NZCPR Newsletter: A Fragile Recovery

A debate is raging over the state of New Zealand’s economy, as we head towards the election. Some say a recovery is well underway, while others claim it remains in crisis.

Both can’t be right, so let’s see what the data shows.

But first, some background. 

Mike Butler: Parihaka – back to basics

A new book titled The long road to Parihaka by Piers Seed goes back to the eye-witness 19th century written reports to cut through “a morass of emotion, ideology and myth-making” that now encase the story, according to author Piers Seed.

Seed, an electrical engineer who turned his analytical skills to writing history, says “history is not a soundbite but something with context and perspective”.

The long road is a continuation of his earlier book, The Spark, The Logs, and The Gasoline, in which he uses the same incisive, back-to-basics approach to New Zealand’s 19th century civil war that has variously called the “Maori wars”, “New Zealand wars”, “sovereignty wars”, and, most recently, “land wars”.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will ACT's big plan actually scrap the Waitangi Tribunal?

You know what ACT's Waitangi Tribunal policy is? In my opinion, it's the kind of policy you release when you don't actually want to do the thing the policy gives the impression you're going to do.

ACT's headline policy is that it will scrap the Waitangi Tribunal, which many people, including me, may see as a good idea because the tribunal has gone completely off piste. It has started to resemble a branch of the Māori Party, finding in real time that one Government policy after another breaches the Treaty of Waitangi.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 6.9.26

Friday September 11, 2026 

News:
The Act Party is promising to wind up the Waitangi Tribunal once the final historical claims are heard, if elected.
The party is promising to amend the tribunal’s governing legislation so it is automatically disestablished once historical claims have been completed. Act said it would also reduce the tribunal’s funding as its role diminishes.

Announcing its Treaty Policy this morning, leader David Seymour said the party “supports completing full and final historical Treaty settlements as a pragmatic way to resolve past injustices. This includes where the Crown confiscated land or otherwise breached property rights. That work should be finished properly”.

Ani O'Brien: Your KiwiSaver owns the companies they want to tax

The Greens and Te Pāti Māori want to tax capital harder. Unfortunately, ordinary New Zealanders own rather a lot of it.

It is easy to shrug off new tax proposals meant to target the “Super Rich” as not something that will affect those of us who don’t have investment portfolios and who have to actually look at the price on the tray of mince before deciding if we buy it. Most New Zealanders don’t think of themselves as the “Super Rich” and most don’t own massive corporations. And this is what political parties count on when they propose vast new tax changes and frame them up as hitting the rich end of town.

Pee Kay: KiwiMart

Chloe and Marama have placed our supermarket businesses firmly in the spotlight recently.

This video below is about US supermarket but the message is still relevant for NZ.

The compulsory purchasing of 120 NZ supermarkets has to be one of the Greens most nonsensical policy ever!

Paul Homewood: Greenland’s Icecap Grew This Year

Greenland’s icecap is melting away thanks to global warming, at least that is what we are told. According to the EU’s European State of the Climate 2025 Report, the ice sheet lost 139 Gt last year. They say that is equivalent to about 1.5 times the amount of ice stored in all the glaciers in the European Alps, and raised global mean sea level by 0.4 mm. (A gigatonne is one billion tonnes.) Since 1972, losses have amounted to 5,747 Gt. The rate of ice loss has increased by around five times since the 1980s and is expected to continue increasing beyond the end of the century.

Brendan O'Neill, The UK government has swallowed the Great Lie of Israelophobia

If it wasn’t for Israel, if it wasn’t for that monstrous, marauding state, there’d be peace in the Middle East. This is the Great Lie of Israelophobia. It’s the truthless, venomous current powering the global loathing for the Jewish State. You hear it on the street, on campuses, in mosques: that peace demands the muzzling, if not the outright destruction, of the bloodthirsty Jewish nation. Yesterday, staggeringly, we heard a version of this lie from the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom.

JC: Vote For What You Don’t Want.

