Breaking Views Update: Week of 28.12.25

Wednesday December 31, 2025 

News:
$7m worth of contracts for Kaitāia Airport upgrade out for tender
A much-needed upgrade of Kaitāia Airport to guarantee its future has moved closer with contracts for work worth more than $7 million out for tender.

Last year the pathway for Kaitāia Airport to return to Ngai Takoto and Ngati Kahu hapu was cleared, with Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka joining iwi and the council at a ceremony which marked the entering of a long-term lease for the airport between iwi and the Far North District Council – to take effect once title transfers – and the Government contracting $5.4m with the council for maintenance and upgrade work.

Tim Donner: Trump Scorecard - Hits and Misses of 2025

This year has made the president's first four years look like a mere dress rehearsal.

After spending the year implementing his audacious agenda at a frenetic pace, we might have thought Donald Trump would at least take a break on Christmas Day. Perhaps he would sit back for a moment and reflect on his extraordinary volume of executive and legislative initiatives and limit his engagement to missives wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. But of course, that would be totally out of character for a president who barely sleeps and treats each day in office as if it were his last. So Trump took to Truth Social and posted more than 100 times, in between dropping bombs on ISIS in Nigeria.

David Farrar: A small but good law change

Radio NZ reports:

The government is proposing to amend alcohol legislation so restaurants with on-site retail spaces can sell take-home booze.

The amendment to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act would mean restaurants can apply for an off-licence, if they also sell takeaway food or non-alcoholic beverages prepared by the business.

Andrew Moran: 2025 Was the Worst Year for Climate Alarmism

Even Bill Gates abandoned the charade this year.

Since former Vice President Al Gore fooled the world with An Inconvenient Truth two decades ago, climate alarmism has kicked into overdrive. Over the years, politicians and bureaucrats around the globe have committed to spending trillions of taxpayer dollars and making your life as miserable as possible to prevent the Arctic ice caps from melting. Some of the younger generations aren’t even having children because the planet is dying or something. But it turns out that conditions are not as dire as the doomers said.

John Robertson: New Zealand’s Colonization Obsession Is Historically Illiterate

By 2025, New Zealand’s public discourse has hardened into something resembling a ritual: colonization is invoked, rehearsed, and recycled with near‑religious regularity, as if repeating the word itself constitutes historical insight. What began decades ago as a necessary reckoning has metastasized into a narrow, obsessive framework that treats colonization not as a universal human process, but as a uniquely modern moral crime—conveniently stripped of global context, scale, and historical precedent. This is not serious history. It is ideological repetition dressed up as moral sophistication.

Professor Alexander Gillespie: NZ report card 2025 - how the country fared in 28 key global and domestic rankings

Standardised testing and regular progress assessment became key features of the education system this year, so why not apply those same principles to New Zealand as a whole?

There’s an important difference here, of course. This exercise is about prompting discussion and debate, and should be read with a degree of caution. The metrics tell us only so much – but it’s still possible to trace the nation’s ups and downs.

Matua Kahurangi: Māori poverty pays very well if you run the trust

If you’re on X, you may have seen a report by independent journalist Nick Shirley into Somali-run daycare centres in Minneapolis. According to the investigation, these centres received staggering sums of public money despite reportedly having no enrolled children. The 42-minute video has racked up around 84 million views on x since it was posted on 26 December. That does not happen by accident. It happens because people recognise a scandal when they see one.

David Farrar: Little support from Māori for TPM leader and deputies

Radio NZ reports on a poll of 328 Maori, which asked about Te Pati Maori. They asked who should lead TPM, and the current leaders did not come out well. They got:

Insights From Social Media: Politicising Santa - When Even Myth Must Kneel

Colinxy writes > This essay follows my earlier piece, The Marxist Imperative: Politicise Everything, where I argued that the modern ideological project has no natural boundaries. It expands, metastasises, and colonises every available cultural space. Nothing is allowed to remain neutral, shared, or simply fun. Everything must be interrogated, problematised, and, ultimately, politicised.

Right on schedule, Brighton and Hove Museums have stepped forward to demonstrate the principle in action. In a blog post, the museum declared that Father Christmas is “too white,” “too patriarchal,” and in urgent need of “decolonisation”. His famous naughty‑and‑nice list, we are told, is a “Western binary” that reinforces “cultural superiority” and “colonial assumptions”[i]. Santa, apparently, is not merely a jolly gift-giver but an emissary of empire.

