Breaking Views Update: Week of 9.8.26

Sunday August 9, 2026 

News:
National Party announces 2026 candidate list with no Māori in the top 10
Just two Māori candidates have made the top 20 of the National Party’s list for the 2026 election, despite changes that have propelled several sitting MPs and candidates up the rankings.

Hamilton West MP Tama Potaka is the highest-ranked Māori candidate at number 11, climbing 13 places from 24th on National’s 2023 party list.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Are the days of building big roads really over?

Yeah, I don't know what to make of Shane Jones's prediction last night that the days of building big roads are over. He was at this infrastructure debate in Wellington and he said, and I quote, I personally don't see ever another four-lane highway being built in New Zealand in my lifetime. The politicians are going to struggle to justify the cost.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 8 August 2026

Election 2026: polls in which nobody is winning

Neither Luxon nor Hipkins had a good week. The polls aren’t looking good for either and we are less than 100 days from the election. One Chris has taken to hating on MMP while the other is blaming a “rogue poll”.

The Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll released yesterday put Labour on a grim 27.8%, down 3.7 points in a month and only fractionally higher than what it got on election night 2023. National is back in front on 31%, NZ First is on 9.1, ACT 7.3, and the Greens 10.1. Te Pāti Māori has fallen all the way to 1.5%. On these numbers, the current coalition would scrape back into office with 61 seats.

Geoff Parker: If Official Status Doesn't Matter, Why Does It Matter?

Over the past week RNZ has published two articles criticising the English Language Act.

In the first, the Māori Language Commissioner argued that English never needed official recognition because it already dominates New Zealand society.

In the second, University of Waikato linguist Dr Julie Barbour went even further, describing English as a "predator language" that spread through conquest and colonialism, suggesting the legislation is "bizarre", unnecessary and simply reinforces English dominance.

Both arguments miss the point.

Gary Moller: Wellington’s Water Bill - When the Money Tree Finally Runs Out

Introduction
From 1 July 2026, property owners throughout Wellington, Porirua and the Hutt Valley will receive a separate bill for drinking water, wastewater and stormwater from the new council-owned organisation, Tiaki Wai. Our's arrived today. These costs are presently collected through council rates, so the councils will remove the water component from their rates bills. However, this is not merely an accounting exercise in which the same amount of money moves from one invoice to another. The overall cost to households will rise, and for many homeowners the increase will be substantial.

Nathan Smith: Let’s Bring Back The ‘Move-On’ Laws From Henry VIII

The government’s revamped Move-On powers have already had a positive effect on my life, but there’s so much more that could – and should – be done to fix the problem of the “sturdy beggar.”

Just down from where I live is a giant unused carpark. It’s flat and sits next to a major arterial route. It also has no restrictions on types of cars or campervans that can stay overnight. So, naturally, this carpark has attracted plenty of vagrants. At its peak, about three dozen shabby vehicles with shabby owners were semi-permanently camped for more than 18 months, going nowhere, doing nothing.

Troy Bowker: The Opportunity Party - A Radical Left Policy Manifesto

The audacity of the party to describe itself as centrist and moderate is, in some ways, impressive. That positioning, however, relies heavily on what appears to be a willing mainstream media environment that has devoted significant attention to TOP’s political story and leadership while providing comparatively limited scrutiny of the consequences of its actual policy platform.

Why has so much focus been placed on TOP’s rise, its leader and its political narrative, while there has been limited examination of the practical impacts of its proposed reforms?

Vijay Raj Jayaraj: India to climate cartel: Count us out!

Sometimes a story gets buried, not because editors conspire against it, but because the news cycle has room for only one crisis at a time. This year, the big news has been the Iran war. But even accounting for competing headlines, the silence around a genuinely consequential development is telling.

And that is the story of India’s explicit rejection of the global net-zero movement. India has walked away from its bid to host the COP33 UN climate conference, and the world’s climate press has treated it as a footnote rather than the signal it is.

Peter Dunne: Wellington City Council - Public Relations Disasters

You can’t beat Wellington on a good day” the saying goes.

It also seems you cannot beat Wellington, or at least its City Council, when it comes to public relations disasters.

Earlier this year, following years of mismanagement of and underinvestment in the city’s water system, the Council in conjunction with other local Councils, established a new entity, Tiaki Wai, to better and more transparently manage the region’s water resources. Part of the plan was that there would be a separation between what ratepayers paid for water services and their rates to local authorities, so that they could see more clearly the true cost of water services.

