Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 29 November 2025

Winston Peters has everyone getting jumpy

Every party leader was nervously and repeatedly refreshing their alerts to see what Winston Peters had said now. For a man in his late 70s, he continues to hold Wellington in a remarkable psychological headlock.

It began with his comments about repealing the Regulatory Standards Act which the government he is part of had just passed. Chris Hipkins responded saying:

“I welcome Winston Peters’ sudden change of heart. It’s a shame he didn’t have that view less than seven days ago when he voted it into law.”

Labour then thought they were being clever by having Duncan Webb introduce a member’s bill to repeal it and contacted NZ First to back it. They gave the party almost no time to respond before they had it in the media. Naturally, Winston detonated on social media, calling Webb a “politicising rookie clown”. It was an absolute mauling:

Click to view

ACT was next to come out swinging, offended at the attack on their law, and accusing Winston of preparing the groundwork to partner with Labour in 2026.

And then Nicola Willis popped up to say that repealing the Regulatory Standards Act isn’t off the table in the future. It is difficult to see how this benefits National at all. When even the Nattional Finance Minister starts singing from the NZ First hymn sheet, you know who’s setting the tempo.

All of this proves that after a lifetime in politics, Winston Peters isn’t just part of the coalition; he’s the gravitational force of Parliament, the sun other parties have to orbit. It’s Winston’s world, they’re just trying to manage their comms plans in it.

Photo: David White / Stuff

Our naughty neighbour selling its flag to the world’s worst actors

One of the most startling international stories this week came not from Washington or Brussels, but from right here in the Pacific. The Herald’s investigation into the Cook Islands quietly renting out its national flag to a “dark fleet” of tankers has exposed a grubby little corner of geopolitics operating in our own neighbourhood.

According to the investigation, the Cook Islands’ international ship registry has been rubber-stamping vessels with opaque ownership, questionable safety records, and links to sanctioned oil networks. Many of them are tankers believed to be shifting Russian and Iranian oil around the world and specifically designed to evade sanctions, obscure supply chains, and keep dirty money flowing.

In short, the Cook Islands has been selling its sovereign flag to ships that no one else wants anything to do with. We like to imagine ourselves as a stabilising force in the region. But one of the realm countries we’re meant to steward is letting tankers tied to Moscow and Tehran sail under its flag like it’s a garage-sale special. The implications are significant.

Te Pāti kicks and continues airing their dirty laundry

Over in Te Pāti Māori-land, the pressure continues to pile on President John Tamihere and the tea keeps being spilled. Expelled MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi is doubling down on her defence, announcing that her much-publicised electorate spending was actually under budget. That’s a very different story from the one told by the party leadership, who accused her of blowing through funds and breaching financial controls.

Takuta Ferris’ explosive interview with Mihingarangi Forbes didn’t so much clarify the situation as underline just how internally chaotic the party really is. Ferris spoke frankly and Forbes pressed him repeatedly on what exactly the party believed had gone wrong with Mariameno’s spending, who authorised what, and what systems were in place to prevent misuse. His response was essentially that he and Kapa Kingi don’t actually know why they were expelled and conveyed a sense that the party leadership is scrambling to impose order after the fact.

Ferris reiterated previous stories of Tamihere issuing threats of future utu (revenge) against the Kapa Kingi family for having wronged his daughter Kiri Tamihere-Waititi somehow.

Hipkins starts revealing his Labour team

Labour’s week has been a shuffle back into the arena by the same old faces who never quite left. While there are signs Chris Hipkins wants to refresh his team somewhat, his front bench remains almost exactly the same line up who left public services in tatters and the economy in free fall in 2023.

Even disgraced Michael Wood is preparing for a comeback. The once-heir apparent of the party has been biding his time in his term off. It is interesting that despite being the only party in Parliament who has never had a Māori leader, it is more white guys nipping at Hipkins heels in Wood and Kieran McAnulty.

Meanwhile, there’s growing chatter about CTU economist, and recently announced Labour candidate, Craig Renney potentially muscling his way toward the finance portfolio. The rumour raises obvious questions about Barbara Edmonds’ future. There are also rumours (unsubstantiated) of more leapfrog candidates to come. Former New Zealand First cabinet minister Tracey Martin and Sir Ian Taylor have been rumoured to be shoulder tapped.

National leadership coup rumours; the media salivate at the prospect

Nothing gets the Press Gallery more excited than the scent of centre-right blood, and right now they’re practically frothing at the idea of a Luxon downfall, even if they have to manifest it through sheer collective willpower.