Tuesday December 30, 2025 

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Patrick Carroll, Dan Sanchez: Individualism - A Deeply American Philosophy

In just a few short centuries, the philosophy of individualism has radically reshaped how we relate to one another.

What Is Individualism?

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” -Henry David Thoreau

Are you an individualist? To some extent, you probably are, whether you realize it or not. After all, individualism is baked into American culture.

Kristian Guise: Wealth Tax - A Simplistic Answer to Complex Problems

A wealth tax would be immoral and impractical.

Recently, great interest has been paid to ideas of a British wealth tax. Britain’s struggling finances have caused eyewatering tax rises and seen the rise of the Green Party whose policy is to tax wealth.

A wealth tax is a direct tax on the value of an individual’s total net assets at a certain point in time. These assets include vehicles, jewelry, artwork/antiques, savings/investments, cash, property, intellectual property, and businesses. Such a tax would be catastrophic, as I will show.

John Stossel: The Complete Guide to Socialism vs Capitalism (Myths Explained)

People find fault with capitalism. Many think they’d prefer socialism.

Why? Because they believe absurd myths about it.

Click to View

From BreakingViews archives: Barend Vlaardingerbroek - Contextualising the persecution of Christians

Freedom of religious belief is a fundamental human right. It stems from the freedom to hold and express one’s own opinions. This principle is one that all of us – religious and non-religious alike – should be able to agree upon.

It is worrisome, therefore, to come across reports of the persecution of people for reasons of religious identity. Whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan or whatever, nobody should be persecuted because of religious belief. The Bishop of Truro’s Independent Review for the Foreign Secretary of FCO Support for Persecuted Christians (full report due later this year – see “Christian persecution 'at near genocide levels'”, BBC News, 3 May 2019), which warns that Christianity may be “wiped out” in parts of the world, including the Middle East, should accordingly set the alarm bells ringing.

From BreakingViews archives: Brian Gill - Who promotes science thinking when everyone defers to culture?

With New Zealand science agencies shy to push the general power and wonder of science, and instead applauding ethnic world views, the science view-point flounders.

The seven University of Auckland academics whose letter to the Listener in July 2021 provoked what a former newspaper editor called "the full, vindictive fury of the woke academic left", weren't just concerned that a government educational working group proposed making science and Maori knowledge of the natural world equivalent in the school science curriculum. They also worried generally about "disturbing misunderstandings of science emerging at all levels of education and in science funding".

From BreakingViews Archives: Bob Jones - Colonialism Nonsense

Try and imagine the carry-on in Britain if its government announced special privileges for the original Anglo-Saxon and Celt citizens.

Nearly 40% of today’s Brits are of non-traditional ethnicity. Take those of Indian ethnicity. They have the highest educational standards of all Britain’s diverse ethnicities. They also have the highest incomes and are the least likely to be in prison. The current cabinet is dominated by Indian ethnics, many of four generations back and most pundits are picking the current, (Indian ethnic) Chancellor as Boris’s successor.

But here in New Zealand the government’s posture, if in charge in Britain, would be that you citizens of Indian ethnicity, must step back and allow special privileges to the poor suffering original Anglo-Saxon and Celt inhabitants.

That is a parallel of what is happening here in New Zealand with maoridom.

David Farrar: Kiwiblog’s 2026 predictions

Here’s my 20 predictions for next year, which I’ll score at the end of the year. I got 13.5/20 right for 2025.

Monday December 29, 2025 

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Ani O'Brien: The Best and Worst of NZ Politics in 2025

According to me (Ani O'Brien). Don't shoot the messenger.

New Zealand politics in 2025 was essentially a live-action stress test for MMP, public patience, and the integrity of Parliamentary norms and traditions. The Government started the year promising “growth” but quickly realised that promising things that are in no small part out of your control is a bad idea. The Coalition also discovered that nothing angers New Zealanders more than change, except not changing anything. The tri-party arrangement has stood the test of time though. Ministers might have to carefully explain that they are all on the same page, just reading different paragraphs, in different languages, from entirely different books, at times, but their core shared purposes have been sufficient glue.

David Farrar: Business confidence at 30 year high

Radio NZ reports:

Business confidence has hit its highest level in 30 years on improving activity and on expectations of an economic rebound.

ANZ’s Business Outlook survey showed headline confidence rose 7 points to a net 74 percent expecting better conditions.

