Breaking Views Update: Week of 1.11.26

Thursday November 5, 2026 

News:
Foxton wetland restoration backed by RIF
The restoration and development of Piriharakeke, the river loop at Foxton, will be supported by a grant of up to $3 million from the Regional Infrastructure Fund, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says.

“Piriharakeke is a waterway of deep significance to local hapū of Ngāti Raukawa and the wider Foxton community," Mr Jones says.

Reynold MacPherson: Four Tests Before We Give Candidates and Parties Our Votes

An election asks us to entrust other people and parties with power over our shared lives. They will make decisions about taxation, public services, infrastructure and the rules under which we live. Their choices will affect people who voted against them, people unable to vote, and generations yet to come. Choosing them deserves more than a reaction to a slogan, a television performance or a promise that leaves us personally better off.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Is the Michael Laws incident going to cost NZ First votes?

Well, I mean, who is shocked that Michael Laws has said something controversial, right? He was always going to say something to offend people, wasn't he? And so he has, just days before the election.

Now, the comments actually date back to last week. They were made on his show, The Platform, where he was talking about Opportunity and, in particular, their candidate, Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, whom he was on stage with. His observation was that the women in Opportunity are as stern as primary school teachers.

Clive Bibby: Birthright and the responsibilities associated with citizenship

Let’s get a couple of things straight!

We are all descendants of immigrants to this country - the only difference between us is the timing of our ancestors’ arrival.

For example: I am a fourth generation Kiwi descendant of English and Scottish commoners who arrived on immigrant settler ships about 1860. The transportation used to bring my ancestors to our shores was not a lot different to the original canoes that ferried the Tangata Whenua immigrants from Hawaiki centuries earlier.

Ryan Bridge: Kiwis see through media bias over move-on orders

After all the hand-wringing and manufactured controversy, the 'Move On' orders are actually not controversial.

The loser in this story is once again the media.

The beat the story up into a frenzy. The government was trying to punish, or to use a phrase they readily adopted from Tory Whanau, 'punch down' on, the homeless.

Pee Kay: Pork Barrel Politics

Is this not typical, unvarnished pork barrel politics from New Zealand First, yet again cutting up the taxpayer pie to buy regional relevance just in time for the election?

Now, surely this will be seen as a remarkably convenient pre-election handout?

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones stands on a podium somewhere and begins tossing millions of taxpayers dollars at a pair of “exploration” projects under the guise of addressing “…gaps in geothermal knowledge…”.

Gaps in knowledge? Let’s be real Shane!

Richard Prebble: We decide how we vote

There are hysterical claims that vote splitting is somehow against the spirit of MMP.

MMP is not even fully proportional.

Last election, 159,585 party votes elected nobody. Yet these commentators are effectively saying National voters are being undemocratic if they refuse to waste their party votes.

I have split my vote for the last three elections.

Richard Prebble: Interesting electorate races - Wellington North

My old electorate, Wellington Central, is now Wellington North, gaining the traditionally right-leaning suburbs of Khandallah, Ngaio and Wadestown.

Suburbs that once elected me, an ACT MP.

Wellington North is one of the country’s highest-income electorates. It should be National.

Richard Prebble: Interesting electorate races - Epsom

John Key was the best natural politician in my time in Parliament.

The skills that made Key a successful currency trader — the ability to react to the present — made him a formidable campaigner.

Our strengths are often our weaknesses.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: NZ Unbound - Freeing up growth and fixing the books

Dr Wilkinson and the Initiative’s Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich will discuss the report in a webinar at 2 pm on Tuesday 3 November. Register here.

New Zealand heads into the election with two big problems barely mentioned on the 2026 election campaign trail: rising government debt and stalling productivity.

Our report says the answer starts with getting value for money. That means value from what government spends and from the rules it makes.

Kerre Woodham: If we have a cure for a problem, why wouldn't we invest in it?