To be fair, there is a conversation happening about whether a Bishop/Stanford ticket (or one of the other rumoured leadership combinations) would present a sharper, more agile front line for a government that’s seems to be constantly on defence. Bishop has the political instincts and Stanford has competence and public appeal. But leadership changes are like open-heart surgery… sometimes necessary, always dangerous.

The NZ Herald’s Audrey Young came out firmly this week to hose down the idea that any leadership change is imminent, insisting Luxon’s job is safe for now and the speculation is overblown. But another high-profile political journalist is reportedly preparing a weekend piece suggesting the exact opposite. She will argue that conversations are happening, and the ground beneath Luxon is less stable than National want us to believe.

Whatever the truth is, the speculation and media sh*t-stirring is very unhelpful for National. They would be wise to find a way to put the matter to bed one way or another and find a unified way forward. They would also be very wise to resist the temptation to put too much stock into media games.

Inquiry launched into the country’s most unworthy “hero”

The Government has ordered a public inquiry into the Tom Phillips saga to examine the fairly evident fact that the Phillips children were failed for years as their father dragged them around back country while government agencies looked like villains from a Home Alone movie bumbling around ineptly.

Phillips was shot dead by police during a confrontation in the aftermath of a robbery in which he shot and critically wounded an officer. He had been on the run for police for nearly four years with his children, living rough in make shift bush camps.

Justice Simon Moore KC will lead the investigation and Attorney-General Judith Collins has made it clear that the inquiry will have the powers it needs, that the failings appear to have been systemic rather than isolated, and, crucially, that the public has a right to know why this case spiralled into a national scandal.

But how much the pubic will truly know is complicated by broad suppression orders. Strict suppression around aspects of the case means the public have an incomplete official picture and journalists are limited in what can be reported. Rumours have circulated widely about the horrific actions of Phillips during his time on the run, but I cannot unfortunately share them without risking prosecution.

Local government reforms spell the end of regional councillors, but not councils

The Government has confirmed regional councils, as we know them, are on the chopping block. Their proposal is to scrap all 11 regional councils and replace them with new Combined Territories Boards made up entirely of city and district mayors. So new councils without the councillors.

Ministers argue that the coming Resource Management Act replacement already changes the roles of councils, so it makes sense to tidy up the system at the same time. They talk about cutting duplication, reducing bureaucracy, and making it easier for communities to get decisions made without endless turf wars between regional and territorial authorities.

But critics warn that abolishing regional councils effectively centralises power into the hands of a small group of mayors, diluting the diversity of representation and diminishing community voice. What’s clear is that this is the most dramatic restructuring of local government since 1989. I wrote about it more comprehensively here:

Government axes Regional Councils in historic overhaul
Ani O’Brien 26 Nov

The Government’s announcement yesterday that it will abolish regional councils and replace them with new Combined Territories Boards, which will be regional bodies made up of mayors, is the biggest shake-up of local government in decades. And it’s about time. Regional councils have been probably the most invisible and least accountable tier of governmen…

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The worst outcome in the case of missing woman Te Anihana Pomana

After nearly four months of unanswered questions, the body of 25-year-old Te Anihana Pomana has been found. She was located in dense bush in the Pukekohe area on the other side of Auckland from where she was last seen near SkyCity. She was last seen in the early hours of 21 August leaving the SkyCity hotel. CCTV showed her departing alone, having left all her belongings behind.

The investigation never seemed to be able to elicit any substantial leads and the case did not get the attention in the media it should have.

A post-mortem has been completed, but the circumstances around how she ended up in remote bush remain unclear. Police say investigations into the cause and context of death are underway.

When a “poor ex-con” yarn turned into an embarrassing blunder

This week brought a humbling moment for Stuff when a “sobering human-interest” designed to try to garner sympathy for an ex-con who has struggled to find a job due to historic convictions back in 1997 turned into a “how did this get published in the first place?” moment.

The multiple articles in question claimed a man had applied for nearly 8,000 jobs and was still “haunted” by a decades-old criminal conviction . The subtext was our labour market and justice system are failing reformed ex-offenders. But as questions piled up, it became clear the story was built on an incomplete and, in parts, fictional foundation.

It turns out the man’s convictions weren’t so historical. Following his release from New Zealand prison, he headed overseas to the United States. In their painful correction, Stuff stated:

In 2003, he received 25-year jail sentences in Florida for kidnap, and for carjacking with a deadly weapon. He was released in 2023 and returned to New Zealand.

