Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Was our government too relaxed about the tariffs?

So, was our government too relaxed about the tariffs then?

Cause this is a shock today – isn't it? To find out that we’ve just been bumped up to 15% while Australia and dozens of other countries have stayed on 10%.

Now, it seems to be related, most likely, to our balance of trade and that the US has a trade deficit with us. So we get 15%, but then a trade surplus with Australia, so they get 10%. So perhaps it was inevitable and unavoidable, as long as the balance of trade sat like that.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 27.7.25

Saturday August 2, 2025

News:
Auckland's tourism sector embraces Māori and Pasifika culture
Auckland's tourism sector is embracing Māori and Pasifika culture as the city's cultural agency aims to build a more distinct international brand.

The recent State of the City report warned Tāmaki Makaurau was falling behind other international cities and recommended a stronger "Auckland brand" to attract visitors.

Simon O'Connor: More biased voices wanted

Stuff is calling for kiwis to share views on what's happening in Israel and Gaza, but don't expect there to be any balance.

The Stuff headline (below) can be best described as a lie. To date, Stuff has shown little interest in presenting a range of views on this complicated conflict, and this call made at the start of the week will be no different. I would anticipate a careful selection of ‘voices’ that reinforce the single narrative Stuff has been pushing for months now. More worryingly, it will probably enable the usual tropes, slurs, and half-truths to be repeated. What we are witnessing is not reporting but propaganda.

Matua Kahurangi: David Seymour revives sensible proposal for migrants to sign NZ values statement

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has renewed calls for migrants coming to New Zealand to affirm their commitment to core Kiwi values, a move that deserves serious consideration as part of the country’s broader immigration policy.

Seymour suggested that migrants should sign a “New Zealand values statement,” which would reinforce the importance of free speech, gender equality, legal rights, religious freedom and individual liberty. These principles are already enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights.

Matua Kahurangi: Te Pāti Māori’s hypocrisy on electoral roll......

Te Pāti Māori’s hypocrisy on electoral roll while dodging their own financial statements

Te Pāti Māori has filed a case in the High Court claiming that people have been removed from the electoral roll or shifted off the Māori electoral roll. It’s a serious allegation, one that deserves scrutiny, but while they’re quick to run to court over alleged voter suppression, they haven’t been nearly as swift when it comes to filing their own financial returns

Kerre Woodham: Will overusing emergency alerts create complacency?

Let's face it, civil defence coordinators are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Fail to give people sufficient warning of a natural disaster and they're accused of having blood on their hands. Too many warnings of something that doesn't happen, they're accused of alarmist scaremongering, and they become the boy who cries wolf.

Barry Brill - Passports: Reverting to "New Zealand"

Letter to The Minister of Internal Affairs - Hon Brooke van Velden

Kia 
ora
 Minister

The 
media 
has 
reported
 your intention
 to 
restore 
the 
priority 
of 
the
 English 
language
 version
 of
our 
passports.
 In 
this regard,
 you 
might
 be 
interested 
in 
our 
experience 
in
 Mauritania:

David Farrar: Is the National Library a morgue?

A reader copies me into a letter to the Minister:

Dear Minister of Internal Affairs Van Velden,

The National library has announced that there will be a closure today of the Molesworth Street library ground floor, from 11:30am to 3pm on Friday 1 August for a private event.

David Farrar: Year 9 students who can’t read

Radio NZ reports:

Several respondents said their schools bankrolled literacy catch-up classes and training from the Kahui Ako scheme that gave some teachers release time for specialist work with other teachers in their school or across groups of schools.

Mike's Minute: Cycleways – hype over reality

If a council gives a media outlet some numbers and the media outlet simply re-posts those numbers, is that reportage? Or propaganda?

The headline was "more cyclists get on their bikes", which is true. But at no point in my reading of the cycleways of the nation's major cities, was any definitive analysis done as to whether the cost of the infrastructure to get people on their bikes was worth it.

Friday August 1, 2025 

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A.E. Thompson: Encouraging the Survival of Te Reo

Even assuming a case can be defended for taxpayer-funded efforts to revive or to maintain te reo, what we are seeing seems a stupid way to go about achieving that.

Throwing in Maori substitutes for an arbitrary range of words in English narratives (e.g. 'mahi', 'whanau' and 'motu') will at best lead to many people recognising and perhaps using those few words but remaining completely unable to participate in a Maori language conversation either as a listener or speaker. There will always be a constraint on how many Maori terms can be inserted into an English utterance before it becomes so burdened with te reo it will no longer be intelligible to most of the English-speaking world. We are probably close to that limit already.

Ryan Bridge: Should National campaign on a partial float?

