Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: We need the teen social media ban, because the companies won't enforce it

I've got an update for you on the social media ban for kids situation - over in Australia, the social media companies have now admitted they can kick underage kids off their platforms, and they've admitted that they will start enforcing the ban when the ban in Australia comes into effect on December 10th.

Ryan Bridge: Our free trade ideology is under threat

You know how we're a free trade country?

It’s our thing.

We export, we earn, we sell, we get richer.

And we want open supply chains and free movement of goods across borders, etc., etc.

NZCPR Newsletter: The Deep State

If the “Deep State” is defined as a power-based network within a government that operates in pursuit of its own agendas and goals instead of those of the country’s democratically elected leaders, then New Zealand has a serious problem.

Land Information New Zealand typifies the problem. A visit to their website shows that two years after the Coalition Government was elected with a clear commitment that public service agencies will have their primary name in English, they still promote themselves as “Toitu Te Whenua”.

David Round: Thoughts for our Time - Article 6

Diversity, we have long been assured is our greatest strength. The more diversity there is, the better. We actually boast about our cultural diversity. We rejoice every time another bedraggled group of refugees arrives here, because this increases the number of cultures we have in this country (as if a wrecked fragment of some other people constitutes a valid living ‘culture’). The more the merrier!

DTNZ: Fonterra farmers approve $4.2b sale of Mainland and Anchor

Fonterra’s farmer shareholders have voted overwhelmingly—more than 88 percent—in favour of selling iconic consumer brands Mainland and Anchor to French dairy giant Lactalis for $4.2 billion.

David Farrar: Here’s some wasteful spending the Government could redirect

The Herald reports:

The Government’s fees-free policy reset is at risk of following its predecessor in failing to incentivise tertiary study and only benefiting the more advantaged.

The warning is included in a Ministry of Education-led analysis, which found the “deadweight” policy to be so poor that it recommended axing it and spending the money elsewhere.

Bonner Cohen: Trump threw a big wrench into China’s attempt to bully U.S. over critical minerals

Approving the construction of a gravel mining road in a remote stretch of northwest Alaska may not sound like much, but it’s a giant step toward challenging an assertive China’s plan to become the 21st century’s dominant global power.

Once completed, the proposed 211-mile-long Ambler Road Project will provide access to rich deposits of copper, cobalt, zinc, lead, gold, silver, gallium, germanium, and other valuable ores with both commercial and military applications, according to the Trump White House. The road will enable essential surface transportation to Alaska’s Ambler Mining District, one of the largest undeveloped copper-zinc mining belts in the world. Over 1,700 active claims have already been filed in the district, a clear indication of the area’s potential.

Mike's Minute: Bill Gates said what many of us have been thinking

I think the biggest test for those who fell over backwards when Bill Gates said what he did, is not that he said it.

It's whether the people he talks about can possibly begin to accept that they might be wrong, that they might be on the wrong side of the whole equation and that as a result of the Gates' revelation, they may need to readjust some of the obsessive behaviour they have shown these past years as climate change has become the maniacal calling card for too many.

John McLean: A different kind of rights

No pot of human rights gold at the end of this Rainbow

About three weeks ago, New Zealand’s Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Stephen Rainbow, talked to Michael Laws on webcasting media channel, The Platform. You can listen to most of the interview here (in order to listen to the full interview, become a Platform Plus subscriber):

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow On Polarisation

Roger Partridge: Another Judge-Made House of Cards.....

Another Judge-Made House of Cards: Why Council Liability Reforms Won’t Save Us From the Perils of Judicial Lawmaking

In August 2025, the Government announced the biggest reform to New Zealand’s building consent system in two decades. The problem? Councils facing massive liability for building defects have become so risk-averse that the entire consenting system has seized up.

Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk cited the scale of exposure: in one Queenstown case, ratepayers faced potential liability of $160 million for weathertight defects. Had the case not been settled privately, it could have meant rates increases of $300 per household per year for 30 years.