Dave Patterson: Hezbollah and Iran Narco-Terrorists on US Back Porch

Dangerous Middle East networks thrive in Central and South America.

If you thought that Hezbollah was just Israel’s problem, think again. Iran’s proxy and Iran are well established in America’s southern neighbor countries, and, without intervention by the United States, they are there to stay. A tropical islet in northeast Venezuela called Margarita Island – also known as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “Terror Island” – is a safe haven for Hezbollah and Iranian operatives. They move freely, participating in narco-terrorism, human trafficking, money laundering, terrorist training, and arms trafficking.

John McLean: Last Bastions of Woke

As 2025 draws to a close, we can say with some confidence that New Zealand has passed Peak Woke, and that Woke is on the wane. So where are the die hard Woketearoans retreating to and holding out? Where are the Neanderthal Woketards making their last stands?

David Farrar: Good for Morning Report, but not necessarily for Radio NZ

Radio NZ reports:

John Campbell is returning to RNZ, as the new co-host of Morning Report alongside Ingrid Hipkiss.

RNZ’s Chief Audio Officer Pip Keane said the field of applicants for role on the flagship news programme was impressive but Campbell stood out.

David Farrar: Potential terrorists should not get name supression

The Herald reports:

A Pukekohe man found in possession of extremist Islamic State content, including beheadings and terror attacks in Europe, has failed in his bid to secure a discharge without conviction.

However, his application for permanent anonymity was granted.

Insights From Social Media: The left's inability to laugh

Truth in Jest by Colinxy.

"Many a truth is spoken in jest"

Humour has always been one of humanity’s most subversive tools. It pierces pretence, exposes hypocrisy, and reveals uncomfortable realities in ways that solemn argument cannot. A joke can slip past defences, planting truth in the mind before ideology has time to react. Yet in our age, the Left seems uniquely incapable of laughing—especially when the joke is at their expense. They live within ideology, and ideology cannot abide ridicule. To laugh at it is to admit its fragility, and fragility is what they fear most.

  Sunday December 28, 2025 

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Frank Newman: Garrick Tremain

Garrick Tremain

Sadly, we have been informed that Garrick Tremain passed away painlessly and peacefully last evening in Lakes Hospital. 

Garrick was a truly outstanding individual. 

Not only was he the most talented political cartoonist of our generation, but the man behind the pencil was witty, insightful, fearless, compassionate, and humble. 

RIP Garrick.

Frank Newman, a writer, investment analyst, and Director of the NZCPR, is a former local body councillor.

Insights From Social Media: The He Puapua road map

PB adds to Geoff Parker’s post (bolding emphasis added):

What Waatea News is producing here is not analysis of 2025. It is a maintenance narrative — a story designed to protect institutional arrangements at the point they are being democratically wound back.

The structure is familiar and closely follows the He Puapua road map, as articulated by Claire Charters and advanced in practice by Lady Tureiti Moxon.

Matua Kahurangi: Another rāhui, this time for a natural death on a walking track

Firstly, I am sorry to hear that someone lost their life while walking the Taranaki Falls Track. My thoughts are with their family and loved ones. A sudden death on a popular walking track is tragic, and it deserves compassion, dignity, and respect.

However, it needs to be said. Why on earth is a rāhui needed when someone passes away from natural causes?

Ani O'Brien: Marc Daalder writes opinion, not journalism

Marc Daalder’s ideological tantrum, complete with foot stamp, begins with the headline,“Cabinet overrode health advice”. It tells you from the outset that Cabinet have been naughty! It takes a normal feature of democratic government (elected ministers making decisions!) and reframes it as scandal, as though unelected officials are supposed to govern and elected politicians are an unfortunate interference.

Laurie Wastell: US Launches Airstrikes on Islamic State in Nigeria to Protect “Innocent Christians”

The Trump administration has launched airstrikes on Islamic State in north-west Nigeria in coordination with Nigerian authorities, killing multiple militants. While Nigeria insists the strikes had “nothing to do with a particular religion”, President Trump railed against “Isis terrorist scum… who have been targeting… innocent Christians”. The Times has the story.

Marcelo R Santos: What if we taxed what people spend, not what they earn?

When people talk about tax fairness, the focus is almost always on income. How much the rich earn, how heavily that income should be taxed, and how to make sure lower earners are protected. But there is an older idea that is quietly starting to get attention again. What if taxes were based not on what people earn, but on what they spend?

