Breaking Views Update: Week of 26.7.26

Saturday August 1, 2026 

News:
Ngāi Tahu Farming chosen to operate country’s largest farm, Molesworth Station
Ngāi Tahu Farming has been chosen by the Department of Conservation to operate the country's largest farm.

Molesworth Station, an iconic 180-thousand hectare high country farm that spanned Marlborough and North Canterbury, was run as a cattle farm by state-owned Pāmu Landcorp.

Ani O'Brien: Behind the curtain of a NZ media scandal

Appointing the aligned is democracy, not corruption

Contrary to the breathless reporting we have seen this week from The Post and Stuff, it’s both natural and necessary for ministers to staff statutory boards with people who are willing and able to contribute to the objectives of the current government. By law and custom, ministerial appointees must have “appropriate knowledge, skills and experience” to fulfil the board’s functions and inevitably that also means picking individuals who support the government’s policy agenda.

Troy Bowker: Labour Capital Gains Tax Is Actually a Tax On Inflation

Labour governments tend to boost inflation. Chris Hipkins now wants to tax inflation as well.

Labour’s proposed Capital Gains Tax risks taxing inflation rather than genuine wealth creation. By applying a 28% tax to nominal gains on residential and commercial property acquired from 1 July 2027, the policy would tax increases in asset values caused by rising prices as well as real investment returns.

Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Winston's right about one thing in this situation

Winston Peters has a point - but is making it terribly.

In fact, if you've been following what happened in the House yesterday, it doesn't actually make all that much sense. But the bit the media is focusing on is the part where Winston tells Green Party MP Lawrence Xu-Nan to "go back to your own country".

Andrew Dickens: Winston should know better

Winston Peters escaped censure yesterday from the Speaker after his little outburst against a Green MP.

But Mr Peters is still being judged in the court of public opinion.

Carmel Sepuloni was jumping up and down demanding he resign, or be sacked or just go away, which is not going to happen.

Geoff Parker: Captain Cook Deserves History – Not Cherry-picked Propaganda

Professor Tony Ballantyne's article, New Ferry Names: Winston Calls it Woke, But Debating Cook’s Legacy is Nothing New, presents itself as a balanced examination of Captain James Cook's legacy. Yet the article follows a familiar pattern: it highlights every negative episode associated with Cook while giving little attention to his extraordinary achievements, the historical context of the eighteenth century, or the many positive assessments of his contribution made by generations of historians.

No serious historian claims Cook was perfect. He was an eighteenth-century Royal Navy officer operating in an era when encounters between European and Indigenous societies often involved fear, misunderstanding and sometimes violence. But judging him solely through the moral standards of the twenty-first century risks replacing historical analysis with modern political judgement.

David Farrar: Does Labour want a navy without combat ships?

Labour managed to remove any combat ability from the Royal NZ Airforce in 2000. Now it seems they want to do the same with the navy!

The Post reports:

The Labour Party is open to the idea of a frigate-less Defence Force, saying it’s yet to take a position on replacing the ageing Anzac-class fleet.

David Farrar: Why has the Parole Board stopped publishing decisions?

The Parole Board has not published a single decision since May 2025. They used to publish once or twice a week, yet for over a year they have not published once.

This is appalling. We are meant to have an open justice system. The Minister should send them a rocket, and not reappoint anyone who was party to the decision to stop publishing their decisions.

Rodney Hide: The Strange New Face of Women’s Empowerment

Here is a single image that captures the extent to which we are lost.

Khadija Patel stands at the Palace of Westminster, recipient of the British Citizen Award 2026 for her “work empowering young women.” She is covered from head to toe. Only her eyes are visible. The official caption celebrates her as a champion of female empowerment.

Mike's Minute: I think Elon Musk is wrong

If you have time, there's a podcast from The Economist that features Elon Musk in it and he argues that AI will lead to so much productivity that you won't need money because things won't cost anything.

It was so odd that;

Melanie Phillips: The "settler violence" libel

Israelis living in the "West Bank" are being demonised as a strategy to dismember the Jewish state

This is how murderous Arab attacks against Jewish residents in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, aka the “West Bank”, are being reframed as Jewish “settler violence” against Arabs by enemies of the Jewish people.

Last Friday morning, a group of Jewish hikers walked into the village of Tel in Area B, an area under joint Israeli-Palestinian Authority security control and where Israelis aren’t allowed to enter without prior co-ordination, not having been cleared by the IDF to do so.

Friday July 31, 2026 

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Mike's Minute: The cost of living "crisis" no longer exists

It turns out a lot is in a name.

Stats NZ gave us the latest household living-costs price indexes.

This is what we pay for stuff. This is the cost of our living or, as is more often than not referred to by the media and the miserable, the "cost of living crisis".

Yvonne Van Dongen: New Zealand Is An Escape Hatch

For transers fleeing Trump’s America or homophobic foreign regimes.

The news that a male student from Oman identifying as trans was able to access New Zealand funding raises serious questions about our immigration policies in such cases.

The Otago University student came here on a scholarship to study commerce from his home country. That scholarship is worth $340,000 to the student and, by implication, also New Zealand.

Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Why are the oil and gas companies scared to invest in us?

There are two ways to look at this oil and gas announcement today.

Aussie outfit EnZed Energy's been given the nod to go have a sniff around off the coast of Taranaki.

That's important because they're the first company to be given that right since the Ardern ban. But there's already talk online about the fact this was the only application. There was nobody else applying for this permit, and it's just to have a poke around.

Pee Kay: The councils affected surely wouldn’t fall for this undisguised power grab….would they?

Back in late 2025 the government signalled nationwide council amalgamation plans to replace regional councils with Combined Territories Boards. Following a three-month ultimatum in May, 2026, councils have until August, 2026, to voluntarily merge under the “Head Start” pathway or face forced consolidation from Wellington.

Andrew Dickens: The bigger problem isn't oil

The New Zealand Government has officially granted the first new offshore oil and gas exploration permit since reversing its ban, awarding it to Adelaide-based Australian explorer EnZed Energy.

EnZed Energy, an Australian start-up. So, it’s their first rodeo.

David Farrar: Radio NZ at it again

So Radio NZ ran a story from Reuters about the terrible hate crime attack in Berlin which saw 1 killed and 29 wounded at a pride festival.

However they removed a key detail from the story. That the attacker was an Islamist. Reuters had this in their story, yet Radio NZ removed it. (see below)

JC: Which Greens Are Good for You

The garden variety of course. They are packed with, among other things, essential vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre that support overall health. As my wife will be quick to tell you, they are not my favourite food, but she serves them up on a regular basis, bless her. I am regularly reminded a diet without them is not in my best interests. So, to ensure my good health I duly consume and, to be honest, my tastebuds are not averse to the flavours of most.

There is another variety of which the same cannot be said. These are the human/political specimens. The Green Party released their election manifesto over the weekend and a diet without what they are offering, I suggest, is in every sane person’s best interests.

Kerre Woodham: Is this how you imagined your retirement would go?

From good news to bad news really – a growing number of pensioners are turning to the Government's hardship support network as a last resort as the cost of living crisis grinds on. Applications for temporary additional support from New Zealand super recipients have almost tripled since 2020, rising from around about 22,000 per year to more than 61,000 in 2025.