Breaking Views Update: Week of 1.11.26

Thursday November 5, 2026 

News:
Foxton wetland restoration backed by RIF
The restoration and development of Piriharakeke, the river loop at Foxton, will be supported by a grant of up to $3 million from the Regional Infrastructure Fund, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says.

“Piriharakeke is a waterway of deep significance to local hapū of Ngāti Raukawa and the wider Foxton community," Mr Jones says.

Reynold MacPherson: Four Tests Before We Give Candidates and Parties Our Votes

An election asks us to entrust other people and parties with power over our shared lives. They will make decisions about taxation, public services, infrastructure and the rules under which we live. Their choices will affect people who voted against them, people unable to vote, and generations yet to come. Choosing them deserves more than a reaction to a slogan, a television performance or a promise that leaves us personally better off.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Is the Michael Laws incident going to cost NZ First votes?

Well, I mean, who is shocked that Michael Laws has said something controversial, right? He was always going to say something to offend people, wasn't he? And so he has, just days before the election.

Now, the comments actually date back to last week. They were made on his show, The Platform, where he was talking about Opportunity and, in particular, their candidate, Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, whom he was on stage with. His observation was that the women in Opportunity are as stern as primary school teachers.

Clive Bibby: Birthright and the responsibilities associated with citizenship

Let’s get a couple of things straight!

We are all descendants of immigrants to this country - the only difference between us is the timing of our ancestors’ arrival.

For example: I am a fourth generation Kiwi descendant of English and Scottish commoners who arrived on immigrant settler ships about 1860. The transportation used to bring my ancestors to our shores was not a lot different to the original canoes that ferried the Tangata Whenua immigrants from Hawaiki centuries earlier.

Ryan Bridge: Kiwis see through media bias over move-on orders

After all the hand-wringing and manufactured controversy, the 'Move On' orders are actually not controversial.

The loser in this story is once again the media.

The beat the story up into a frenzy. The government was trying to punish, or to use a phrase they readily adopted from Tory Whanau, 'punch down' on, the homeless.

Pee Kay: Pork Barrel Politics

Is this not typical, unvarnished pork barrel politics from New Zealand First, yet again cutting up the taxpayer pie to buy regional relevance just in time for the election?

Now, surely this will be seen as a remarkably convenient pre-election handout?

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones stands on a podium somewhere and begins tossing millions of taxpayers dollars at a pair of “exploration” projects under the guise of addressing “…gaps in geothermal knowledge…”.

Gaps in knowledge? Let’s be real Shane!

Richard Prebble: We decide how we vote

There are hysterical claims that vote splitting is somehow against the spirit of MMP.

MMP is not even fully proportional.

Last election, 159,585 party votes elected nobody. Yet these commentators are effectively saying National voters are being undemocratic if they refuse to waste their party votes.

I have split my vote for the last three elections.

Richard Prebble: Interesting electorate races - Wellington North

My old electorate, Wellington Central, is now Wellington North, gaining the traditionally right-leaning suburbs of Khandallah, Ngaio and Wadestown.

Suburbs that once elected me, an ACT MP.

Wellington North is one of the country’s highest-income electorates. It should be National.

Richard Prebble: Interesting electorate races - Epsom

John Key was the best natural politician in my time in Parliament.

The skills that made Key a successful currency trader — the ability to react to the present — made him a formidable campaigner.

Our strengths are often our weaknesses.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: NZ Unbound - Freeing up growth and fixing the books

Dr Wilkinson and the Initiative’s Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich will discuss the report in a webinar at 2 pm on Tuesday 3 November. Register here.

New Zealand heads into the election with two big problems barely mentioned on the 2026 election campaign trail: rising government debt and stalling productivity.

Our report says the answer starts with getting value for money. That means value from what government spends and from the rules it makes.

Kerre Woodham: If we have a cure for a problem, why wouldn't we invest in it?

I know that there are people who think that being fat is indicative of moral weakness. You're a slave to the pleasures of the flesh if you're fat. You can't control your appetite. No self-control. Being greedy is an unattractive trait, in fact gluttony is right up there in the list of the seven deadly sins, all of which I seem to commit on the daily. And sure, if back in the day food was scarce, if you had to grow or gather your dinner, it was a precarious business. It was difficult to store food in times of plenty, hard to find food in winter, during famine, during difficult times. So anyone whose belly hung over their belt would have been looked at askance. You wouldn't have trusted him, or her for that matter. But times have changed and now we all have enough, at least in this country.

Bob Edlin: Simeon Brown would be struck out as a candour-date (if PoO was umpiring)....

.....but the Nats are more tolerant on transparency

Three strikes and you are out.

That’s the principle which the Luxon Government has endorsed when it comes to law and order and sentencing policies.

PoO ventures that maybe it should be applied also to politicians who persistently flunk the candour test.

Guest Post: Money Does Not Grow On Trees and nor Does Experience

Guest Post on GoodOil by LilBaP

Christopher Luxon ran Air New Zealand and, before that, part of Unilever. A solid record, though the conditions were favourable. He still talks as if he is running a company. Managing cabinet, coalition partners and a public service is a different job.

Many have suggested he simply ignores other ideas, lacks stage presence or basic dignity for the job. You cannot do that when you are prime minister. Political experience takes a while.

Wednesday November 4, 2026 

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Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll: November 2026

Here are the headline results for November's Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll:


Click to view

Frank Newman: Election 2026 - The electorates to watch on election night

Unlike previous general elections, the electorate results are likely to determine the next government. When a party wins more electorate seats than its party vote entitlement allows, it retains those additional seats, creating an overhang. In this election, the Maori Party will almost certainly create an overhang, but for the first time since MMP was introduced in 1996, it may also apply to National.

Of the 71 electorate seats, 58 appear safe, barring any major shift in election dynamics during the final days of the campaign or significant errors in the polling data.

These predictions take account of boundary changes and assume that the decline in National’s party vote (down eight percentage points since the 2023 election) will not be significant enough to change the outcome in the safe electorates. That seems a reasonable assumption, given that a majority of National’s lost support appears to have shifted to its coalition partners, which are generally not actively campaigning for the electorate vote, apart from ACT in its two seats.

The electorates I consider safe are:

Owen Jennings: TOP in Hypocrisy

Questions for Voters:

Opportunity (TOP), helped by a fawning media, are posing as kingmakers in this election.  Given that this critical role would determine our future for a decade or more should we not know more about them?

Gary Judd KC: A Sacred Trust Betrayed

Judicial independence and the reliance on tikanga in New Zealand courts

In A Story is Not Enough — Witchcraft and all that, I explained why there is justification for thinking that we, or some of us at any rate, do witchcraft. It reflects how low those who exercise power have come that even Parliament has attributed human personality to rivers and mountains.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Here's what the data from police move-on orders tells us

Have you seen the data from the first nine days of police using move-on orders?

Guess how many of the 29 people police moved on were homeless. Four. Four of them.

Four out of the 29 were homeless, which means 25 of them, the vast, vast, vast majority, had homes, or at least addresses, they could go and spend their day at instead.

JC: Facts Are Facts Mr Luxon

Since 1996 we have voted under the MMP electoral system. Until now the need to highlight the difference between the current and previous electoral system has not been necessary. This time the ‘bright on the right’ have become aware that in 2026 things are different. The National Party leadership don’t see it that way. They are running a campaign for ‘two ticks blue’, asking for both your electorate and party vote.