NZCPR Newsletter: Cultural Capture

Earlier this year, at a time of rising geopolitical tension and increasing regional insecurity - with China flexing its muscles and our allies expanding combat readiness - New Zealand’s Army hit the headlines for forcing soldiers to sing waiata!

The Army had gone down the vortex of cultural indoctrination.

Pee Kay: This must be a problem for Labour

Heather du Plessis Allen on the Green and Maori Party MP’s getting all pally with the mobsters!

Heather calls it a “significant own goal.”

Breaking Views Update: Week of 11.10.26

Friday October 16, 2026 

News:
Tourism Leadership Group established
The Government has established a Tourism Leadership Group to provide sector expertise and advice on priorities for New Zealand tourism.

The Group will advise the Tourism and Hospitality Minister on opportunities and challenges facing the tourism system and recommend how to prioritise implementation of the Tourism Policy Statement.

Ryan Bridge: We need more ambitious leaders in education

Story of the week this week goes to a Herald piece about Ngaire Ashmore, the principal of Auckland Girls' Grammar.

Ten years ago, she took over and turned the place upside down.

Where there was failure, there's now a 92% university entrance mark for Year 13s. It was less than 50% when she started.

Chris Lynch: ACT attacks Greens and Te Pāti Māori over Mongrel Mob campaign visit

ACT has accused the Greens and Te Pāti Māori of showing “New Zealanders where their priorities lie” after candidates from both parties visited a Mongrel Mob pad south of Auckland and posed for photographs with patched gang members.

Te Pāti Māori MPs Oriini Kaipara and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke joined Green MP Hūhana Lyndon and Māngere candidate Michel Mulipola at the property.

Pee Kay: Is This the Real Story Behind the Greens’ $6 Billion Job Gamble

From the Greens website –

“The Green Party has today released its economic development plan to rebuild Aotearoa New Zealand and create 284,000 jobs over the next four years.”

“The Greens are serious about the economy. We will drive it to meet the needs of New Zealanders. Our plan will create 284,000 jobs, lower the cost of living and ensure we’re all happier, healthier and safer,” says Green Party Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

Dr Eric Crampton: NZ should be sheepish about its lack of parody protection

Unless you’ve been living under a rock and avoiding the internet entirely (and really who could blame you in an election year) you’ll have seen the controversy about Kiwibank’s new mascot.

The problem isn’t the mascot itself – a cute little sheep named Buck.

Richard Prebble: Two historic moments in one leaders’ debate

Something momentous happened in the Multi-Party Debate.

A confused, mumbling Winston Peters, often a question behind.

Peters has been a force on television since 1975, when he featured in National’s election advertisements.

Kerre Woodham: Would you rather NZ jobs in a premium product or cheap materials?

What would you rather? New Zealand jobs in a premium product or cheap materials? The aluminium extrusion industry says the government's decision not to impose a safeguard on imports may have signed the New Zealand industry's death warrant. Under advice from MBIE, the government has rejected a request to give special temporary protection to the aluminium extrusion industry in the face of growing competition from offshore.

Bob Edlin: The fast-track “beast” that bothers Shane Jones....

.....is the work of Parliament and its committees

Thoughts of Mary Shelley’s best-known creation were generated by Regional Development Minister Shane Jones’ denunciation of the time taken to decide on a mining application in Central Otago.

Always good for a colourful quote, he referred to the work of a ‘constipated bureaucratic beast’.

David Farrar: The $300m Labour fiscal hole media have ignored

Here is Labour’s fiscal plan:

Click to view

You will see they are forecasting $365 million over four years from “reversing tobacco tax cut”.

David Farrar: Gangs are organised crime, not a community group

The Herald reports:

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick won’t say if she would have advised her MP Hūhana Lyndon against meeting with members of the Mongrel Mob.

After being asked the question twice, Swarbrick said she needed to “understand more of the context as to what has played out here”, although she earlier said having those types of engagements were important to understanding and addressing issues in the community.

Mike's Minute: The rules of engagement need to be clearer

What are the rules of engagement in this election campaign?

Prominence was given by media for a good chunk of yesterday to Kieran McAnulty's crack at Christopher Luxon and how Kiwi families were $6000 worse off under National.

Now for a start, it isn't National, it’s the Government, and the Government is three parties.

Thursday October 15, 2026 

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Mark Bouris: WE employ YOU

He could be laying out a job description for Christopher Luxon or Chris Hipkins


Click to view

Wendy Geus: Compass voters disagree with media and choose Seymour over Top golden girl

A quarter of over 3,000 voters chose ACT’s David Seymour as winner of minor party debate

Seymour committed the cardinal sin, according to a chic, coiffed to the nth degree Heather du Plessis-Allan, in referring to 'One law for all' as the policy he would most like to see progressed next term. In the presence of seasoned left wing journalists, Guyon Espiner and Toby Manhire on the 1News debate panel she let rip at Seymour for picking a subject not, apparently, on the radar for this election.

Owen Jennings: When Idiocy Beats Common Sense

Government policy can produce weird outcomes sometimes. We welcome foreigners coming to our country, buying up farmland, planting trees, decimating rural communities so that foreign entity can claim an offset to their Greenhouse Gas emissions. But we don’t let our own farmers use their plantings as an offset to their emissions.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Te Pāti Māori and Greens have scored the campaign's first own goal

I think we might have the first significant own goal of the election campaign. It's the Mongrel Mob photos.

If you haven't caught up on this yet, you should take a look. It's blown up online. Photos have emerged showing a group of Māori Party and Green Party MPs and candidates meeting the Mongrel Mob at one of their gang pads.

Ani O'Brien: Everybody's promising jobs. Who's actually going to create them?

I've examined what every major party is proposing to do about unemployment.

Unemployment is at an 11 year high, young people are struggling to get a foot in the door, and political parties are making some very expensive promises. We are being offered a macro approach by those who are attuned to the needs of business, but perhaps less familiar with the struggle to find work. And we are being offered pie in the sky solutions from those who would possibly be among the unemployed were we not paying their generous salaries. On the whole things don’t feel particularly bright and yet “jobs” is one of the words of this election. So I thought I would take a closer look at what is on offer and how parties are approaching our unemployment challenges.

David Harvey: The Rationale for Media Regulation

This article is to be read alongside a detailed examination I conducted of the advice given to the Minister surrounding the disestablishment of the BSA. In this article I tease out the fundamental underpinning for media regulation and the ethereal nature of the “public interest”.

The basic justification for State involvement in media regulation is the public interest.

The argument follows this path. Media – especially mainstream media – are not just a business. They perform a democratic function as the Fourth Estate. Thus society has a stake in how media behaves.

There are a number of linked or associated arguments.