Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Directing more money to Pharmac is the sensible choice

So, Winston Peters is pretty upset, as you would expect, about National's plan to take money from the foreign aid budget and use it to fund medicines through Pharmac. But from where I'm sitting, that seems fairly sensible, doesn't it?

Breaking Views Update: Week of 4.10.26

Wednesday October 7, 2026 

News:
New support service for whānau at Kaitāia Family Court
Families going through the Family Court in Kaitāia can now get extra support through a new service, Te Atatuhi.

Run by Tuhiata Mahiora and Te Whare Ruruhau o Meri Trust, support workers will work alongside the Ministry of Justice’s Family Court navigators (kaiārahi) to help whānau before, during and after their time in the Family Court.

1News Verian Poll: Opportunity still in kingmaker seat as Greens hold strong

Opportunity continues to hold the keys to power and the Greens remain in a strong position to play a significant role in the next government, the latest 1News Verian poll results show.

With Opportunity set for 7% of the vote, and National leader Christopher Luxon having ruled out working with the party, today’s results point to a route to power for Labour.

Mike's Minute: Labour's fiscal plan is a failure

With the period of digestion now complete, I think it is more than fair to suggest that the Labour Party's fiscal plan has been marked a failure.

This is not just me, but as far as I can read virtually every journalist and commentator, including economists, say so.

This politically should be a disaster. Economic credibility, this election in particular, is everything.

Richard Prebble: A super policy

Opening ACT’s election campaign, David Seymour made the most consequential policy pledge of the election.

All the other parties are proposing, in one form or another, to make KiwiSaver compulsory.

Andrew Dickens: Why Doesn't National and Act have the same pressures as Labour?

So Labour finally released their fiscal plan in the weekend.

It was much anticipated. In fact commentator after commentator for weeks now have been demanding it.

Now it’s being dissected. And mostly by the current coalition parties.

Geoff Parker: Claire Charters’ Constitutional Revolution — The Case She Still Has To Prove

Professor Claire Charters is making a sweeping and consequential claim. In her new book, Sovereignty: The Case for Constitutional Transformation, she argues that New Zealand’s constitutional foundations are “unjust, illegitimate, illegal” and require fundamental transformation.

After listening to her interview with Simon Mercep, however, I am left wondering whether she has actually proved her case.

Richard Prebble: A grumpy old man

I remember being 16 years old. Only my friend Jim Middleton, who went on to become the ABC’s chief political correspondent in Canberra, and I had any interest in politics.

At university among my fellow students, it was only the Vietnam War and the fear that we might be conscripted that generated interest in politics.

Lindsay Mitchell: Welfare missing from the 2026 election campaign

Welfare is markedly missing from 2026 election campaign issues.

There's been far more debate about Super: its cost, means-testing and the age of eligibility. New Zealand is an outlier. Australia, the UK and the US have a qualifying age of 67. Whether NZ joins must be decided. Super isn't sustainable.

But what of working-age people? The percentage of 18-64 year-olds on a benefit is 12.8% - up from 9.9% ten years ago. That's around one in eight people unable or unwilling to support themselves.

Rodney Hide: Psychology on the Couch

Last Friday, at Pipitea Marae in Wellington, the New Zealand Psychological Society and the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists rolled over together, all eight paws in the air, and apologised to Māori for, in the words of their own press release, "the structural racism and monoculturalism inherent within the discipline of psychology, which has its origins in 19th century Europe."

Colinxy: The Myth of Price Gouging

Why the Accusation Is Economically Illiterate, Morally Backwards, and Politically Convenient

Few economic concepts generate as much outrage, and as little understanding, as “price gouging.” The term itself is propaganda: a moral accusation disguised as an economic description. It implies theft, greed, and predation. It suggests that businesses raise prices during crises because they are wicked, not because reality has changed.

But like most activist vocabulary, “price gouging” collapses the moment you examine it. It is not an economic principle. It is a political slogan. And it survives only because it is useful to politicians, unions, and bureaucrats — not because it makes any sense.

Let’s dismantle the myth.

Barrie Saunders: Supermarkets – what about the provinces?

Anyone who drives to Gisborne, as I have done from the north and south, will discover the roads are winding and often tedious. This means getting in produce such as groceries, incurs significant costs because of the distance and small population served. Particularly challenging for perishable meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables.

The National Party’s policy of splitting Food Stuffs into two, thereby separating Pak’nSave from both New World and Four Square, runs into some practical difficulties when it comes to the likes of Gisborne, which has a Pak’nSave a Woolworths and two Four Squares, but no New World.

 Tuesday October 6, 2026 

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RNZ-Reid Research poll: National crashes, Greens surge, Opportunity kingmaker

National has plunged below 26 percent in a new RNZ-Reid Research poll, while the Greens have surged about a month out from voting day.

The poll - published on Tuesday - puts the Opportunity Party once again in the kingmaker position.

NZCPR Newsletter: The Battle Over the Waitangi Tribunal

When the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process was introduced by Norman Kirk’s Labour Government in 1975, it was framed as a means of dealing with ongoing injustices.

Pee Kay: Tertiary Education, an Expensive Political Battleground.

Student Debt: Crown Asset or Financial Fiction?

Last week it was supermarkets, this week it is Student debt/University Fees! It seems there is absolutely no systemic crisis that our politicians can’t fix with a sweet, shiny new election campaign spreadsheet tweak.

Last week political parties all painted supermarkets as the whipping boy and took to flailing them with gusto. This week they are scattering lollies in front of a very receptive audience who, no doubt, will be very happy to trade debt for vote!

Last Sunday Chris Hipkins unveiled Labours plan new election proposal on student fees during the Labour Party’s official election campaign launch.

Damien Grant: New Zealand’s books are burning....

.....but where are the hard decisions?

On September 2 1666, the 330th Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, was summoned to a small conflagration. A fire had taken hold and the alderman required his permission to contain it.

The prescribed means of containment was to destroy the adjacent buildings but, well, the owners of these adjacent buildings were unhappy at this violation of their property rights.

Melanie Phillips: Those amazing and heroic Israelis

An averted catastrophe in the air shows how the Jewish state chooses life while Britain and the West embrace a culture of death

On Monday, Britain’s foreign secretary Ed Miliband delivered a diatribe against Israel, accusing it of ethnic cleansing and war crimes, and vowing to punish it for the crime of allowing Jews to “settle” in their own historic land.

On Wednesday, four ordinary Israelis on a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv averted a new 9/11 by overpowering the co-pilot who was attempting to crash the plane, possibly in Israel.

Kerre Woodham: There must be a way to keep public servants accountable

I talked about accountability this time last month, specifically about MBIE boss Nick Blakely. You'll remember that the Privileges Committee found Blakely and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled —what you and I know as lying— Parliament. The Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service, and yet who's the current head of MBIE? Nick Blakely. Doesn't seem to have bothered him. Sure Alison McDonald's gone on to a nice board somewhere. She won't be locked up at home, covered in sackcloth and ashes, rueing and repenting.

David Farrar: Labour’s Fiscal Fraud

Labour’s so called fiscal plan is a fraud. First here is what Barbara Edmonds said on Newstalk ZB:

Well, for example, a choice that we would not make is $300 million for a tobacco excise tax cut. Okay. That means there is $300 million more that is a choice. So only $12.7 billion more to find?