Voting to keep the left out of power: there is one way, and one way only, that this can be achieved with certainty – tactical voting. Even within this framework you have to be careful how you cast your vote to create the maximum advantage for the right and maximum destruction on the left. I will attempt to explain the means by which this can be achieved.

David Farrar: Promising PISA results

The Herald reports:

The post-Covid collapse in education has halted amid signs of a narrowing equity gap, as disadvantaged students improved at higher rates than their richer peers.

That’s according to New Zealand’s 2025 Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) results, released this evening, which is a benchmark for 15-year-olds in the OECD in science, maths and reading.

Rodney Hide: If it happened here

Winston Peters is back on the MFA account telling Israel how to behave.

Settlements. Settler violence. Annexation. Two-state. International law.

Every press release of this sort lands the same way in Jerusalem: your enemies hear that New Zealand is not with you. Your own voters hear that Wellington’s first instinct is to manage Israel’s response, not to name the aggressor and stand clear.

That is not neutrality. It is pressure — applied to the side that was invaded.

Mike's Minute: We need to break this stereotype in NZ

Here is a stereotype we have to break, especially given the solution is now available.

There was a young woman in her 20s, in the beauty industry, training as a nurse and will go into the private sector. She has a plan and good on her.

As part of this particular conversation though, she says she can never see herself owning a house.

Thursday September 10, 2026 

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Anglo Saxon: New Zealand democracy's biggest threat - The tribal aristocracy

In this episode, insight into constitutional changes wanted by the neo-rangatira class maori. The false claim of a treaty partnership and the attempt to impose an upper house of unelected rangatira maoris; with the right to veto our democratically elected Parliament.

Click to view

Ryan Bridge: Cutting red tape by adding complexity

Do we really need a Minister of booze?

Back in the good old days, they were all Ministers of booze. The whole cabinet. Especially Robert Muldoon.

But the idea that we need a Minister responsible for Alcohol is well-intentioned, like all 80-odd portfolios that reviews and recommendations have created.

Perspective with Andrew Dickens: These MSD stats are nothing to be proud of

The One News Thomas Mead demolition derby this week has been on the MSD. It's led their news.

Thomas has breathlessly reported after an inquiry under the Official Information Act revealed a number of rejections of Special Needs Grants for urgent and essential emergency costs. The inquiry found these rejections were increasing, and more than 8000 people were declined on the basis food was deemed 'non-essential'.

Geoff Parker: Fairness For All — Or A Particular Kind Of Fairness?

Chief Ombudsman John Allen's recent speech deserves careful scrutiny. Not simply because of where it was delivered, but because of who delivered it — and what he chose to say.

Koroneihana (Coronation) is a significant Māori and Tainui occasion centred on the Kīngitanga, the Māori King movement, bringing together people for cultural celebration, discussion and consideration of matters important to Māori.

There is nothing inherently improper about the Chief Ombudsman attending such an event. Public officials should be able to engage respectfully with different communities.

Pee Kay: Shoot for the Stars and Land on a Mountain

Back in June I wrote an article titled “Consultants or Extortionists” – https://nominister.wordpress.com/2026/06/15/consultants-or-extortionists/ where the central theme was that a Tauranga tribe was demanding $450 million to withdraw objections to the Port of Tauranga’s expansion plans.

But now the Stella Passage expansion has been approved under the Fast track Approvals Act, subject to strengthened conditions to address cultural impacts???

Peter Williams: Tour Report - Politics

Is South Africa on the cusp of something really significant ?

Because of our relationship through rugby and cricket New Zealanders have long carried an interest in South African politics.

For the first thirty five years of my life many New Zealanders actively protested against the apartheid regime of South Africa’s National minority government, culminating in the unprecedented but not repeated actions against the 1981 Springboks.

Kerre Woodham: Who on earth is using meth?

Who the hell is doing all this meth?

Yesterday came the news that there were almost 2 million doses detected in wastewater sites over one week in April. One week. 2 million doses. Consumption in the first quarter of 2024 was 15% higher than it was over the previous four quarters.