David Farrar: RIP Sam Neill

Sad to hear that Sam Neill has lost his battle with cancer, and NZ has lost arguably its greatest actor.

Ryan Bridge: We need to believe in our economy

We're cruising towards 2% growth off the back of these two bits of good news on the economy.

2% is not rocketing along but it's not stuck in a ditch, either.

And given the war and diesel and Trump, some (i.e. the government) might even say it's fantastic.

Perspective with Andrew Dickens: High oil prices are back, baby

Oil prices. Oil prices are back, baby.

At the moment, West Texas crude is sitting near US$74 a barrel, while Brent crude is around US$79. Prices are up slightly, rebounding as tension continues between the United States and Iran.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 12.7.26

Tuesday July 14, 2026 

News:
Aquaculture Agreement With Bay Of Plenty Iwi
A major aquaculture settlement between the Crown and Te Moana-a-Toi iwi that will deliver significant growth and opportunity to the Bay of Plenty is being celebrated today.

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones attended a ceremony in Tauranga for the agreement, signed in February under the Māori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004.

Mike's Minute: National took a credibility hit on roads

What's working for the Government at the moment is the economy.

The economy looks like it's coming right, in time to milk it all the way to the election.

So the Roads of National Significance reset is what you would loosely call a setback, if not a dead rat.

Pee Kay: National… the Enemy Within? (Part Two)

PART TWO: The Key/English years

John Key, National Prime Minister from 2008 until 2016 when he suddenly decided he had undertaken enough ‘brand management,” abruptly threw in the towel and passed the baton to Bill English!

John Key and his trusty sidekick for all things Treaty, Attorney-General and Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson oversaw the period when National’s munificence to Maori moved from regional resource deals to a sweeping constitutional surrender of the New Zealand coastline!

Rodney Hide: Modern Politics has become a Parallel Universe

New Zealanders are a practical bunch. We like straight talk, fair play, and fixing problems with a bit of number 8 wire and common sense. So why does so much contemporary political talk leave us scratching our heads, muttering into our beers, and shouting at the television? Two flashpoints capture the bewilderment: the furious resistance to simply defining biological sex in law, and the relentless focus on race, reparations, “partnership,” and “stolen land”. The confusion stems from a deeper shift. Beneath the slogans lies a powerful, secularised salvation story that has quietly displaced traditional ways of thinking.

DTNZ: Iran declares Strait of Hormuz closed until US ends ‘illegal’ interventions

Tehran has defied President Donald Trump’s demands to fully reopen the strategic waterway to shipping.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has declared that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed to shipping until the US ends what it called its “illegal” interference in the region.

Andy Oakley: Kapiti Mayor Exposes Her Racist Agenda

Unelected Māori infiltrate Council

Well, today we have a real humdinger to discuss. In a July 6 article in Kapiti News by Ashleigh Collis, Kapiti Mayor Janet Holborow made what amounts to a public confession that she is a Marxist, or rather, she’s in charge, and she’s against democratic accountability.

Peter Williams: The Flying Golf Ball Conundrum

Being there first doesn't count

One of the more unexpected consequences of the Covid era and its restrictions has been a boom in the number of people playing golf.

According to Golf New Zealand, in 2019 there were 105,967 paid up members of the country’s 390 golf clubs. That number for 2025 was 153,665, a remarkable 45 percent increase in just six years. Somehow thousands discovered a useful way to pass all that lockdown spare time was to take one’s frustrations out on a little dimpled ball.

David Farrar: Fraud advice

A reader writes in:

There are instances of credit card scams where some baddie gets hold of your CC details and enough of your ID to do a bit of spending on your behalf. There was a cunning one in the news where the baddies rented AirBnB places and used them as delivery addresses – collect the goods (paid for on purloined CC) and move on.

Nothing is perfect but here is how you can limit possible losses.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Housing affordability and productivity must be tackled to keep NZ moving forward

In 1973, 843 people died on New Zealand roads. Last year, with far more people driving far more cars, the provisional toll was 272.

Nobody held a press conference, and why would they? The improvement stretched over so many decades that hardly anyone noticed it, and nobody could claim it as their own.

