John McLean: Nothing to smile about

On 26 June 2025, multiple Māori groups filed a High Court legal claim to all New Zealand’s natural fresh water. In the short period since then, more Māori have jumped on the water wagon. The claim’s chief protagonist is a man named Kingi Smiler. You can listen here to a chat that Smiler recently had with broadcaster Michael Laws on The Platform:

Matua Kahurangi: PM Christopher Luxon says Dame Jacinda Ardern is his modern day hero (Satire)

A political storm erupted this week after ACT Party leader David Seymour took aim at Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi for naming African military leader Ibrahim Traoré as his "modern-day hero." Traoré, who seized power in Burkina Faso via a coup, has been widely condemned on the world stage for suppressing elections, banning homosexuality, and overseeing violent crackdowns that have left hundreds dead.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time - 5 July 2025

A NZ Politics weekly wrap-up

Luxon’s plans for Quarter 3

Despite not quite completing two of its 38 objectives for Quarter 2, Christopher Luxon and his Government are correct to call it a success. The two that were missed relate to removing barriers to capital markets and a Government AI strategy. Both are underway. In Quarter 3, there are 28 actions on the checklist and Luxon puts this drop down to the size and scope of the objectives. That didn’t stop the NZ Herald from running with the headline “Government gives itself fewer actions to do this quarter…”

Ele Ludemann: Councillors shouldn’t need security

How did it come to this?:

Increasing abuse and threats directed at elected members has prompted a new home security allowance to councillors’ pay.

Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) chief executive Susan Freeman-Greene said her organisation had advocated for new protections such as the allowance given a significant increase in abuse, harassment and threatening behaviour.

David Farrar: The pro shoplifting party

Paul Goldsmith released:

Green MP Tamatha Paul is giving shoplifting the green light as she opposes the Government’s plan to strengthen penalties, National Party Spokesperson for Justice Paul Goldsmith says.

“The Greens are singing from the same old song sheet, making excuses for anyone who attacks or steals from hard working New Zealanders.”

Mike's Minute: Your retirement savings are in your own hands

There was a survey out last week that broadly supported the Government’s moves around KiwiSaver, as in the 3% and 3% going to 4% and 4%.

But they wanted the Government to do something about the cut in contribution from the state.

Barrie Davis: Sir Apirana’s Free Speech

Congratulations to Jonathan Ayling and the Free Speech Union (FSU) and also to Dr Muriel Newman and the New Zealand Center for Political Research (NZCPR) on the outcome of the law suit for the absurd Hutt City Council censorship affair. We should be outraged that the Council removed NZCPR sponsored copies of Sir Apirana Ngata’s 1922 The Treaty of Waitangi: An Explanation from public libraries. The Council should be humiliated, humbled and apologetic that they presumed to do so. It was an Orwellian act to be ashamed of, yet the contrition is entirely absent.

David Lillis: Unpublished Letter to the Listener

Recently (on 4 June), I wrote a 300-word letter to the Listener but have received no response. Here it is below, for those who are interested.

“Paul Little and Sarah Frost express concerns that Shakespeare is unduly prominent in our draft English Curriculum (The Listener, 7 June). However, Shakespeare is mentioned only once there, and developers are obliged to prescribe what they consider the best readings for every subject.

Saturday July 5, 2025 

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Insights From Social Media

Who Watches the Watchdogs? The Waitangi Tribunal’s Free Pass Needs Clipping - Steven Mark Gaskell.

It’s about time someone in Parliament remembered who actually runs the country and for once, it’s not a committee of academics and legal theorists camped out in a Treaty echo chamber. Enter Simeon Brown, who has dared to tug on the sacred cloak of the Waitangi Tribunal, the one institution that’s never had to answer the question: who keeps you in check, mate?

Clive Bibby: Elvis got it right way back then but fools still rush in

As teenagers growing up in the 60s, with little television and only the radio as a link to live broadcasts of concerts featuring our rock and roll stars, we relied heavily on the record player and the odd Saturday night dance as a means of keeping in touch with the songs and music written by our idols.

Zoran Rakovic - A New Crown, The Same Sword: Power, Hypocrisy, and the Eviction of Selwyn Huts

Ngāi Tahu now owns the land—but the people in the huts must go. We ask: when power changes hands, does justice follow?