Kerre Woodham: More MPs? I don't think so

I thought I'd start with the idea, the initiative, if you will, coming out of the think tank, the New Zealand Initiative. I love generally the work that they produce because even though you might not agree with the ideas that they put forward, there's generally a good discussion to be had. You hear the pros, you hear the cons, you think, mmm, okay. This one though, I'm not so sure.

David Farrar: Media Council finds Radio NZ inaccurate on alcohol reporting

Radio NZ reports:

The New Zealand Media Council has upheld a complaint from the Brewers Association of New Zealand against Radio New Zealand (RNZ), citing a breach of Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance in its reporting on alcohol consumption guidelines.

Thursday October 30, 2025 

                    ⇩

Ian Bradford: Is the Solar Market Heading for a Crisis?

In the UK, several solar companies recently declared bankruptcy, shocking the renewable energy sector. This trend is concerning and raises questions about the broader implications for the solar market.

The UK solar industry, once a shining example of the nation’s commitment to renewable energy is now facing turbulent times. The removal of government incentives in 2017 has left many companies needing help to maintain profitability, plus the economic outlook remains uncertain, with interest rates and inflation impacting financial stability.

Ryan Bridge: Are trade missions worth it?

Did you catch the comments yesterday from Malaysia Deputy PM.

He was talking to a kiwi delegation off in KL for ASEAN.

"This will be your new market and we welcome any halal product from New Zealand."

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Did Labour just save Luxon's skin?

If yesterday told us anything, it's that National doesn't have to replace Chris Luxon as urgently as some in the party were saying just a couple of weeks ago.

Because if Labour carries on like they did yesterday, National is probably going to be fine for next year, aren't they?

Dr Will Jones: Milei Wins Landslide in Argentina, Confounding Doubters of State-Shrinking Agenda

Argentine President Javier Milei’s party has won a landslide in midterm elections, with voters confounding doubters by backing his cost-slashing, state-shrinking agenda and deregulation of the economy. The Telegraph has more.

Chris Morrison: Shock New Report Lays Out the Full Scale of Environmental Damage Caused by Onshore Wind Turbines

Fresh insights into the ecological devastation caused by onshore wind turbines around the world are contained in a shocking new paper published last month by a group of ecologists in Nature. The paper is paywalled and has attracted little mainstream media interest, but it highlights research that illustrates that the effect of utility-scale wind energy production “can be far reaching and sometimes have large and unexpected consequences for biodiversity”.

JC: Labour Are True to Their Word

Yes, they’ve been clever – probably with expert advice – but don’t be fooled.

It is not often one can credit the political left with honesty but Labour earns a badge with the ‘leak’ of their Capital Gains Tax policy. Not only that but, to be honest, it has been quite cleverly designed to the point one wonders, suspects even, that experts outside of the Beehive might have been involved. That however is where the plaudits end and reality sets in. It pays never to take policy from the left at face value.

Insights From Social Media: To All Who Believe there exists “Maori”.

Gravedodger writes > Some time somewhere some place it will be revealed there is no such entity as “Maori”.

The term will revert to its historic nomenclature for the native Peoples who had arrived in New Zealand some years earlier than the Europeans who settled and tried to bring civilisation to the disparate Native groupings who spent almost their entire energy on enslaving eating and bringing to submission any other tribal grouping they encountered until February 1840.

Ele Ludemann: Growth vs grab

It ought to have been a good week for Labour in breaking its policy drought. It wasn’t.

The Future Fund failed by leaving a gaping hole with no explanation of how health, education and other necessities would be funded when the money currently going to them was funnelled into the Fund.

Chris Trotter: Promises, Promises.

Labour's Future Fund recalls KiwiBuild, but with even less detail.

THE FUTURE FUND. Crikey, that sounds promising! How long has it been since a political party gave the future a first thought? Second thoughts are a dime-a-dozen in politics, but setting a firm priority, that’s a lot rarer. If nothing else, “Future Fund” is guaranteed to capture the voters’ attention.

And it just gets better. According to Labour (the party that’s just launched this brand-new policy) the Future Fund is intended to ensure that the job of securing New Zealand’s prosperity in the decades that lie ahead will be undertaken “by us, for us”.