Mike's Minute: The trouble with revisiting MMP

Is Luxon's MMP vote a stroke of genius to avoid an otherwise problematic week?

His apology for Rotorua was a cluster, the Māorification issues that haven't been resolved despite all the talk, the Corrections massages, MBIE, Treasury love-ins, the Justice Department cock-up on the Harrison bloke, and the unemployment rate to the upside – it's all looked like very bad news.

Saturday August 8, 2026 

                   ⇩

Hon Chris Bishop: Speech to the Law Association

Thank you for the invitation to come and speak to the Law Association.

I’ve just come from announcing the opening date for the City Rail Link in Auckland. It may not surprise you to learn that my address to you today is not as exciting as that news!

It is a real privilege to be the Attorney-General. All Ministers and officeholders in New Zealand say that about their jobs, but I genuinely mean it. For someone interested in politics and public law and who is deeply interested in our constitution, it is a dream job.

Graham Adams: RNZ’s te reo policy dovetails with He Puapua

Jacinda Ardern always insisted He Puapua was not official government policy although critics could be forgiven for thinking it was — whether it was the blind eye turned to illegal iwi roadblocks in Northland during Covid or the co-governance provisions under Three Waters.

Similarly, RNZ’s management would undoubtedly deny that its te reo policy closely echoes the He Puapua playbook despite striking similarities.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 2.8.26

Saturday August 8, 2026 

News:
MMP Referendum Must Include Vote On Māori Seats - Hobson’s Pledge.
Hobson’s Pledge spokesperson and former National Party leader Don Brash says Prime Minister Christopher Luxon must honour long-held National Party policy by including a vote on the future of the Māori seats in any upcoming referendum on the voting system.

Geoff Parker: Who Should Govern New Zealand's Freshwater – Parliament or the Courts?

Open Letter To:

The Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister - Christopher.Luxon@parliament.govt.nz
The Hon Nicola Willis - Nicola.Willis@parliament.govt.nz
The Rt Hon David Seymour - Deputy Prime Minister - David.Seymour@parliament.govt.nz
The Hon Nicole McKee - Nicole.McKee@parliament.govt.nz
The Hon Paul Goldsmith - paul.goldsmith@parliament.govt.nz
The Hon Winston Peters - Winston.Peters@parliament.govt.nz
The Hon Shane Jones - Shane.Jones@parliament.govt.nz

Dear Prime Minister and Ministers,

New Zealand is awaiting what has been described as one of the most constitutionally significant court decisions in recent history.

The High Court's pending judgment in Tau v Attorney-General concerns Ngāi Tahu's claim that its rangatiratanga over freshwater was never extinguished and should be recognised through a new regime for the regulation, governance and allocation of freshwater resources.

Chris Morrison: Global Greening Hits New Record as Climate Emergency Fails to Materialise

Global mean vegetation greening reached a record high last year, extending an already significant multi-decade upward trend, according to recent findings published in Nature. In fact, 2025 set a record for global vegetation greening with a steepening of the average trend. Top of the list with 77.6% showing extra greening was croplands, meaning more food is becoming available to boost global diets.

Centrist: Growing rivalry - Is NZ helping India become a kiwifruit competitor?

Helping India grow

New Zealand is providing plants, scientific expertise and improved nursery, orchard and post-harvest methods that the government-owned Bioeconomy Science Institute says could help increase Indian kiwifruit production by as much as tenfold.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: NZ voters trust party names over actual policies

When I specialised in marketing for the business part of my economics degree, I came across a puzzling group of people: consumers. Ask them about their product choices and they will tell you what they care about, how diligently they compare different items and how much weight they put on quality.

Yet analyse what they actually do and a different picture emerges. They infer quality from brand names they have never heard of. They do the same from packaging. They will prefer one of two identical products because one of them somehow feels more premium.

Consumers are strange. So why should they be any different as voters?

William Foster: “Ripples never come back”: Why Political Motivations for Centralisation and Amalgamation ignore the subsequent economic and social costs.

Abstract: Centralisation/amalgamation can look administratively tidy while creating delayed democratic, fiscal and institutional costs. Yet centralisation repeatedly survives mixed empirical evidence because it aligns with the operating logic of hierarchical political systems themselves.

John Raine: The Electricity System - Energy Realism versus Policy Greenwash

Cheap High-Density Energy is the Key to Prosperity

It’s Election 2026 policy silly season. No surprise that some party policies on New Zealand’s energy future are detached from reality, particularly those of the Green Party and Labour. At least NZ First’s bold oil and gas exploration policy is sound in principle.