Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Let's talk about superannuation

Let's talk about superannuation – which I’ve noticed we are doing more and more frequently and which I think will probably become even more frequent as our population gets older over the next few years.

It's come up again because the boss of Milford Investments has given a speech warning that this talk of taking the pension age from 65 to 67 is simply not enough.

John Robertson: The Anatomy Of A Hijack

​A Manifesto Against the Tribal Enclosure of New Zealand Nursing

​New Zealand’s nursing profession is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into a state-mandated hallucination. The Nursing Council’s 2026 Draft Code of Conduct isn't a safety document; it’s a theological shakedown. It is an attempt to lobotomize the secular, scientific mind and replace it with a 19th-century tribal blueprint that has no business in a modern hospital.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.2.26

Saturday February 14, 2026 

News:
Cabinet removes te reo Māori name of school lunches scheme
The Government has quietly changed the name of the school lunches programme, dropping the te reo Māori title.

Cabinet papers obtained by Newstalk ZB under the Official Information Act (OIA) show that in October last year the Government agreed to update the name of the programme to “Healthy School Lunches”.

Ani O'Brien: Rot - Taxpayers are paying for special unlimited paid leave for Māori staff

Oranga Tamariki and Ministry for the Environment have race based leave entitlements

Duncan Garner kicked a hornet’s nest this week by reporting that Māori staff at Oranga Tamariki can take “discretionary” paid leave that other staff can’t, and that it’s effectively unlimited in practice.

Pee Kay: The entitlement applies to Māori staff only!

If this article by Matua Kahurangi is factual and discretionary paid cultural leave has been embedded in Oranga Tamariki’s collective contract, that should be of huge concern to all New Zealanders! Well, maybe not to some of their Maori staff.

This racially prescribed entitlement is not a thin end of the wedge, oh no, this is a huge battle-axe driven into society!

Matua Kahurangi: Te Pāti Māori’s politics of grievance delivers nothing for Māori

You may remember when I wrote about the race-based leave scandal exposed by Duncan Garner on his podcast. The thinking behind that policy was familiar: identity first, accountability later, criticism treated as hostility. The same mindset plays out every week in Parliament, most visibly through Te Pāti Māori.

Bob Edlin: PM snuffs suggestions he is imposing as gas tax....

Wow – we can only admire the energy which the PM puts into snuffing suggestions he is imposing a gas tax

US President Donald Trump is a dab hand at telling Americans down is up, war is peace and tariffs are not a tax.

It looks like our PM has gone to him for lessons.

Lindsay Mitchell: A litany of excuses

The latest Salvation Army State of the Nation Report 2026 presents a litany of excuses for the sorry state of New Zealand's social statistics, in particular, those relating to Maori.

The report is divided into sections covering children and youth, work and incomes, housing, crime and punishment and social hazards. Each section ends with a Te Ora o Te Whanau lens view.

After the section on children and youth comes the following:

David Farrar: The Government is a terrible bank

The Herald reports:

The Government’s flagship regional development body has more than half of its loan book flagged as at risk after recording a surge in impairment write-offs over the past year.

Crown Regional Holdings (CRH) warehouses government regional development initiatives and manages hundreds of millions of dollars in loan and equity funding provided to businesses.

Richard Prebble: Labour’s gas ban was reckless and they are promising to do it again

Politicians make mistakes. They are human. Decisions must often be made with inadequate information. It is easy to be wise in retrospect.

We should be understanding.

What we should not be forgiving is reckless decision-making — when politicians ignore the safeguards designed to prevent foreseeable errors and then refuse to take responsibility for the outcome.

Mike's Minute: Here's why we need the LNG facility

I don’t blame Chris Hipkins and Co. for a moment, calling it a gas tax.

That’s politics when you are in Opposition, especially when you have no policies yourself.

What I despair about is yet another chapter of myopic nonsense around dumb words for cheap points.

Friday February 13, 2026 

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NZCPR: Submission on the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill

NZCPR Submission on the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill

11 February 2026

Committee Secretariat
Environment Select Committee
Parliament Buildings
Wellington

Dear Sir,

Thank you for providing the opportunity to make a submission on the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill.

This submission on is on behalf of New Zealand Centre for Political Research, a public policy think tank established in 2005. 

Clive Bibby: Success in politics is all about timing

Political survivors are more often than not those who choose the moment to make a move that will save their heads when everyone else is losing theirs.

And it makes little difference what issues are motivating voting trends because survival is all about choosing the right time to be against a policy that is affecting family budgets - because, at the time, nothing else matters.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Should parents really be outsourcing safety here?

Right, so in the space of less than a day, a coroner has called for regulations to make corded blinds safe for toddlers, and the family of a little girl who died in one of these blinds has backed that call - and then the Government has said no, there will be no regulation.

The whole thing has happened in less than a day.

David Harvey: The China Syndrome

This article addresses the way in which the Chinese Government responded to an opinion piece written by Jonathan Ayling in the Herald. The response is revealing not the least because it maintains an ideological position that is out of touch with reality but as much because of the way in which it reveals the Chinese Government’s mindset, not just about contrary views but also about the way in which those views may be expressed within the boundaries of an independent sovereign state.

JC: Where Are the Tea Towels Chlöe?

Not your Palestinian dish driers. I’m talking about flag-bearing ones representing the Shah when Iran was a trusted allay of the West. The ones signifying the slaughter of up to 50,000 of its people by the Iranian regime. The ones that show support for the other 40,000 who have been imprisoned. The ones showing solidarity with a population risking their lives to rid themselves of a terrorist regime. The ones that support a taking down of the terrorist funding regime so the whole of the Middle East can be changed and improved. The ones that, if the regime were removed, will improve the lives of those you were wearing tea towels to support.

Pee Kay: “Labour is here to change this dirty, filthy, rotten government.”

He doesn’t need an audience just give him a stage, give him a microphone let the drivel pour forth!

“Labour is here to change this dirty, filthy, rotten government. That’s the aim. We will work with the Greens, the Māori Party, whoever, in terms of trying to get rid of the government.”

Matua Kahurangi: Some communities protect abusers the same way churches did

I wrote the other day about white European men, the church, and the long, ugly trail of child sexual offending that keeps surfacing in this country. Predictably, some people bristled. Others pretended not to understand the point. A few accused me of singling out one group while ignoring others. So let’s be clear about what was said, and what wasn’t.

Kerre Woodham: This is Winston doing as Winston does

Ah, Winston. Winston, Winston, Winston. He is the embodiment, as his namesake Winston Churchill famously said of Russia, of a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The canny campaigner knew exactly what he was doing when agreeing to job share the Deputy Prime Minister role with ACT leader David Seymour during the Coalition Government's startup. He, Winston, would take the first 18 months, positioning himself as a senior statesman and Foreign Minister par excellence. And indeed, he has done a very good job as Foreign Minister.