Mike Grimshaw: Constrained and framed? The limitation of academic freedom by research funding and strategies

While most debate on academic freedom concerns the question of what can be stated, argued, proffered and responded to – and how, such a focus has enabled a more central and insidious attack and undermining of academic freedom to occur via explicit and implicit constraints upon research.

It’s almost a year since the radical reduction, cutting and refocussing of the Marsden Fund that occurred, to our institutional shame, without any sustained or high-level public push-back, critique or challenge from the Universities. Rather, it seemed the universities waited, desperate for any reallocated government funding and ready, willing and able to do whatever was expected, demanded or imposed so as to gather as many crumbs as they could.

Nick Clark: MMP After 30 Years - Time for Electoral Reform?

New Zealand's three-year parliamentary term is too short for effective government and the country needs more MPs to keep politicians accessible to voters.

“MMP has delivered fairer and more representative parliaments, but it’s time for an upgrade,” says Nick Clark, Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative and author of our report examining 30 years of MMP in New Zealand.

Kerre Woodham: Why give something to people they don't need?

I was looking last night at things we could talk about, and there was plenty to talk about, all of which got superseded by Labour, Labour, Labour - having to release their capital gains tax, which is targeted to three free doctors' visits.

Labour's been playing peekaboo with a capital gains tax for some time now. Oh, will we, won't we? Oh, what's it going to look like? Can't tell you. And now they kind of have.

Wednesday October 29, 2025 

                    ⇩

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Do New Zealanders really want a capital gains tax?

Well, I don't know what's worse for Labour - the fact that they've announced a capital gains tax policy again today, or the fact that someone leaked it and forced them to announce it in a rush.

Obviously, it does suck for them that somebody leaked it first, because it means that they were so unprepared that they had to rush-job announce it in an email at 3:05 this morning.

Erica Stanford: Refreshed national curriculum to raise achievement

Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the release of the full draft of New Zealand’s new Year 1–10 curriculum, another significant step toward delivering a world-leading education system for every learner in New Zealand.

“This is a major milestone. It’s been almost 20 years since our New Zealand Curriculum was last fully updated, much has changed in our country and the world since then. Going forward, New Zealand will have a clear, knowledge-rich, year-by-year curriculum that sets out what every child should learn and when, ensuring consistency, coherence, and a fairer education system,” Ms Stanford says.

David Round: Thoughts for our Time - Article 5

Representative democracy works only for as long as the elected representatives are ready to respect the wishes of the electors. There may sometimes be a tension between the wishes of the electors and the conscientious beliefs of the elected ~ the great Edmund Burke was among those who argued that a Member of Parliament was not a mere mouthpiece to repeat unthinkingly what his electors told him, but also had a duty to his (or her) own honest sincere convictions. But Burke would also have agreed, of course, that MPs are obliged to serve their electors to the best of their ability, should strive, at least, to represent their wishes, and in any case should always respect them.

Ani O'Brien: Labour offers Kiwis about $4.27 a week in exchange for CGT

Tax-to-spend is not what New Zealand needs

Just a quick reaction to Labour’s CGT announcement from me borrowing from a few economists social media commentary. Super rushed so excuse typos.

Labour’s post-long-weekend promise lands with a familiar thud… a shiny new tax to fund a shiny new entitlement. Chris Hipkins announced Labour would introduce a narrow capital gains tax (CGT) on profits from investment and commercial properties sold after July 2027. The money, he says, will fund a “Medicard” providing three free GP visits per year.

DTNZ: ‘AI Scribe Tool’ to be rolled out to 1,000 emergency doctors

An artificial intelligence scribe tool will soon be deployed to 1,000 doctors and frontline staff in emergency departments nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced.

The technology, designed to reduce the time clinicians spend on paperwork, automatically records consultations and drafts clinical notes, referral letters, and follow-up summaries for doctors to review and confirm.

Philip Crump: Trump's Crypto World

The pardoning of Binance founder CZ last week has given a glimpse at the sensational personal deal-making at the heart of Trump's administration.

