an annual time of remembrance, renewal, grievance, self-flagellation, and competing narratives. The summer ritual at the Treaty Grounds is part civic commemoration, part political theatre, and part family reunion. It is also, the ultimate testing ground for the mettle of centre-right politicians. There is a difference between demonstrating respect and grovelling, and often leaders fall into the trap of the latter.

Waitangi is where speeches are met with heckling and iwi remind the Crown of nearly 200 years of promises as well as issue new demands. This year’s commemorations were charged with protest, apology and juicy gossip, yet they also contained glimmers of hope and common sense.

Pee Kay: The Theatre That is Politics

“It’s that kind of Aotearoa – generous, confident and united – that I want my children to grow up in.”

Does that comment resonate with you? Is that a statement that would influence the way you voted?

Other than the Aotearoa nonsense, yes it probably could influence the way I voted.

David Harvey: I Cannot Live Without Books - The Library

All of my life I have been involved in libraries. We had a library at home when I was young and on the bicycle ride to and from school I went past the Remuera Library on Remuera Road and often stopped - through the doors and hard right to the children’s section – for a browse and often a borrow.

There was a library at school and when I went on to the College – surprise surprise – I volunteered as a librarian.

When I was in the US on my AFS year I haunted the local library at Redwood Falls – one of the Carnegie Libraries. It was in this establishment that I began to develop and learn research skills.

Dr Michael Bassett: The Treaty or Te Tiriti? It Matters.....

If you are watching the bizarre goings on at Waitangi, keep an eye out for which politicians use the term “The Treaty”, and which refer to what was signed on 6 February 1840 as “Te Tiriti”. The Treaty is the term that was used originally, and it described a three-clause document that ceded sovereignty over New Zealand for ever to Queen Victoria. In return, the Queen guaranteed Maori chiefs control over their lands and “taonga”, and in the third clause guaranteed Maori the same “rights and duties” as were enjoyed at that time by Englishmen. The Treaty of Waitangi is the name by which the document was known for more than 150 years.

Dr Eric Crampton: The misguided fuss over ‘2 million more’ houses for Auckland

Right now, Auckland Council’s zoning allows people to build about a million shops selling tasty pies.

Tomorrow, someone could buy or lease a commercially-zoned site near you and turn it into a shop selling pies. The shoe store could turn into a pie shop. So could the butcher’s. The barber shop too.

It would be possible to buy up every storefront in your local village centre and have nothing but pie shops. Zoning would usually allow it.