I know that there are people who think that being fat is indicative of moral weakness. You're a slave to the pleasures of the flesh if you're fat. You can't control your appetite. No self-control. Being greedy is an unattractive trait, in fact gluttony is right up there in the list of the seven deadly sins, all of which I seem to commit on the daily. And sure, if back in the day food was scarce, if you had to grow or gather your dinner, it was a precarious business. It was difficult to store food in times of plenty, hard to find food in winter, during famine, during difficult times. So anyone whose belly hung over their belt would have been looked at askance. You wouldn't have trusted him, or her for that matter. But times have changed and now we all have enough, at least in this country.

Bob Edlin: Simeon Brown would be struck out as a candour-date (if PoO was umpiring)....

.....but the Nats are more tolerant on transparency

Three strikes and you are out.

That’s the principle which the Luxon Government has endorsed when it comes to law and order and sentencing policies.

PoO ventures that maybe it should be applied also to politicians who persistently flunk the candour test.

Guest Post: Money Does Not Grow On Trees and nor Does Experience

Guest Post on GoodOil by LilBaP

Christopher Luxon ran Air New Zealand and, before that, part of Unilever. A solid record, though the conditions were favourable. He still talks as if he is running a company. Managing cabinet, coalition partners and a public service is a different job.

Many have suggested he simply ignores other ideas, lacks stage presence or basic dignity for the job. You cannot do that when you are prime minister. Political experience takes a while.

Wednesday November 4, 2026 

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Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll: November 2026

Here are the headline results for November's Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll:


Click to view

Frank Newman: Election 2026 - The electorates to watch on election night

Unlike previous general elections, the electorate results are likely to determine the next government. When a party wins more electorate seats than its party vote entitlement allows, it retains those additional seats, creating an overhang. In this election, the Maori Party will almost certainly create an overhang, but for the first time since MMP was introduced in 1996, it may also apply to National.

Of the 71 electorate seats, 57 appear safe, barring any major shift in election dynamics during the final days of the campaign or significant errors in the polling data.

These predictions take account of boundary changes and assume that the decline in National’s party vote (down eight percentage points since the 2023 election) will not be significant enough to change the outcome in the safe electorates. That seems a reasonable assumption, given that a majority of National’s lost support appears to have shifted to its coalition partners, which are generally not actively campaigning for the electorate vote, apart from ACT in its two seats.

The electorates I consider safe are:

Owen Jennings: TOP in Hypocrisy

Questions for Voters:

Opportunity (TOP), helped by a fawning media, are posing as kingmakers in this election.  Given that this critical role would determine our future for a decade or more should we not know more about them?

Gary Judd KC: A Sacred Trust Betrayed

Judicial independence and the reliance on tikanga in New Zealand courts

In A Story is Not Enough — Witchcraft and all that, I explained why there is justification for thinking that we, or some of us at any rate, do witchcraft. It reflects how low those who exercise power have come that even Parliament has attributed human personality to rivers and mountains.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Here's what the data from police move-on orders tells us

Have you seen the data from the first nine days of police using move-on orders?

Guess how many of the 29 people police moved on were homeless. Four. Four of them.

Four out of the 29 were homeless, which means 25 of them, the vast, vast, vast majority, had homes, or at least addresses, they could go and spend their day at instead.

Roger Douglas: Speaking Out

Roger Douglas released: 

ACT’s Founding Principles Have Been Abandoned: Why I Feel The Need To Speak Out Again:

Forty-six years after being sacked from Labour’s front bench, I am speaking out again — this time about the party I helped establish in 1993.

In 1980, Bill Rowling sacked me from his front bench. My crime? I had published a paper outlining my views on economic policy, some of which differed from Labour’s policies at the time.

JC: Facts Are Facts Mr Luxon

Since 1996 we have voted under the MMP electoral system. Until now the need to highlight the difference between the current and previous electoral system has not been necessary. This time the ‘bright on the right’ have become aware that in 2026 things are different. The National Party leadership don’t see it that way. They are running a campaign for ‘two ticks blue’, asking for both your electorate and party vote.

Ani O'Brien: The Left does not have a monopoly on empathy

Compassion for me, contempt for thee: Chloe Swarbrick and the politics of selective compassion

When a man approached the home of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters with a crowbar last year, Peters was not home. However, when the man shattered a window sending glass raining down on Kobe the black labrador, Peters’ partner and a friend were inside. It is fair to assume the women were utterly terrified. The house had been surrounded for a few days by pro-Palestine activists chanting at times abusive and aggressive slogans. It was actual violence.

