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.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 29.6.25

Friday July 4, 2025 

News:
Waitangi Tribunal registers claim calling for urgent hearing into fast tracked plans to mine seabed off Pātea
The Waitangi Tribunal is considering a claim filed by south Taranaki iwi Ngāti Ruanui concerning a Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) shallow-seabed mining project approved under the Fast Track Approvals Act 2024.

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.

Matua Kahurangi: ACT tries to end race-based education

National folds to the woke

The other day I wrote about how Erica Stanford has been quietly ushering race-based policy back into New Zealand schools, under the feel-good label of “pastoral care”. Now we learn that while Stanford is pushing things in one direction, the ACT Party has been trying to steer us in another. You can read my original article here:

David Farrar: Census no more

Former Government Statistician Len Cook writes:

The Government Statistician must agree with key users, population experts and statisticians on a process for Identifying the full range of due diligence critical for the proposed census change. My own view is that the Royal Society should be funded to lead an independent review of the scientific integrity and validity of what is proposed.

JC: Where Are the Principles in the Treaty?

It’s a good question because the answer is, as Winston Peters says, there aren’t any. There are only articles. Three of them. Principles have a very different meaning to articles when it comes to official documents and treaties. As far as I can conclude, the principles were introduced in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. They are also embedded in the minds of activists to try and back up their false narrative that the Treaty has obligations that have to be fulfilled in areas where it clearly doesn’t.

Kerre Woodham: Tougher sentences are the way to go

The Government's harshest sentencing rules begin today. Rules like capping the maximum discount that a judge can apply at 40 percent, with some exceptions.

There will be no repeat discounts for youth offenders, those aged 18 to 25. No discounts for remorse, if you're sorry again and again and again, you only get to be sorry once, because Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said repeat discounts had allowed for lenient sentences.

David Farrar: Tougher anti-stalking laws

Paul Goldsmith announced:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is welcoming changes to toughen up the proposed anti-stalking law, including being triggered after two specified acts within 24 months.

 Tuesday July 1, 2025 

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John Robertson: Why the Word “Bicultural” Needs to Be Erased from New Zealand Law

There’s a quiet word baked into New Zealand legislation that’s been doing a lot more damage than people realise: bicultural.

It sounds harmless. Even noble. A word supposedly meant to honour New Zealand’s history. But scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find it’s one of the most corrosive terms in our entire legal system. It’s the foundation of a two-tier framework — a system that divides citizens not by merit or equality, but by ancestry and spiritual entitlement.

Matua Kahurangi: New Zealand’s opening the floodgates to unvetted Indian degrees

New Zealand has thrown open its doors to Indian degree-holders, scrapping the critical qualification assessment process that once ensured a baseline of credibility for foreign credentials. According to a recent report from The Times of India, this policy shift is being hailed as a “streamlined” pathway for Indian graduates to access visas, work, and potentially permanent residency in New Zealand. Beneath the glossy rhetoric of global talent and Indo-Kiwi partnerships lies a dangerous gamble that threatens the integrity of New Zealand’s immigration system and the livelihoods of our citizens. This is a reckless invitation to chaos.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why does it take so long for good ideas to become law?

Anyone out there, hands up, who doesn't agree with the Justice Minister's plan to introduce harsher punishments for people who assault first responders?

I feel like this is a complete no-brainer.

I mean, there are some out there who would argue that no assault is acceptable at all and that if you create two tiers of punishment where you've got the police officers on one level and then the normal humans on another - what you're saying is that some assaults are more acceptable than others.

John McLean: High Time To Wield The Axe

Tribal threats to New Zealand’s democracy must get the chop, before it’s too late

There’s no such thing as pan-Māoridom. Never has been. Not before colonisation, and not now. “Māori” are a collection of separate tribes (iwi), which now number about 150. None of these tribes were or are democratic. The head of each iwi hierarchy is a paramount chief, the Ariki, typically an inherited status. At the bottom of each traditional Māori tribe were the slaves and baby girls.

So it should come as no surprise that many Māori leaders are no fans of democracy.

Philip Cranmer: Antarctic Ambitions - China’s Expansion and New Zealand’s Scott Base Redevelopment

As New Zealand moves forward with the redevelopment of Scott Base, China has submitted plans for its sixth station on the continent.