They haven't said it explicitly yet, but one day soon, our KiwiSaver contributions will rise to 12% and Kiwibank will be partially sold to foreign buyers.

On the bank, Nicola Willis is flying a kite and talking about a potentially partial float of the stock exchange for the wee Kiwi battler. It needs capital to grow and take on the big banks.

They're getting access to an extra half a billion through changes already announced. But they could yet get more, should National campaign on a partial float.

Bianca Cavazzin: Why did the Russia earthquake trigger tsunami warnings across Pacific?

Dr Bianca Cavazzin discusses the science behind tsunamis as alerts are issued after major earthquake off Russia. 

This week’s magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula ranks among the most powerful ever recorded.

It occurred in one of Earth’s most seismically active regions, where similar events have struck in the past, including a magnitude 9.3 in 1737, 9.0 in 1841, 8.5 in 1923, and 9.0 in 1952.

John McLean: Democatised voting - God forbid

The current Government has proposed various changes to New Zealand’s voting and electoral laws. The changes will likely be implemented in their current proposed form.

In order to be entitled to vote in a general election, New Zealanders must be registered on the electoral roll. The proposed changes include preventing enrolment on election day, as is currently permitted. Under the proposals, New Zealanders (to be able to vote) will need to be registered on the electoral roll at least 13 days before ballot day.

Mike's Minute: It's oil and gas ban repeal week - hooray!

If you want to talk about doing stuff that matters, this week will produce one of the great ones.

Repealing the oil and gas ban, as the Government are about to do, puts right an egregious wrong – possibly the most egregious wrong of the last Government.

Graham J Noble: Leftist Media Grudgingly Concedes on Trump Trade War

It still seems they are rooting for ultimate failure, but some are giving Trump his due – for now.

Just a few months ago, the left-wing legacy media was decidedly Chicken Little on President Donald Trump’s tariff talk. Jobs would be lost, inflation would explode, the markets would tank, businesses would be crushed, and, yes, the sky would probably fall. Fast forward to the present, and some of those doomsaying news organizations are quietly – and even not so quietly – admitting that, at least for now, Trump is winning the trade war, and the US economy is feeling relatively few adverse effects.

Kerre Woodham: Rising gang numbers aren't good but the charges are

Gang membership is on the rise, but if you believe Assistant Police Commissioner Paul Basham, an increase in numbers is not necessarily a bad thing. Gang numbers have climbed past 10,000, up from 9,200 in 2023, but that might be, he says, because they're keeping a closer eye on gangs, their intelligence is better, they know who's in and who's out, the record keeping and the data is better. He told Mike Hosking they have a laser focus on gangs and since the Gang Act was passed, they've launched more than 9000 charges against gang members.

Cam Slater: Electoral Law Shake-Up - A Victory for Common Sense or a Storm in a Teacup?

If you want to vote, get off your backside and enrol. It’s not rocket science and it’s not oppression. It’s just adulthood.

New Zealand’s electoral laws are getting a much-needed haircut and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is standing firm despite the predictable howling from the usual suspects. The government’s proposed changes under the Electoral Amendment Bill, as reported by Stuff, aim to tidy up what they call an ‘unsustainable’ system. The big moves? Scrapping same-day voter enrolment and requiring people to enrol by midnight the Sunday before advance voting starts – 13 days before election day. Oh, and a ban on prisoner voting, because, apparently, some folks think armed robbers should pick our MPs from behind bars.

Eliora: The Psyche of a Small, Proud, Compliant Country

A small country in the South Pacific trailed behind most of the world during the outbreak of a virus named Covid-19 in 2020.

New Zealand (NZ) has been used in the past as a testing ground quite a few times. In fact, it has been described as a ‘social laboratory’ due to its history of implementing progressive or experimental policies, particularly in the late 19th and 20th century. The reference to NZ is often attributed to the French political scientist and historian André Siegfried who used it in his book, Democracy in New Zealand (1914). https://www.google.co.nz/books/edition/Democracy_in_New_Zealand/tqomAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PR3&printsec=frontcover

Ele Ludemann: Need a better way

Yesterday more than 30,000 nurses, midwives and healthcare workers went on strike.

They want more pay and better conditions, a cause which will have a lot of sympathy from the public who need no convincing these health professionals are overworked and underpaid.

David Farrar: Labour always backs the crims

Stuff reports:

With a new trial for court bailiffs to seize cars if their owners haven’t paid fines, the Labour Party says innocent families could be left “stranded”.

The Government is trialling new technology for bailiffs to scan number plates as they search for people who have unpaid fines. They will then clamp or seize cars belonging to people with debt owed to the courts.

Thursday July 31, 2025 

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