Monday July 13, 2026 

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Centrist: India says New Zealand committed $20 billion, while Luxon calls it promotion

New Zealand and India are publicly describing a central investment provision in their new free trade agreement in different terms.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told an Auckland business event that New Zealand had “committed to invest US$20 billion in India over the next 15 years”.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Trade Minister Todd McClay say the provision does not require the New Zealand government to make that investment.

Ani O'Brien: Hear me out - Ban the hardware not the software

We need to save childhood without destroying adult freedom

Across the developed world, governments have concluded they can no longer ignore the mounting evidence that social media is harming children. Australia has legislated an under 16 social media ban that is proving to be pretty flawed to say the least. Britain has announced one and is now floating the idea of a VPN ban. The European Union is actively considering continent-wide restrictions on children's access to social media, while member states including France, Greece and Spain are pushing for stronger action. In the United States, lawmakers continue searching for ways to limit children’s access while holding technology companies to account.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Memory is a terrible statistician

Nostalgia is a wonderful state of mind but, almost by definition, it glorifies the past while ignoring things that were not so good.

Many older New Zealanders are nostalgic for the 1970s. But 1973 saw 843 people die on the roads, the worst road toll on record. Of every 1,000 babies born in 1970, almost 17 died before their first birthday. More than a third of adults smoked. The top income tax rate was 60%, and inflation was about to slip its leash.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: The political malaise over New Zealand’s low wage problem

Among prosperous nations, New Zealand is relatively a low-income country. That hurts.

In 2024, net national income per capita was 30% higher in Australia, according to the Paris-based OECD. It was only 19% higher on average over the four years to 2019.

That 2024 gap represents a missing NZ$20,000 per person a year. That is $100 billion a year spread over 5 million people.

Henry Olsen: Home of the Rave

The United States celebrated its 250th birthday this weekend. Like all those who are told that their glory years are behind them, my country showcased its youth and inexperience with much rejoicing.

The festivities were organised by Freedom 250, a Republican-dominated group that President Trump chairs. To acquire the necessary and proper funds, the group ran donate-for-access advertisements and diverted congressional appropriations from the bipartisan America250 group.

Brendan O'Neill: Andy Burnham’s shameful pandering to anti-Israel bigots

His pompous, fact-lite sermon on Gaza is a transparent effort to win back Muslim voters and the keffiyeh classes.

Here he comes, pandering Andy Burnham. The King of the North throwing out the red meat of Israelophobia to keep certain voters sweet. The incoming PM yapping piously about Israel’s possible ‘war crimes’ in a bid to win back restive Muslim voters and the keffiyeh classes who’ve abandoned Labour for the crackpot Greens. That’s what I saw in Burnham’s staggeringly pompous digital sermon on Gaza – not an act of geopolitical conviction but a masterclass in demographic toadying.

Alwyn Poole: On School Lunches – A Response to Jonathan Ayling

(My response to his words in point-form).

“More than lunches, children need parents – Jonathan Ayling”

– Clearly a truism.

“While there has been much talk about the quality and cost of school lunches, the debate misses a larger point, argues Jonathan Ayling – why is the Government in the business of feeding our children at all?”

David Farrar: The TSB sale

A reader writes in:

Toi Foundation’s proposal to sell TSB Bank to Heartland Group for $620 million has generated fierce community opposition in Taranaki — public meetings, widespread ‘don’t sell the family silver’ sentiment, and an informal survey finding 90% of those with a firm view opposed.

Mike's Minute: Labour don't prep for power

You may remember that Morgan McSweeney was one of Keir Starmer's fall guys in the Mandelson scandal.

He ran the Labour Party's 2024 campaign that saw Labour land a comparatively small amount of the vote (37%) in exactly the right places to give them a stonking great majority and end 14 years of Tory rule.

Sunday July 12, 2026 

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Dr Oliver Hartwich: Chalmers’ guru Mazzucato is selling an old mistake

Fourteen New Zealand restaurants picked up a Michelin star last week, the first time Michelin had rated New Zealand at all. One reached two stars. None got three, the rating Michelin reserves for restaurants worth a special journey. New Zealand is, of course, always worth a visit, apparently just not for its restaurants.