Dr Kevin Donnelly: How the Frankfurt School Captured the Culture – and How to Fight Back

Conservatives have too often failed to realise that “politics is downstream from culture”. So argued Douglas Murray in a recent obituary of the late Peter Whittle, founder of the New Culture Forum (NCF), following the adage popularised by the late American journalist Andrew Breitbart, himself the founder of Breitbart News. “Too many conservatives for far too long felt the crucial battles were about economics”, Murray writes. “The NCF founder helped to correct that error.”

Melanie Phillips: American conservatism and “the Jewish Question”

Astonishingly, it looks as if “the Jewish question” — that perennial antisemitic canard — is becoming the hinge issue that will determine the course of American politics.

The Democratic Party and the left in general now promote an increasingly virulent hostility toward Israel and a corresponding embrace of Islamist and black extremism, leading to rising attacks on American Jews.

David Farrar: Auckland Uni gets it right

The Auckland University Freedom of Expression Statement looks very good. It is clear with few weasel words. Key extracts:

The University actively fosters and supports lawful and constructive debate by its staff and students on any topic, including with the participation of external speakers invited by a staff member, or a recognised student association or student club.

 Saturday December 27, 2025 

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Geoff Parker: A Narrative of Perpetual Betrayal Isn’t Evidence

Waatea News’ end-of-year lament paints 2025 as a dark age for Māori/Crown relations. But strip away the rhetoric and what remains is not evidence of oppression, it is the frustration of activist elites seeing their policy influence reduced.

The claim that Māori rights are “under serious threat” relies almost entirely on two assertions: that Māori-specific institutions and funding streams are inherently protective of Māori wellbeing, and that scaling them back constitutes discrimination. Neither claim withstands scrutiny.

David Farrar: Observations from the Kāinga Ora Chair

Simon Moutter is the Chair of Kāinga Ora, formerly known as Housing NZ. He sent the e-mail below to a few acquaintances of his, and one forwarded it onto me. With permission, I am blogging it below because I think it is such a good and interesting read.

Matua Kahurangi: Terror propaganda, No prison, permanent anonymity - Welcome to New Zealand justice

Firstly, I hope everyone had a great Christmas with their family and friends. I didn’t think I would write anything until after the 5th January when I return to the swing of things, but an article titled “Auckland man caught with footage of Isis beheadings, murders, terror group promo material” caught my eye and the more I read, the more concerned I was.

JC: Is Today the Day?

These are powerful words, at least they are to me. They are powerful in so many different contexts. I came across them some time ago and again recently. Both times I heard them, they were in speeches made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, in the Trump administration. On both occasions she was telling the story of how she came upon them.

 Friday December 26, 2025 

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Best of 2025: Ryan Bridge - The Gen Z stare

I went out for lunch to a café the other day and our table was served by a couple of waiters who all seemed to have a similar vibe about them.

They just. Did. Not. Seem. To. Care.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 21.12.25

Friday December 26, 2025 

News:
Court of Appeal: Māori Land Court cannot rule on Porotī Springs water
A long‑running effort by hapū trustees to have their customary rights to Porotī Springs legally recognised has hit another hurdle, with the Court of Appeal ruling their claims must instead be taken to the High Court.

Ani O'Brien: Will NZ-India trade deal survive NZ Parliament?

The announcement that came yesterday of a much-worked-for trade deal with India is a big deal for New Zealand. It is also, like everything in the world of politics in 2025, wrapped in a complex set of conflicting interests that could see it killed off in Parliament.

This is a trade deal with interesting political ramifications more so back home in New Zealand than between the two countries, though as usual there are plenty there too. Despite negotiations with India being a real longterm challenge for successive governments, the real story here is not tariffs, schedules, or annexes. It is coalition disagreement, parliamentary arithmetic, and two-thirds of the Coalition Government discovering that its biggest foreign-policy trophy may only survive if the opposition decides to carry it across the line.

David Farrar: A good critique

David Harvey has a good critique of the proposed social media ban for under 16s. I certainly support the intent that we should keep under 16s off social media. The linkage to poor mental health outcomes is incredibly powerful – especially for girls.

DTNZ: Trump says Greenland is ‘vital’ to U.S. national security interests

U.S. President Donald Trump has defended his renewed push for control over Greenland, arguing the Arctic island is essential to America’s national security following the appointment of a special US envoy to the territory.

Trump said Greenland’s strategic position makes it critical as Russian and Chinese vessels increasingly operate in the region, insisting the US “has to have it” for security reasons.