Earlier this month, Antarctica New Zealand announced the selection of a new contractor to assist with the design and delivery of the redevelopment of Scott Base. The base is New Zealand’s only Antarctic research station, located 3800km south of Christchurch and 1350km from the South Pole.

Damien Grant: How an author and billionaire changed the lives of thousands of Kiwi kids

Early in the book Once Were Warriors Beth is watching television and notices that the houses on television are filled with books. She inspects the house she shares with Jake and comes to the realisation that there are no books. None of the houses Beth has ever lived in had books.

Graham J Noble: The Media’s Narrative on Iran Strikes Sustains Critical Damage

The Islamic Republic’s nuclear program wasn’t the only thing crippled in the past week.

Did anyone expect the establishment media to applaud President Donald Trump’s decision to order strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran? Probably not. Maybe we could at least have hoped that anti-Trump news outlets would not go full Baghdad Bob and claim the historic raid was a failure. Yet that is exactly what CNN and The New York Times did with a little help from a hastily put together Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) damage assessment that was conveniently leaked to the cable news network in record time. But that media narrative has already crumbled as if it had also been hit by one of those Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) devices recently delivered – business end first – to the Islamic Republic.

Eliora: National Is the Sneaky Party

We in New Zealand suffered years of utter despair caused by the aptly described ‘worst prime minister the country has ever experienced’. Jacinda Ardern ruled with ruthless nastiness, under the hypocritical guise of being ‘kind’. Ardern was mean, fake and deceitful.

Kevin: It Ain’t Over

How is the endgame going to be played out? Honestly, I don’t know. But you can bet that Trump and Netanyahu are surrounded by people who are strategy experts.

They say that on the world stage you’re either playing chess or you’re playing poker.

Ananish Chaudhuri: Why are high achieving teens headed overseas and why this is not necessarily a good idea

Why are high achieving teens headed overseas and why this is not necessarily a good idea

Part 1: Why are high achieving teens headed overseas and why this is not necessarily a good idea

Part 2: Why going to study overseas, particularly Australia, is not necessarily a good idea

 Monday June 30, 2025 

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Anglo Saxon: Moneti$ing Maoriness

Debunking Hinemoa Elder's racist agenda.

The largest industry within New Zealand is the maori grievance industry. It has the greatest turnover by far of any business enterprise in New Zealand; and here's the kicker.. its completely non profit; it produces nothing; zero; nada; completely a zero sum game. The entire industry is a mind numbingly massive tax payer funded redistribution of wealth. Our best and brightest hop on a plane.. who can blame them?

Click to view

Matua Kahurangi: No swimming, no fishing, no voice

New Zealanders need to wake up. A spiritual decree has just shut down hundreds of kilometres of public coastline, and almost no one dares question it. Why? Because it’s wrapped in the untouchable cloak of tikanga Māori.

David Farrar: More taxpayer funded lobbying?

Stuff reports:

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka has asked his officials for urgent advice around “electioneering” concerns related to a Whānau Ora advertisement encouraging Māori to sign up for the Māori roll was released this week.

The half-hour ad was rolled out by the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency this week, featuring artist and activist Tame Iti (Ngāi Tūhoe).

Ani O'Brien: What is in a name? Te Puna Aonui

Without Googling, do you know what the agency does?

Minister Karen Chhour has made the decision to rename Te Puna Aonui. The name translates to "spring of enlightenment" or a "source of wisdom and collective action" and the minister says it is not clear enough to New Zealanders what the venture is and who it serves.

Dr James Allan: Annoyances

Here are a few things that get my goat. They really annoy me. Start with the strange coalition between open borders Left-wing progressives and chamber of commerce types (some, but fewer these days, nominally conservative) about how ‘there are jobs locals won’t do’. A mere moment’s thought tells you that’s wrong. Such claims aren’t that far off the ante-bellum, pre-US Civil War queries from some in the south about ‘who will pick the cotton if we end slavery?’ It’s simple. In market economies all jobs will be filled if you offer to pay enough. All of them without exception. It’s just supply and demand.