Opinion: The settlers of Greenpark Huts did not descend from mountaintops with deeds of conquest. They arrived with huts and hope, making lives on the muddy fringes of Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora. Through decades, generations came to treat those huts not as property but as places of meaning—battered perhaps, but woven into the fabric of ordinary New Zealand life. And now, as ownership passes fully into the hands of Ngāi Tahu, the story is coming to a bitter end. Eviction notices. Legal wrangling. No renewal. No negotiation. Just the cold mechanics of removal.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 29.6.25

Saturday July 5, 2025 

News:
Call for expressions of interest for an appointment to Council - University of Auckland
Under section 2(a) of the Council Appointments Statute 2023, Council invites expressions of interest from persons who consider they meet the attributes required to fill one or more of the following four positions on Council:

One person, being Māori and able to advise Council on issues relevant to Māori

Chris Lynch: Government announces $22 million boost to protect native wildlife

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka has announced a major $22 million funding boost aimed at protecting native wildlife and enhancing visitor experiences across New Zealand’s national parks and conservation areas.

Speaking at the Isaac Conservation and Wildlife Trust near Christchurch today, Minister Potaka outlined the investment, which will be drawn from the International Visitor Levy over the next three years.

Peter Dunne: War on woke

Symbolism over substance is a well-established political art. Sometimes symbolism is a substitute for decisive action, sometimes it is a way of signalling a future policy intent that for various reasons cannot yet be achieved. On other occasions, it is a simple diversionary tactic, designed to distract attention from policy failure elsewhere.

A recent good example of symbolism over substance is New Zealand First’s proposed Bill to ban the display of any flag or emblem other than the New Zealand flag on government buildings.

Ananish Chaudhuri: There is a free speech crisis at our universities

A recent article in The Post by two University of Auckland academics makes three primary assertions. First, there is no free speech crisis at our universities. Second, universities are autonomous and should be “allowed to make this judgment call”. Third, universities should not be forced to “bend the knee to an external agency of the state.”

The authors are wrong on all three counts.

Lindsay Mitchell: The Death of Personal Responsibility

The following quote typifies the thinking that's rampant across New Zealand's health and education sectors:

"The presentation of comparisons between different ethnic groups is not to provide commentary on the deficits of any particular ethnic group but rather to highlight the deficits of a society that creates, maintains and tolerates these differences."

Ani O'Brien: Frankenstein's Youth Parliament

An insight into the little monsters who will one day run the country

The monster in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is often mistakenly referred to as "Frankenstein," but the name actually belongs to the scientist who created the monster, Victor Frankenstein. The confusion reflects how the monster’s identity has merged with that of his creator overshadowing the novel's deeper themes about responsibility, creation, and the consequences of unchecked ambition.

Kerre Woodham: Let's put an end to the fun and start verifying political promises

I don't know about you, but I want to know how big our Finance Ministers' holes are.

I think it's really important to know what political parties’ promises are going to cost us. A nine-year battle to get a publicly funded body to cost political parties election promises, starting with the 2026 election, ended at cabinet on Monday after ACT and NZ First put the kibosh on the plan.

Mike's Minute: To the media - a bit of balance please

I feel there should be a rule, and the rule is around balance.

Part of the media's demise is its unfairness in coverage, the latest example of which is the school lunch programme.

Friday July 4, 2025 

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Karl du Fresne: Echoes of Citizens for Rowling

Who remembers the Citizens for Rowling campaign? It was a concerted attempt by the Great and the Good to derail National Party leader Robert Muldoon’s election campaign in 1975.

The campaign’s backers didn’t like Muldoon’s combative, divisive brand of politics and argued that Labour’s gentlemanly Bill Rowling, who had assumed the prime ministership after Norman Kirk’s death in 1974, offered a far more desirable style of leadership.

Professor John Raine: Concerned Citizens, Not Haters and Liars

Public voices have been loud and but not entirely clear over particular sections in the Education and Training Act Amendment Bill (No.2). Apart from submissions to the Select Committee, Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, has received many personal messages.

The pressure on our Cabinet Ministers is understandable, but on Mike Hosking Breakfast 27th June, Erica Stanford referred to those who had sent her emails as, “whipped up with hatred, frothing at the mouth and spouting complete and utter garbage, lies” - extreme words that fell back on lazy social media slurs. Misinformed or intemperate remarks would have been a small proportion of the messages sent to the Minister. The large majority would have been stating real concerns that the Bill as it stands appears to leave the door open for undue Treaty dominance and continued decolonisation activism in our education system.