The government paid Guide Michelin NZ$6.3 million out of its tourism budget to include New Zealand in its ratings.

David Harvey: The VPN Ban

One of the problems faced by lawmakers is that the laws they make can only be enforced within the jurisdiction. That is what is referred to as the principle of territoriality. Laws do not have an extraterritorial effect. A person who steals something from a supermarket in Sydney cannot be prosecuted for theft in the New Zealand Courts. Why? Because the offence did not take place within the territorial jurisdiction of New Zealand.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 11 July 2026

Election 2026: Policy, candidates, and gambling websites

Here we are in an election year and the pledges continue to arrive, often with only the vaguest account of what will be cut, taxed, or borrowed to pay for them.

Spaniard: This is kaitiakitanga

There’s a place for everything. Customary matters should receive stewardship, empirical science should lead in technical arenas, and standover behaviour has no place in a modern democracy’s processes.

Ngai Tahu failed, catastrophically, as guardian/kaitiaki of Central Otago’s environment before other settlers arrived. It’s rich that, in response to the Santana Minerals Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project proposal for Central Otago, Ka Runaka, a local tribal sub-grouping, is now claiming a kaitiaki role.

Pee Kay: Government job vacancies

“We are one country, we deliver our public services to people on the basis of need, not ethnicity.”

So said our future Prime Minister on May 5, 2022, during a visit to Greymouth.

So, why do we still see government job vacancies like this?

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: NESO summertime madness

UK

NESO accused of cover-up over blackout threat

Britain’s grid operator has been accused of covering up system failures that threaten to trigger blackouts. Bosses at the National Energy Systems Operator allegedly ordered control-room staff to hide information that showed the grid was not being run securely, and to not to keep permanent records of operational decisions, to ensure there was no paper trail. Shadow Energy Sec Claire Coutinho has written to the ICO demanding it open an investigation into the alleged incidents.

Colinxy: Man’s Oldest Story

If humanity has a single shared story — a myth so ancient it predates nations, languages, and even our migration out of Africa — it is the story of the Pleiades. No other tale appears so consistently across cultures, continents, and epochs. While the details vary, the core narrative is astonishingly stable: a cluster of seven stars, often described as seven sisters, seven maidens, or seven beings, with the persistent puzzle that only six are visible to the naked eye.

Melanie Phillips: Amoral Andy sticks it to the Jews

Who cares that no-one knows how he'll govern Britain? He's passionate about Gaza

Well that didn’t take long, did it?

On the day that 322 politically bankrupt and panicky Labour MPs made it all but certain through their backing that Andy Burnham’s coup against Sir Keir Starmer had succeeded and he would replace him as prime minister, Burnham — whose only claim to fame is the common touch he brought to his role as mayor of Manchester — chose to celebrate by sticking it to the Jews.

Roger Partridge: A Guide to a Muscular Liberalism

Liberals can articulate their values without trampling on rights.

Every political tradition faces the question of what constitutes a good life. But only liberalism struggles so visibly to offer a straightforward answer. Authoritarians promise order and national greatness. Socialists promise equality. Post-liberal writers promise meaning and belonging through restored religious and civilizational authority—a life ordered to faith, family, and place.

Liberalism alone points nowhere in particular. Its answer—freedom—tells you what to protect, not what to do with it. Yet that silence is not emptiness. It reflects a wise limit: no one can know in advance the forms a flourishing life will take.

JC: Impey Looks the Goods at RNZ

There is an app where one can rate a headline for, among other things, readability. Negative headlines do not score well. Positive headlines do. Finding a positive headline for an article with negative connotations requires some thought. The headline for this article reads, at first glance, as though the new chair of Radio New Zealand will do well in navigating the future of the organisation. Far from it. What I mean by my headline is that Brent Impey is ‘one of them’. He seems to think that RNZ, in its present form, is perfectly positioned to carry all before it. I don’t think so.

Peter Dunne: New Zealand’s foreign policy

The rock and the hard place that has defined New Zealand’s foreign policy for the last decade or so is getting ever sharper and more uncomfortable.

