Damien Grant: To Helen Clark - Sorry, but international law won't stop an Iranian nuke

How hard is international law? I see that Helen Clark has joined a growing phalanx of freshly graduated experts in the field so I thought I’d give it a go.


The basis of international law is the UN Charter which stipulates that one sovereign nation cannot attack another. Seems fair. However, Article 51 has an exception.

Pee Kay: They Need Saving From Themselves

Two venerable and time honoured social service providers of New Zealand seem to have decided that the way forward for their organisations is to raise their banner firmly behind those of the belief that Maori are a down trodden class, that Maori in New Zealand have been so terribly disadvantaged by colonisation they now must be dispensed with advantages no other race can access!

I have to wonder if these organisations have stopped to consider that their stance may be at odds with their founding principles and, more importantly, detrimental to their ability to “tap the public purse” as public donations for a significant percentage of their respective incomes?

Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.3.26

Monday March 9, 2026 

News:
203 New Rental Homes Planned for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Land in Mount Albert

For Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, the project forms part of the iwi’s broader strategy of developing land assets across Tāmaki Makaurau to generate revenue and support social, economic and housing outcomes for the hapū. Tribal property developments are designed to create long-term income streams while contributing to housing supply in the region.

Ryan Bridge: This country's fines make no sense

This country's fines make no sense.

You can get $70 for parking a few minutes over in the wrong spot, $150 for driving in a bus lane at the wrong time, which is the same texting while driving, an act that could, in theory, distract you enough to kill somebody on the road.

Judy Gill: How does Diocesan School for Girls give effect to the Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

Observations from an Open Day visit to one of New Zealand’s highest-performing schools

A visit to the Open Day at Diocesan School for Girls in Epsom — widely regarded as the top-performing girls’ school in New Zealand.

I attended the Open Day at Diocesan School for Girls in Epsom.

Clive Bibby: The terrible price of freedom

History records the high price of freedom paid by those who opposed evil in all its forms since the beginning of time - almost always that price being in the form of the most precious commodity - losses of innocent human life.

Due to my current age related circumstances I have been able to watch most of the current consequential events in the Middle East as they unfold.

Dr Eric Crampton: Timid thinking behind the ban on prediction markets

From 2007 until about two weeks ago, New Zealand’s regulators considered prediction markets as a kind of futures market.

Then the Department of Internal Affairs decided they are gambling.

That decision makes little sense.

Roger Partridge: Renovating the nation

Anyone who has visited Sydney recently will have seen what asset recycling built. New metro lines that transformed commuter rail. Motorways that reshaped how the city moves. Modern hospitals in suburbs that had waited generations.

None of it was funded by raising taxes. None of it was funded by taking on more debt.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Miliband’s Epic Failure

UK

Miliband risks energy bills crisis

Ed Miliband has rejected calls to “open up the North Sea” as war rages in Iran, claiming that the biggest “long-term threat multiplier” to UK security is the climate crisis.

Dr Michael Johnston: Agreeing to disagree

Democracy is easy to take for granted. For most of the last century, it has been advancing around the world.

Older Kiwis witnessed the defeat of fascism and the advent of democracy in Germany, Italy and Japan. Middle-aged New Zealanders remember the fall of the Soviet Union and the spread of democracy across Eastern Europe.

Melanie Phillips: An alliance of light against darkness

The war against Iran may put America and Israel at the head of a new world order

The war against Iran, in which America and Israel are rapidly degrading Tehran’s powers, doesn’t merely offer the hope of relief for the whole world by eradicating one of its most evil, murderous and far-reaching regimes.

We are also witnessing an even more momentous development — the likely birth of a new world order pivoted around that alliance between America and Israel.

Mike's Minute: Primary teachers' union – pull your head in

The primary teachers' union is doing my head in.

This country needs fewer people like them and more people wanting to get on with it, get ahead, dream big, be bold, work harder and generally look at life in a more upbeat way.

Kerre Woodham: A golden, or green-golden, future

When I heard David Seymour talking up the potential of New Zealand's medicinal cannabis industry, I was immediately transported to a world where the Far North was once again a thriving powerhouse of the New Zealand economy, as it used to be. Where bright young people could get meaningful jobs without having to leave home, where once again New Zealand's brilliant scientists combined with primary producers, just as they do in agriculture, to innovate and disrupt.

Sunday March 8, 2026 

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Gary Judd KC: Institutional neutrality compromised

Clerk of the House has disqualified himself

David Martin Wilson is the 14th Clerk of the New Zealand House of Representatives. He has held the position since 2015. It is about time he was shown the door.

I have just written

Roger Partridge: How asset recycling can help solve the infrastructure deficit

Last week, the Government confirmed it would spend up to $200 million buying new Genesis Energy shares. Three ministers lined up to explain the decision. It was about energy security. It was about stronger assets. It was about better outcomes for Kiwis.

Ian Bradford: The Importance of the Oceans with Regard to Weather and Climate

A couple of articles ago I wrote about the slowing of the Gulf Stream. We need to back-track about 12,000 years in the Earth’s history, when the Gulf Stream not only slowed but actually came to a stop.

The Gulf Stream is part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a vast system of ocean currents that transport warm salty water from the tropics northward and colder denser water southward. This circulation pattern is essential for moderating the climate of the North Atlantic region, bringing mild winters to Europe and influencing weather patterns across the globe.

Geoff Parker: New Zealand’s Land History - Beyond the ‘Stolen Land’ Slogan.

Few political slogans in New Zealand are repeated as confidently — and examined as rarely — as the claim that the country was built on “stolen land.”

The claim that Māori land in New Zealand was simply “stolen” has become a common slogan in modern political debate. It appears frequently on social media and in activist rhetoric, and is often used to support calls for co-governance, special political status.

But slogans are not history.

The reality is that Māori land passed out of tribal ownership through several very different legal processes over nearly two centuries.

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

How many lives does Christopher Luxon have left?

The political rumour mill went into overdrive on Thursday night as news spread of a dire poll for National. The Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll released on Friday has National dropping to the lowest it has been under Christopher Luxon (28.4%). If this was an election result, the Party would get just 36 seats. They currently have 48 and it is likely senior ministers would be among the list MP to lose their seats. The poll has Labour on 34.4%, up 0.3.

David Harvey: In Defence of Free Speech

Free speech has returned to the centre of public life with an energy that surprises even those who thought the argument was finished. Weren’t Milton and Locke supposed to have done the heavy lifting? Didn’t John Stuart Mill leave us an intellectual architecture sturdy enough to outlast fashion, panic and political opportunism?