Wayne Ryburn: Reframing New Zealand’s History

New Zealand's mainstream media continues to propagate the one-sided history espoused by the Waitangi Tribunal, activist Maori academics and their pakeha acolytes, as our official history. History is complex and comes with many perspectives. Several articles published in the NZ Herald during 2024 and more recently, by authors Simon Wilson, Julia Gabel, and Audrey Young, clearly indicate their support for viewpoints propagated by the Waitangi Tribunal and contemporary iwi.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Rachel Reeves incident will be used against women in significant roles

This is gonna sound harsh and I know it - but I think women like Rachel Reeves need to stop crying in public.

This is the biggest news that is in the UK at the moment. The Chancellor, who's basically the equivalent of our Nicola Willis, started crying in Parliament.

Now I feel really sorry for her, cause it looks like she is going to probably end up taking the fall for a man's incompetence because Keir Starmer, her Prime Minister, is weak and is giving into a rebellion and has forced a U-turn on her, thereby undermining her fiscal plans.

John Robertson: Scrap “Tangata Whenua” — It’s Spiritual Garbage in Legal Disguise

Let’s stop pretending: tangata whenua has no place in modern law. It’s a spiritual phrase, built on myth, used to justify race-based privilege. And it needs to go — now.

The term means “people of the land,” but it's really code for “special rights through ancestry.” That’s not law — that’s theology. It turns public policy into tribal religion. It hands out legal perks based on who your ancestors slept with. That’s insane.

Chris Lynch: NZ First introduces Bill to ban ‘woke flags’ from government buildings

New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that would ban the display of all flags except the official New Zealand flag on government buildings, a move party leader Winston Peters says is aimed at protecting national identity and preventing the politicisation of public spaces.

Centrist: Critics argue National blinked as ACT pushed to scrap Treaty clause in schools bill

The ACT Party pushed to remove the Treaty of Waitangi clause from the Education and Training Amendment Bill, but was blocked by coalition partners.

The clause, which requires school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, will now be reviewed as part of a broader government workstream.

Matua Kahurangi: Tamatha Paul thinks criminals are victims and Police are the problem

Why the Greens' soft-on-crime ideology is dangerous, deluded, and downright insulting to ordinary New Zealanders

Tamatha Paul, the Green MP and self-appointed spokesperson for the “defund the police” generation, has once again gone viral for all the wrong reasons. In a rambling monologue uploaded by the ACT Party to X, she attacked efforts to clamp down on violent crime, defended shoplifters, and dismissed public safety concerns as if they were a minor inconvenience in her activist utopia

JC: Basking in the Sun and Howling at the Moon

There are two sides to the current prime minister. There’s the Christopher Luxon at home and the Christopher Luxon abroad and they are two different persona. The overseas version is a relaxed figure in complete control, in his element if you like. His trips abroad are successful ventures and he impresses other people of note with whom he has dialogue. He is representing New Zealand well on the world stage. It is his moment in the sun. He exudes a sunny temperament basking in the importance of it all.

Ele Ludemann: Is shoplifting ever okay?

What happened to law makers being on the side of the law? A Green Party MP thinks it’s okay to shoplift:

Green MP Tamatha Paul is giving shoplifting the green light as she opposes the Government’s plan to strengthen penalties, National Party Spokesperson for Justice Paul Goldsmith says.

“The Greens are singing from the same old song sheet, making excuses for anyone who attacks or steals from hard working New Zealanders.”

David Farrar: Hysterical Hipkins

Chris Bishop notes:

Wow. Hipkins asked on radio why we don’t hear about ram raids any more and if they’ve stopped happening:

Direct quote – “Nah it’s cause your Tory owners at NZME have just decided not to put it on the front page any more. It’s still happening, it’s just NZME have decided that it’s not in the Government’s best interests and they do the National Party’s singing for them and so they’re not covering it as much any more.”

Kerre Woodham: Have we not learned from slash damage and flooding?

In the wake of the Motueka valley flooding with warnings that Australia's bomb cyclone is set to bring severe weather conditions to New Zealand, we're on weather watch. Not just the media, although looking at the television screens in my studio —one on BBC talking about the heat waves in Europe and another on Sky News from Australia talking about severe wind, rain and surf in eastern New South Wales— globally we appear to be on weather alert.

Thursday July 3, 2025 

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Matua Kahurangi: Ardern’s legacy in ruins

Today, Stuff published an emotional opinion piece by Sir Ian Taylor, dramatically titled “Dear Jacinda, this is the most difficult letter I have written to you.” While the content of Taylor’s letter may tug on a few heartstrings, the real story was found further down the page, in the poll quietly embedded beneath the article.