Since the thaw in relations with the United States after the 1980s nuclear row, New Zealand has been a reluctant friend. Consistent with what it holds to be an independent foreign policy, New Zealand has supported the United States on some issues and opposed it on others. For example, it provided significant military and operational support to the United States-led Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in the early 2000s but opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 because it had not had the approval of the United Nations.

Saturday July 11, 2026 

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Peter Hemmingson: Matariki and Kwanzaa – Sister-Celebrations of Marxist-Leninist Identity Politics

Organised Matariki Festivals are a comparatively recent fabrication.

The Carter Observatory's learning and programming manager, John Field, said in a 2013 article published on www.stuff.co.nz:

"If you went back about 15 years, no-one had heard of Matariki. It was only celebrated in the far north or middle of the North Island," he said. "After Te Reo became more popular, Matariki became much more of a celebration."

Matt Ridley: The most important thing to happen in 1776

Happy Independence Day, rational optimist. As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, Matt Ridley reflects on the 1776 innovation that made it possible for democracy and free enterprise to flourish... Enjoy.

The Declaration of Independence, written 250 years ago this week, was a bright torch of the Enlightenment. So was Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, also published 250 years ago this year. But for me the most momentous happening in 1776 was the inauguration of James Watt’s first practical steam engine.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 5.7.26

Saturday July 11, 2026 

News:
Matariki Pā: Ancient site returned to local hapū after more than a century in private ownership
A significant ancestral pā site near the mouth of the Clarence River in Kaikōura has been returned to Ngāti Kurī, marking the end of more than a century of the land being in private hands.

The purchase of Matariki Pā — 45 hectares of land north of the Waiau Toa Clarence River — was finalised in June through Te Rūnanga o Kaikōura and the Murray family, who had owned the property since the early 1900s.

Clive Bibby: Time passes but real friendships endure

A recent encounter with an old school mate from 1958 has provided the opportunity to share a story which reflects on a bygone era that helped to make us what we are today.

Sadly, due to the selfish and deliberately divisive activities of some modern politicians and community leaders, those days of racial harmony appear lost forever.

Caleb Anderson: Information and intelligence are not the same thing

It seems that we live in an age of abundant information. But is this making us more, or perhaps less, intelligent? Why, with vast amounts of information at our fingertips, are we more uncertain, divided, and confused, on so many fronts?

We are swimming in information and drowning in confusion.

Colinxy: Why the Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor.....

Why the Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor — And How Unions Used It to Enforce Racial Exclusion

Few policies enjoy such unearned moral prestige as the minimum wage. It is presented as a simple act of compassion: raise the legal wage floor, and the poor will rise with it. Politicians love it because it costs them nothing. Activists love it because it sounds righteous. Unions love it because it protects their members from competition.

John McLean: Jagose Stays Close

The frightful former Solicitor-General who refuses to go way

The New Zealand Law Association is doing an admirable job enabling subversive, activist lawyers to expose themselves. The Association is a divine reincarnation of the former Auckland District Law Society. Unlike the New Zealand Law Society, the NZ Law Assn has no statutory authority and doesn’t try to hound un-Woke lawyers out of the legal profession. I’ve previously covered the Law Society’s brutal, unlawful hounding of heterodox lawyers:

John MacDonald: Time to think bigger than solar panels on the roof

Whatever happened to this country’s ability to think big on the energy front?

And why is it that we’re not doing the same with solar energy and why are our politicians relying on households to do the heavy lifting?

I mention thinking big intentionally. Because that’s what we did back in the 1970s and 1980s, especially with the big hydro power schemes.

Brendan O'Neill: How Britain’s cops became the armed wing of wokeness

From arresting critics of Muhammad to mistreating white men, the police have become the enforcers of woke tyranny.

Insulting Muhammad. Criticising a local councillor. Being a white lad who gets punched in the head by a gang of black kids. In Britain in 2026, these are the ‘crimes’ that get the cops off their a***s. They might not be able to find the lowlifes who burgled your home or the gang members who groomed your daughter. But they’ll come running if you diss Islam or have a pop at a Green politician or commit the heinous sin of being white and male on a night out. Welcome to your two-tier tyranny.