Professor Jerry Coyne: Polynesian navigation and Indigenous “ways of knowing”

One of the most-cited empirical achievements of indigenous peoples is the ability of Polynesians, Melanesians, and Micronesians to navigate their way across vast, unmarked expanses of the Pacific Ocean to get to small, uninhabited islands. How did they do it? And, regardless of their navigational methods, how many attempted voyages failed, with the navigators and their human cargo perishing? We’ll never know because there was no way to keep records.

David Farrar: The one thing everyone agrees on – Parliament is better off with Bish there

I blogged a few days on how Winston Peters endorsed Chris Bishop for Hutt South, saying he is “is a cut above the regular MP”.

Richard Prebble also wrote on Chris Bishop:

Richard Prebble: Interesting election races - Chlöe Swarbrick

Auckland Central is a remarkable electorate.

The Greens hold the seat. National won the party vote in 2023. Nikki Kaye defeated Jacinda Ardern twice.

When I represented Auckland Central for Labour, I twice had the biggest majority in the country.

Bruce Cotterill: New Zealand needs a long-term vision, not more political tinkering

The election race is grinding on, and many of us cannot wait for November 7. Sadly, our eagerness is not for the excitement of polling day, but for the relief of having it behind us.

The polls are close, and none of us knows what voters will deliver. But one thing is clear: we are unlikely to be offered an aspirational, long-term vision for New Zealand.

Kerre Woodham: This campaign has been a head-scratcher

This time next week we'll have voted. The preliminary results will be in, discussions will be underway to form a government. Thank heavens. Seems like a very long haul this particular election, but I have to remind myself that we are so very lucky to have the luxury of getting bored during an election campaign. Mexico, Colombia, the Philippines, Serbia, they're countries that would love the unimaginable luxury of peaceful campaign meetings and walkabouts in public and election days where you can just walk up, cast your vote, and come home to family members that might have voted differently from you, doesn't matter.

Bob Edlin: Elijah Pue – the councillor who can’t see the logic....

.....of depriving unelected committee members of voting rights

A Horizons Regional Councillor has declared he “fails to see the logic” in the law change that removed voting rights from non-elected members on council committees.

The councillor is Elijah Pue. The law change which bothers him was designed to fortify democratic arrangements that had been impaired by non-elected members – unaccountable to voters – voting on local authority committees.

Tuesday November 3, 2026 

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1News Verian Poll: Final poll - Election set to go down to wire as National's partners slip

Labour and National have both gained in the final 1News Verian poll of the election campaign as ACT and NZ First slip, with Opportunity remaining on course to holding the keys to the next government.

With four days to go until polling day, no party has a clear lead, and the race is shaping up as a possible photo finish between left and right.


Click to view

See the full poll results HERE

NZCPR Newsletter: Who Really Runs the Country?

Voting for the 2026 General Election is well underway. At the last election, 60 percent of voters had voted by Election Day. It looks as if it could be higher at this election.

There is no doubt the contest between the left and centre-right blocs remains too close to call.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will National's vote-splitting strategy just confuse voters?

Jeez, I reckon it'll be panic stations in National that we're yet again talking about the vote-splitting strategy because this, I think, is now definitely confusing voters.

I don't know if the people pushing this strategy realise how confusing it is for a lot of people, particularly those who don't engage with politics all that often. These are the low-interest voters who tune in only when an election rolls around.

Geoff Parker: Te Tiriti And The Battle Over New Zealand’s Constitution

Māni Dunlop’s Policy Spotlight is right about one thing: New Zealand is engaged in an increasingly important debate about its constitutional future. Where the article becomes problematic is in presenting that debate largely through the assumption that the country’s constitution should move towards a more deeply Treaty-based system, while giving comparatively little attention to the democratic case for retaining one Parliament, one law and equal citizenship.

There is certainly nothing illegitimate about debating constitutional reform. New Zealand has no single written constitution, and questions about the relationship between Parliament, the courts, the Treaty and fundamental rights deserve serious public discussion. Those are legitimate constitutional questions.