The question was simple and direct:

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Let's not get weird about helicopters and rich-listers

This debate about Anna Mowbray and Ali Williams' helicopter has just got really, really silly in the last day.

There is now a push for Auckland Council to ban private choppers in residential areas altogether when they next review the unitary plan for Auckland city, and at least 2 councillors now back that. And one of the councillors backing it is the councillor whose ward covers the Mowbray property.

Anglo Saxon: Erica Stanford gaslighting and blame gaming - Where have we heard this before?

Erica Stanford, New Zealand's Minister of Education has tried to downplay her new amendment that defines a successful learning outcome as indoctrination into maori ideology.

Anglo Saxon dissects Erica Stanford's defence of the Education and Training Amendment Bill No 2.

Click to view

Professor Jerry Coyne: Why Mātauranga Māori Isn’t Science

A interview with a “heterodox” New Zealand scientist - “Why Mātauranga Māori Isn’t Science:”

I’ve written a lot about the controversy in New Zealand involving whether the indigenous “way of knowing,” Mātauranga Māori (MM), is equivalent to modern science (often called “Western science”) and, as many maintain, should be taught alongside modern in science classes (see all my posts here).

As I’ve noted, because MM does have elements of empirical truth in it, like information (established by trial and error) about how to catch eels, when berries are ripe, and so on, it is characterized as a “way of knowing”.

Graham Adams: Stanford’s sly Treaty move backfires

National on back foot over Education bill.

Among the welter of commentary surrounding the recent publication of Jacinda Ardern’s memoir, it was very noticeable that journalists avoided mentioning co-governance and race-based policy as a significant factor in her political demise. It’s a topic they mostly prefer to skirt if they can.

This is perhaps not surprising given she paid legacy media companies $55 million to promote co-governance by insisting the Treaty be treated as a “partnership” as a condition for receiving taxpayer money.

Matua Kahurangi: Youth Parliament or Green Party dress rehearsal?

Lowering the voting age would kill the right

This week, the annual Youth Parliament returned to Wellington, and with it came a renewed push to lower the voting age to 16. It’s no surprise this idea is being floated again, and it's almost guaranteed that Labour and the Greens will back it. Why wouldn’t they? Sixteen-year-olds are still firmly under the influence of New Zealand’s highly politicised schooling system, where left-wing ideology is not only common but embedded into everyday teaching and forced down our kids throats.

Dr Eric Crampton: Intelligence built on a library’s ashes

It is legal to buy books. Obviously.

If you buy a book, it is legal to read it. If you have read it, it is legal to answer questions about it, whether for free or for payment.

Copyright does not prevent you from doing any of this. If it did, academics would have a tough time. Imagine having to get pre-clearance from any author whose works you mentioned in seminar. It would not be workable.

Roger Partridge: Rule of law – but for whom? A rejoinder to the NZLS report

The New Zealand Law Society’s new report, Strengthening the Rule of Law in Aotearoa New Zealand, runs to more than eighty pages, includes seventy-eight recommendations, and reflects a considerable investment of time and goodwill. Its aims are noble: to bolster constitutional integrity, improve access to justice, and promote respect for the rule of law. But for all its breadth, the report suffers from a staggering omission. It fails to acknowledge the one institution increasingly responsible for eroding legal certainty and upending constitutional norms: the courts themselves.

Mike's Minute: Why are we only now thinking of new energy ideas?

It's only the start of Wednesday so let's be honest we've only had two days of news, and we already have two stories around power.

The first was Transpower saying we need to find more avenues of power generation and we need to do that quickly, because until all the promised transition stuff comes online, we are going to be short of capacity.

Bob Edlin: Sure, he was known as Tricky Dicky.............

Sure, he was known as Tricky Dicky – but there are only two statues of him in the world, and one of them is in NZ

What does Edward Gibbon Wakefield, an Englishman, have in common with Richard Milhaus Nixon, an American?

Wakefield, a key figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand, is particularly associated with the English settlement of Wellington in the 19th century.

Simon O'Connor: Funding silence

As a university cancelled a talk I was about to give (due to being too sensitive a topic supposedly), I ponder whether taxpayers should keep funding such censorious institutions.

I was recently asked to give a talk at a New Zealand university, sharing my impressions of my recent trip to Israel and the Gaza envelope. It would have had a political and legal perspective to it (along with the ethical), so I would assume much discussion with those attending on the nature of the conflict; whether international law is being broken; what possible solutions are possible and feasible; and more.