Kerre Woodham: Bring on the solar

Everybody's into the solar energy now. National announced its solar energy policy last week and most people thought it was a sound idea, good common-sense idea. The party, if elected, would launch the Home Energy Fund by tweaking the Local Government Act and committing a one-off $7 million equity investment to secure a 20% shareholding in the new entity with the balance funded by participating councils.

Bob Edlin: Sex and leadership.....

Sex and leadership – Albanese says sorry for his indiscretion but Trump fights on in the courts

Australian supporters of the Socceroos went viral during the 2026 FIFA World Cup for an anti-Donald Trump chant.

The chant – widely circulated on social media – had simple lyrics:

Guest Post: RNZ National – Trapped?

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Fish Across Face:

This follows on from my recent post about the NZ media ecosystem and focusses more on the central challenge faced by the state radio broadcaster.

It’s now clear RNZ National has defied the laws of gravity, albeit in reverse. A massive increase in funding courtesy of the last Labour government has somehow transmogrified into serious erosion of fortunes – namely trust, and by extension, bums on seats.

Friday July 10, 2026 

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Robin Grieve: The Medical Council's Shocker of a Consultation Document

Simeon Brown was right not to renew the terms of the Medical Council's chair and deputy chair, but he should have gone further. The Council's consultation documents on its proposed cultural competency requirements suggest an organisation more interested in social engineering and promoting critical race theory than in setting professional standards relevant to the delivery of healthcare.

Barrie Davis: A Republican Commonwealth for Aotearoa?

I am fed up to the back teeth with the Treaty of Waitangi. We have been right royally rorted by academics and well-trained lawyers claiming to show that the Treaty means the opposite of what it says. So, you may well wonder why I recently purchased a copy of Te Tiriti, Equality and the Future of New Zealand Democracy (2026) by Dominic O’Sullivan (Te Rarawa, Ngati Kahu), political scientist and professor at Charles Sturt University in Australia (here).

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: National's roading announcement was a massive letdown

Let's not pretend that this roading announcement is not a massive letdown for anyone who voted for the National Party believing it would deliver the roads it promised. It is a huge letdown.

Of the 15 Roads of National Significance promised following the last election, only six have construction dates: Takitimu North Link Stage 1 in Tauranga, Ōtaki to north of Levin, the Hawke's Bay Expressway, Warkworth to Te Hana, Cambridge to Piarere and the Ōmanawa Bridge. I don't even know where that is.

Brendan O'Neill: Nigel Farage lays down the gauntlet

In triggering a by-election in Clacton, he has disarmed the media elites and empowered working-class people.

With righteous indignation, Nigel Farage has resigned today as MP for Clacton, triggering a by-election that he intends to fight. He’s giving up his seat in the hope he’ll win it back. Why?

Rodney Hide: RODNEY HIDE - Breaking news, 15 December - “He’s done it again!”

Mr Winston Peters remains New Zealand’s most enduring and adaptable political survivor. First elected to Parliament in 1978—just months after Sir Keith Holyoake resigned as Governor-General -- Mr Peters and Sir Keith bridge nearly a century of our parliamentary history. Sir Keith entered Parliament in 1932; together, these two men span the modern era. With his bearing and suits, Mr Peters would have slotted seamlessly into Sir Keith’s cabinet. Yet unlike the tuatara, frozen in its Jurassic adaptations, Mr Peters thrives in new terrain. He masters social media with a precision few politicians match, turning tweets into scalpel-sharp commentary.

Mike's Minute: I'm not convinced the Reserve Bank was right

You can't bag the Monetary Policy Committee.

Well, you can, but in this case, you would be fairly churlish.

Personally, I would have held, but given the vote was done by consensus I clearly would have been a lone voice.

Ryan Bridge: National needs Labour's support on its social media bill

Where is National's social media bill at?

We know Seymour doesn't like it. Winston is apparently has reservations with the wording, though that's only according to Stuff, rather than the man himself.

Labour might need to step in and save the day by supporting it from across the aisle.