 

The maths miracle that unions and media hated

Education Minister Erica Stanford revealed extraordinary early results from the Government’s maths acceleration trial. After just twelve weeks, students who had been seriously behind were reportedly making the equivalent of one to two years’ progress with the in-person tutoring group showing the biggest gains. Even more striking, students who weren’t in the tutoring programme but were simply taught under the new curriculum and daily maths structure still made close to a year’s progress in the same period. It’s the first genuinely hopeful set of education numbers we’ve seen in a long time.

Critics from the unions and in the media have popped up to undermine the success demonstrating how appallingly politicised they are. I wrote more about it here:

The best education news in years and the media buries it
Ani O’Brien 26 Nov

Sometimes this country feels allergic to good news, especially when that good news comes from a government our media class has decided must never be allowed a win. This week, Education Minister Erica Stanford released some of the most extraordinary education data New Zealand has seen in decades…students are making between one and two years of maths prog…
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Bad news for Wellington City Council

A review commissioned by Wellington City Council (WCC) concluded the council is over-staffed by around 330 full-time roles and flagged job losses as likely. I am frankly gobsmacked that 330 people are even employed there.

The review, completed by Deloitte, argues that through “workforce right-shaping,” better contract management, and centralising poorly tracked spends, the council could save up to $79 million over three years. So far the council has already cut 58 roles and begun a vacancy-freeze across departments.

Chart of the week:

Charted Daily shared this research by Dr James Kierstead and Dr Michael Johnston that shows that getting an A grade at a New Zealand university is far more common now than it was 10-20 years ago:

Click to view

In short - other stuff that happened:

• A blaze erupted at a large residential complex in Tai Po. Flames tore through scaffolding and external coverings, rapidly engulfing seven of its eight towers. The current confirmed death toll stands at 128, while roughly 200 people remain missing.

• The UK’s Labour government has delivered a major shock with a tax-heavy budget for 2025. The package raises roughly £26 billion in new taxes, on top of about £40 billion raised in last year’s budget, pushing the UK’s tax-to-GDP ratio to a post-war high.

• A 73-year-old passenger went overboard from cruise ship Disney Wonder while sailing to Auckland and is presumed dead. The ship circled the Tasman Sea for five hours in a search before resuming its voyage, arriving a day late.

• The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) cut its official cash rate by 25 basis points, the lowest since mid-2022, but signalled this may be the end of its easing cycle, citing signs of recovery in inflation and economic momentum.

• The UK is changing its rules so that Britons abroad can no longer use a second-nationality passport to re-enter their country of birth, a headache for dual-nationals like myself.

• A “high-profile guest” at the NZ Screen Awards was arrested and trespassed after allegedly becoming inappropriate and then aggressive towards female hospitality workers.

• Two US National Guard soldiers were shot in a targeted ambush just blocks from the White House in downtown Washington, D.C. The suspect is now in custody. Twenty-year-old Sarah Beckstrom died of her wounds, while the other soldier, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition.

• A coroner found that Savannah Auric’s 2022 death was self-inflicted after receiving a package from Canadian suicide advocate Kenneth Law. She was the fifth New Zealander known to have died after engaging with Law.

• Auckland mayor Wayne Brown yelled “free beer” in response to outbursts of “free Palestine” at a council meeting. A pro-Palestine group got hot under the collar after Brown refused their request to speak saying the council did not have responsibility for Palestine.

• A new Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll shows most supporters of Labour Party back a capital-gains tax but only on inflation-adjusted gains. Chris Hipkins said the party had not considered accounting for inflation.

• After long-term dysfunction at the Reserve Bank, Nicola Willis has appointed Deputy Chair Rodger Finlay (who has been the acting Chair since Neil Quigley’s departure) as permanent chair. A missed opportunity to clean house.

• In his letter of expectation to Health New Zealand chair Lester Levy, Health Minister Simeon Brown has said: “It is clear to me that Health NZ is too centralised. Too many decisions are made by people who are removed from the problems that frontline clinicians are trying to solve.”

• Vietnam and New Zealand signed an Action Plan under their 2025–2030 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, signalling deeper cooperation in trade, education, and security across the Pacific region.

• Robert Irwin won the American Dancing with the Stars title following in the footsteps of his big sister Bindi who won in 2015.

Stuff I found interesting this week:

I really enjoyed reading this NZ Herald piece about which music acts our politicians would pick to headline at Eden Park. The journalist didn’t play favourites, and instead treated MPs as real people with genuine music tastes. It’s the kind of writing that reminds us politicians aren’t just polling machines or policy spouter. Maybe we need more stories like this to humanise both sides of politics and knock a bit of the heat off the polarisation.

I also loved this tweet from Chris Bishop. But I am a downwardly mobile millennial:

Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.