David Farrar: 777 international flights for climate emergency councils!

Andrea Vance reports:

Councils declaring a climate emergency have collectively spent more than $1.26 million on international flights — racking up 777 trips, many to Europe and Asia.

Auckland Council leads the pack, spending $354,928.78 on 128 flights.

  Wednesday July 2, 2025 

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Heather du Plessis-Allan: Education and Training Amendment Bill No 2

Heather du Plessis-Allan chats on NewstalkZB about the Treaty of Waitangi and Maori preference clauses in the Education and Training Amendment Bill No2 that Erica Stanford of the National Party has tried to sneak through.

Click to view

NZCPR Newsletter: The State of Local Government

Local Government is in crisis. The numbers tell the story: local authority rates increased 12.2 percent in the 12 months to the March 2025 quarter – a 14 percent contribution to the 2.5 percent annual increase in inflation. As a result of the reckless spending of local authorities, interest rates are staying higher for longer, with all New Zealanders paying the price.

So why have local authorities gone off the rails?

Ian Bradford: CO2 – the gas of life

Carbon dioxide is our second most important gas. Yet some want to eliminate emissions of it almost entirely.

Carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the atmosphere and plays a crucial role in the life processes of the planet. This gas is fundamental to the life cycles of plants and it is absorbed during photosynthesis, and converted into carbon in the plant’s growth structures through a photochemical process. This process releases oxygen into the atmosphere, the gas essential for the respiration of living organisms.

David Lillis and Peter Schwerdtfeger - Free Speech and Academic Freedom on Campus: a Manufactured Crisis?

Are Claims of Suppression of Free Speech Not Real?

In the Post of 26 June, Dr. Sereana Naepi and Emeritus Professor Peter Davis inform us that concerns about constraints on free speech on university campuses constitute a manufactured crisis (Naepi and Davis, 2025). The authors claim that the crisis is designed to erode academic freedom while appearing to protect it. This is a very bold claim but how do they evaluate the intent of others in creating a manufactured crisis unless they can see into the minds of those other people?

Matua Kahurangi: Whānau Ora funnels millions to iwi

It’s 6.30pm. The state-funded propaganda machine, otherwise known as 1News is droning on in the background while I’m half-listening, half-scrolling, slowly eating my dinner and getting sidetracked like usual. Then I stumbled across this little gem on RNZ that stopped me right in my tracks…

Ngāti Toa has just launched a new Whānau Ora commissioning agency to funnel “health and wellbeing” funding to Māori and Pasifika only. Not the poor. Not the vulnerable. Not the struggling. Just Māori and PI. If you don’t tick the right ancestry box, you can get stuffed.

Barrie Davis: Divisive Racism Propaganda

There are a couple of articles in the Sunday Star Times of 29 June: “In Aotearoa ‘racism never went away – people just got better at hiding it’,” by Sereana Naepi (here) and “How the word ‘racism’ shuts down the dialogue about racism,” as told to Sapeer Mayron (here). They are promoting a book edited by Naepi, an associate professor in sociology at the University of Auckland, of a new collection of essays on racism against Pacific people in New Zealand, which is due out 10 July.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Do we need the Government to help fund Wegovy?

From today, Wegovy is available on our shelves so you can get skinny like Oprah, if you want.

But it'll cost you - $500 per month. Which is unaffordable for most people, prompting a debate over whether the Government should fund it to reduce obesity and safe money on obesity-related illnesses and injuries.

Now on principle, this is the kind of thing I'm a fan of - a bit of money upfront to save lots of money later. But unfortunately, as it stands, this wouldn't be an example of saving money.

Chris Lynch: Jobseekers now required to reapply for support every six months

People receiving Jobseeker Support will now need to reapply for their benefit every 26 weeks, rather than once a year, as part of a Government move to increase accountability and improve employment outcomes.

Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says the change, which takes effect from today, is aimed at encouraging more regular engagement between jobseekers and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

Dr Michael Bassett: Poverty - The modern man-made monster

Are you, like me, getting sick and tired of the endless stories in the Mainstream Media about poverty, with self-appointed “experts” arguing for more money to be spent on the problems they describe? They show no signs of understanding the serious nature of the country’s fiscal deficit. Worse, the journalists reporting these “experts” fail to examine the fact that many of the complainants they quote simply farm the poor and rely on their continued existence for their own personal incomes.