A hallmark of President Donald Trump’s second term has been his fervent embrace of cryptocurrency, transforming a once-niche sector into a cornerstone of American economic ambition. From signing an executive order in January 2025 to establish a Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, to unveiling the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile in March, Trump has delivered on campaign pledges to position the United States as the “crypto capital of the world.”

Mike's Minute: Winston tells it like it is on courts

First, a quick question on the Oxford Union.

We thought it was a thing when David Lange turned up all those years ago, but since then Willie Jackson, David Seymour and now Winston Peters have appeared.

So does that diminish its exclusiveness?

Yvonne Van Dongen: On Netsafe and Pronouns

Who are they protecting?

Netsafe is billed as an independent non-profit organisation promoting safe and responsible use of online technology. The charity earns almost $7m providing goods and services to government departments such as Education and Justice and employs 32 full-time employees and two part-time.

Eliora: The Fallout From This Legislation

The effect of Ardern’s Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill has irreversibly damaged young people’s lives and their families.

We seriously question how Ardern and her Labour MPs sleep at night. In fact, we don’t know how most of the MPs who were in parliament in 2022 sleep at night.

Bob Edlin: Electoral law........

Electoral law: if a spiritual leader’s flock needs protection against politicking in churches, what about marae?

New Zealand prides itself on being a secular society, notwithstanding the prayer said at the beginning of each day in Parliament, references to God in the national anthem and two Christian holidays, Good Friday and Christmas Day, being days when most shops are required to close.

But who knew that election campaigning is prohibited in churches?

David Farrar: Structured literacy is working

Erica Stanford released the following data on new school entrants:

• 58 per cent of students were at or above expectations, up from 36 per cent in Term 1.

• 43 per cent of students exceeded expectations in Term 3, more than double the Term 1 rate.

Tuesday October 28, 2025 

                    ⇩

Pee Kay: Upholding our treaty obligations - Political disguise for ethnic grift?

Just prior to winning the 2023 election, in an interview with Mike Hosking Chris Luxon said – “It’s all about management and my personal experience is that CEOs get different results with different management using the same amount of money. So, it’s what you do with it – and expectations and clarity, and bringing in all those CEOs before Christmas and saying ‘hang on, here’s the new deal, the deal is you have to deliver, you have to deliver’ … that’s what I’m sick of, absolutely sick of, all the talk and no action.”

The CEO’s he was “absolutely sick of” were the public servants heading government departments.

I’ll let you into a secret Chris. So the bloody hell are we!

Lindsay Mitchell: Same-old, same-old

The Social Investment Agency is a creation of the National government. It kicked off in July 2024 and is headed by the former police commissioner Andrew Coster.

According to Nicola Willis, “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for all New Zealanders... So we’re taking a different approach. We want to look beyond good intentions in our policy-making and use hard evidence to invest in what works. Our new approach builds on better social science evidence and advances in technology."

That sounds promising. A break with the old.

Brendan O'Neill: What the West could learn from Israel

Hostages Square in Tel Aviv is quiet now. The paraphernalia of hope remains. Yellow ribbons dance in the breeze. The flap of a hundred Israel flags breaks the silence. There’s still the burnt-out car that was recovered from the ‘road of death’ in the south, where Hamas slaughtered fleeing families on 7 October 2023. I look inside at its blackened remains, the squelched leather, the warped metal, and wince at the thought of what suffering must have unfolded in this suffocating space. In one corner of the square is an unsteady pile of placards featuring the faces of the 251 Israelis seized two years ago: the retired equipment of a moral movement no longer needed.

Kevin: Some Good News for You Boomers

You now have science on your side.

We know you like to think you’re smarter, wiser and more mature than all those youngsters. The good news is that you now have science on your side.

Bruce Cotterill: Seven long‑term agreements to secure New Zealand’s future

A few weeks back, the Prime Minister wrote a letter to the Leader of the Opposition, urging him to join a bipartisan agreement committing to offshore gas exploration for 10 years.

Unfortunately, the Labour leader dismissed the letter as a “political stunt”. I took the letter a lot more seriously. In fact, it got me thinking.

