Breaking Views Update: Week of 20.9.26

Tuesday September 22, 2026 

News:
Te Pāti Māori to give Māori collectives Crown-owned land, $100m to set up supermarket chains
Te Pāti Māori intends to allow Māori collectives to secure Crown- or council-owned land and to provide $100 million in seed funding to establish supermarket chains.

It is a key part of Te Pāti Māori’s kai sovereignty policy, which includes an income tax kai credit valued at up to eight weeks of food annually, with the entire policy costing in excess of $3 billion and funded through revenue from five new proposed taxes – although all have been ruled out by likely coalition partners Labour.

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.

Graham Adams: MAPAS defenders fudge facts on competence

The sight of a bevy of politicians using the same spoon-fed lines to justify a particular party policy is so familiar that it has become unremarkable, if sometimes laughable.

But while it is standard fare for MPs to obediently circle the wagons around their leader, it is disconcerting — and disappointing — when doctors use similar stock tactics to defend a policy that is under intense public scrutiny.

Spaniard: Yellow-eyed penguins on Ngāi Tahu’s menu

Ngāi Tahu killing and consuming endangered yellow-eyed penguins is now okay in the eyes of the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust. It’s also okay, apparently, with the Department of Conservation. Treaty religiosity drives the organisations’ extraordinary loss of compass.

In a DOC-published recovery plan, Te KawekaTakohaka mõ te Hoiho 2019-2029, created by ‘partners’ including Ngāi Tahu, the Trust, and DOC, the tribe cites its former consumption of yellow-eyed penguins and its interest in returning to the practices it says are “responsibilities as kaitiaki”, with no demur from those partners.

Monday September 21, 2026 

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Graeme Spencer: Have You Checked Your Council's Employment Policies Recently?

Timaru District Council scores 10/10 for wokeness, this comes hard on the heels of possibly the worst community survey results ever.

While reviewing Timaru District Council’s job description for the position of Dog Control Officer an extraordinary requirement stands out.

Timaru District Council now embeds cultural emphasis into job descriptions.

Damien Grant: Nicola Willis has betrayed the principles she once championed

“We must back our risk-takers, innovators, and entrepreneurs who put their capital and livelihoods on the line to produce a product, idea or new way of doing things.

“We must back the hard workers, those who go the extra mile, who toil day in day out to make progress for themselves and their families. The dairy owner who works twelve hours a day, six days a week, with one week off at Christmas.”

The above two paragraphs are inspiring; words I could have written in defence of the diligent, productive and determined Kiwis who have worked impossible hours to build and own their small share of the Foodstuffs co-operative and did so in a country that believed in protecting the property rights of its citizens.

Well. I did not write them. Nicola Willis did. They come from her maiden speech.

Dame Elizabeth Rata: Episode 2 - Early Schools, Intermarriage, Nation-building 1815-1877

In the video below Episode Two explains how English became accepted as the language of national unity. The Māori language remained in constant use. There were 42 Māori language newspapers, Māori travelled the country with books and slates, and attended the Māori instruction missionary schools. Literacy, in either or both languages, provided individuals with a new status. Waaka Te Huia's work as a paid scribe, writing in Māori, illustrates the modern man for the new world.

Dr Eric Crampton: Citizenship can cost more than a passport

Over the past fortnight, both ACT and New Zealand First announced policies targeted at those who live in New Zealand as permanent residents rather than as citizens.

In both cases, the announcements aimed to push permanent residents to take up citizenship, to accept a sharply degraded experience living here, or to leave.

Nick Clark: Who is really in charge at your council

Picture a councillor about to vote on whether her council should sell its shares in the local airport. Management tells her that voting one way could expose the council to legal risk.

She asks to see the legal advice behind that warning, which her council commissioned and ratepayers paid for. She is refused.

According to MP Stuart Smith, this actually happened at Wellington City Council. He opened the first-reading debate on his Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill with the example.

Dr Michael Johnston: Not achieved

One of the most important things teachers can do to help their students improve is to give them feedback on their work. To be effective, feedback must be timely and specific.

As the election campaign gathers pace, it is timely to give the political parties some feedback on their policies. They certainly need improvement.

Dr Eric Crampton: Migration policies wander into the fraught area of ‘citizens-only’ super

There was a line that made the rounds when Trump first campaigned to be President: his promises should be taken seriously but not literally.

Last week, New Zealand First promised that, from 2029, only citizens would be able to collect superannuation. Taken literally, that would not just affect migrants who have lived here for a long time. It could also have serious consequences for Kiwis living abroad.

David Harvey: Bending the Knee

The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill Resurrected

Elections are always the time for extravagant promises. Sometimes these promises can go further and could be interpreted as bribes – a reward given to pervert the judgment or corrupt the conduct – so says the Oxford English Dictionary.

That term may be a little strong for something that came across my desk this morning, but who knows.

Before I get the meat of the problem let’s have a little history.