Matua Kahurangi: The Great Replacement isn’t a theory anymore - it's reality

For years, “The Great Replacement” has been dismissed as a conspiracy theory. A lazy label, rolled out whenever anyone dares to question immigration settings that are clearly transforming New Zealand at speed. But when Singh has now been the most common surname for babies born in this country for seven years running, it becomes increasingly difficult to pretend nothing unusual is happening.

This is not theory anymore. It is observable reality.

Bob Edlin: Māori trade lobby (waving the Treaty) is miffed by FTA with India....

Māori trade lobby (waving the Treaty) is miffed by FTA with India – but it’s hard to find the discriminatory provisions

Here at PoO we can understand the disappointment of the dairy industry, after the Government announced a “free trade” agreement with India which offered very little to them.

We are not so sure about the miff expressed by an outfit called Ngā Toki Whakarururanga,

NTW broadcast its disappointment in a statement headed India FTA – A Lost Opportunity For Māori.

Really?

What opportunity has been lost?

Bob Edlin: High Court champions prisoners’ rights and Goldsmith gets a Thistoll-whipping....

High Court champions prisoners’ rights and Goldsmith gets a Thistoll-whipping – but govt can make law-breaking legal

Maybe there’s no pressure, but stand by for more laws being amended under urgency – to make legal what the Government has done illegally.

The rest of us don’t have that privilege but it’s something governments can do. And it’s something the Luxon government has done already this year.

Will it happen again to remedy more recent transgressions?

Wednesday December 24, 2025 

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MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

Dr Michael John Schmidt: Christmas in the Colonies

Dear all,

Thanks for reading the columns I have written in 2025 and for the helpful comments. In celebration of Christmas and the New Year, I am sending you an interesting and entertaining poem.

This poem was written by Thomas Bracken (1841–1898) – the Irish-born New Zealand poet, journalist and politician. He is best known for writing “God Defend New Zealand”, which was adopted as the country’s national anthem. He published several volumes of poetry celebrating the New Zealand landscape and identity and also served as a member of parliament.

NZCPR Newsletter: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

On behalf of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research I would like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

John McLean: Axeable agencies of state

The Government and main stream media outlets have been doing their best to paint a picture of an economic upswing, just in time for Christmas. But the portrayed rosy economic future is a vision through rose tinted glasses. Inflation is at 3%, the highest it’s been since mid-2024 and unemployment, at 5.3%, is the highest since 2016.

More particularly, New Zealand’s core national debt had risen from $81 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2023 (the last quarter of the departed Labour Government’s term in office), to $170 billion at the end of Q3 2024, to $182 billion at the end of Q3 2025. The annual interest cost of NZ’s debt is about $10 billion. New Zealand’s debt will top $200 billion within the next few years (that’s $40,000 for every single man, woman and child in New Zealand). Nothing’s really changed, economically, since my Substack exactly two years ago:

Ani O'Brien: Brian Tamaki and the Sikh parade confrontation

Facts, fears, and the kimits of protest

The confrontation that occurred during a Sikh religious procession in South Auckland a few days ago has ignited condemnation and raised questions about protest, imported political conflicts, and national identity. While the incident itself was brief and not violent, it has alarmed many who do not want to see the cultural and religious disharmony that is rife overseas playing out in New Zealand. Anxiety over immigration levels and the challenges of multiculturalism have become more pronounced globally and this is creating tensions over public expressions of culture and belief.

Bob Edlin: Losing candidate has cause to rue spending $6426 on litigation rather than on her election campaign

We are wondering, here at PoO, what might have transpired in Porirua had a candidate who lost by just nine votes taken a different tack.

She should have done much better – we calculate – by spending more on campaigning and by taking advantage of Policy.nz’s efforts to broadcast policies to voters. See above to learn what it can tell us about the candidate in question, Jess Te Huia.

Matua Kahurangi: Free trade, open borders - The India deal New Zealanders never voted for

Even though I am on annual holidays, I thought it was right to write something on this topic, because in my opinion we really are losing our Kiwi way of life in some ways. If there is one thing New Zealanders should be alert to right now, it is the quiet habit of governments giving too much away in the name of “progress”, while ordinary people are left to deal with the consequences.

That is why New Zealand First is right to be deeply sceptical about the so called free trade deal with India. Not because trade is bad in principle, but because this deal looks neither free nor fair, and it once again treats immigration concessions as a bargaining chip rather than a national interest issue.