David Farrar: Not bad for first time

The Post reports:

About one in five ACT local candidates won the seats they stand for and party leader David Seymour says he’s happy more weren’t successful because now they can stand to run for Parliament.

“In some cases, I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t get elected so we can run them next year,” he told The Post.

Damien Grant: Our self-important broadcasting censors need to be reined in

In terms of bureaucratic overreach, few rival that of Sejanus building statues to himself. He was Emperor Tiberius’ man in Rome, while the degenerate sovereign luxuriated on Capri and, left alone for too long, Sejanus believed himself impervious to supervision.

He wasn’t, and his career was ended in a typically brutal Roman fashion.

There are many similar examples in the two millennia since, where middling civil servants assume more power than is good for them. It is a classic principal-agent problem and we have had a perfect example last week in the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA).

Brendan O'Neill: The Irish establishment is fuelling the rage on the streets

Why is no one talking about the alleged rape of a child, by an illegal migrant, which sparked this awful unrest?

Last night, the BBC told one of the grossest lies of omission I have ever seen in the mainstream media. It published a report about the disturbances outside a migrant hotel in County Dublin and nowhere did it mention what triggered the riotous behaviour. Three hundred and eighty-seven words pumped into the gadgets of the masses, every one of them devoted to damning the ‘thuggery’ of those who assembled at the hotel. Not one of the words – not one – addressed the thing that angered them.

Chris Johnson: Surprised by leftwing radical rhetoric? Look closer at the climate movement

Millions of Americans were horrified when Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood. Then came an even bigger shock: large numbers of people celebrated his death and danced on his grave.

Sickening as it is, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. The left has long harbored — or at least tolerated — an anti-human streak, and nowhere is it more visible than in its radical environmental wing.

Monday October 27, 2025 

                    ⇩

Geoff Parker: TIMELINE - Of The Foreshore And Seabed saga (Summarised)

Pre 1997 - Under British Common law, the foreshore and seabed were owned by the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders. This was affirmed in the 1963 Ninety Mile Beach case, when the Court of Appeal found that no common law ‘customary title’ existed in the foreshore and seabed.

David Round: Thoughts for our Time - Article 4

Asylum seekers and refugees are in the news once more; not only in Europe, where popular exasperation at governments’ betrayal of their own citizens is increasingly openly expressed, but even in our own country. Ministers are talking of new legislation to allow electronic monitoring. Needless to say, numerous groups who make their comfortable livings out of being nice to refugees and asylum seekers are deeply concerned that we may not be welcoming enough.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: No let-up for the Energy Secretary

UK

Another torrid week for our Ed

There was no let up for the Energy Secretary. His attempt to divert attention away from rising bills by talking about ‘hundreds of thousands of new jobs’ in the energy sector was widely ridiculed, partly because it would cost billions and also because, in his desperation, Mr Miliband had included plumbers among the green jobs created.

Graham Adams: Tikanga inserted into cutting-edge gene bill

In August 2024, the then-Minister of Science, Innovation, and Technology, Judith Collins, announced legislation to end New Zealand’s nearly 30-year ban on gene technology outside the lab. She described the move as “a major milestone in modernising gene technology laws.”

In her Beehive media release, she said, “The changes we’re announcing today will allow researchers and companies to further develop and commercialise their innovative products. Importantly, it will help New Zealanders to better access treatments such as CAR T-cell therapy, which has been clinically proven to effectively treat some cancers. It can also help our farmers and growers mitigate emissions and increase productivity, all of which benefits our economy.”

Professor Jerry Coyne: Mātauranga Māori strikes again

This article from the New Zealand Herald shows what we already know: that “indigenous ways of knowing” in New Zealand, or Mātauranga Māori (henceforth “MM”) are loudy touted as making substantial contributions to scientific knowledge—in this case to predictions of volcanic eruptions. And while it’s possible that MM can make some contributions to predictions of the damage that could result from eruption, even those predictions are nebulous.

Melanie Phillips: Galloping Islamisation in Britain and America

What Donald Trump is helping Israel fight in the Middle East is rampant in his own backyard

In Britain and the United States, there are signs that creeping Islamisation has now accelerated to a gallop.