But something considerably bigger has emerged in recent years.

Pee Kay: The Maorification Virus - Part 2

A Satirical look at New Zealand Politics, 2017 – 2026

Can Democracy Be Saved

Though St Christo promised us remedies for the pathogen called the “Maorification” virus, would be found and administered in 2023, democracy’s ardent could see there was little doubt St Christo and Potaka the Provider, his specially selected agent, were actually and actively delivering more virus spores throughout the country.

Putting Potaka the Providor to great use, more of the virus was distributed via financial largess, empowerment and dispensed control. Agents of the state from public service, education, judiciary and academia willingly volunteered and were weaponised with the “Maorification” virus and Democracy was subjected to an ever wider attack!

Mike's Minute: Are we out of charismatic leaders?

John Key not only appeared on our show Friday, having put out a video reminding us all what is at stake this Saturday, he also appeared on a podcast suggesting Luxon has been the victim of a hit job by the left and the media.

I think he is right. I would also suggest the media is the left, and the left is the media.

Peter Williams: National still refusing to accept the obvious

Is there a more sinister reason they don’’t want vote splitting?

One week to go until the votes start being counted and National remains as staunch as ever in its opposition to the only voting tactic that will keep Christopher Luxon as Prime Minister and National as the main party of a governing coalition – tactical vote splitting.

The New Zealand Herald is reporting that Luxon is calling the promotion of such a strategy “disappointing” and his party says recent advertising placed by RCR Media and approved by Act and New Zealand First is “trying to confuse” voters.

Barrie Saunders: Voter suppression?

Some media and academics are claiming that the requirement for voters to enrol at least 13 days before the election is a form of voter suppression and will impact young people, Maori and PIs in particular.

I look at this failure to enrol in two quite different ways. The first is, if those not enrolling are too lazy or dumb then so be it, we are all better off if they don’t vote.

Alwyn Poole: For New Zealand to Thrive, We Must Recognise the Value of Every Human Life

When the election is over it would be good to begin to consider how to actually improve NZ society for all.

As a parent of three now-adult children, the main thing I would want every new parent to understand is this: you haven’t simply had a “baby”. You have brought a new human being into the world, and your life will be invested in theirs from that moment on. Imagine what children born today may see in their lifetimes: in all likelihood, they will spend the latter part of their lives in the 22nd century.

Dr Nathan Peres: A French lesson for New Zealand

Violent protests have a long history in the French Republic, going back well before the student revolt and general strike of May 1968. What sets this month's unrest apart is the scale of the damage. Thousands of shops, businesses and public buildings were hit in a single weekend.

The protesters were not marching against pension reform. They were protesting against the cost of living and the state of French schools.

Colinxy: How Modern Movements Erase Personal Responsibility

The ideology that turns offenders into victims and victims into footnotes

One of the most disturbing trends in modern moral discourse is the systematic erasure of personal responsibility. It is not accidental. It is not organic. It is not compassionate. It is ideological; a worldview that treats human beings as passive vessels acted upon by “systems,” “structures,” and “forces,” rather than as moral agents capable of choice.

The Lindsay Clance case is simply a recent example of this rot. But the pattern extends far beyond one courtroom.

Monday November 2, 2026 

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Would it be a bad thing to have David Seymour as Finance Minister?

So the prospect has been raised of David Seymour as Finance Minister if the centre-right is re-elected.

He was on Newstalk ZB with John MacDonald in Christchurch and said it was very possible he could have the job after the election, given, I suppose, that Nicola Willis might not be there because of the projected National Party overhang.

Ani O'Brien: Who gets to run your life?

Forget the policies, what political philosophies separate our parties?

November the 7th is fast approaching and we are drowning in often bizarre and ill-thought out promises from almost every party. Te Pāti Māori seems to only put out press releases to call everyone else racist, but the other parties are dropping policies left, right, and centre. There are subsidies, taxes, schemes, and a lot of pledges to make things “free”. But stepping aside from the minutiae of quickly dreamt up policies, New Zealanders face the fundamental question of what kind of country we want to live in. Both sides seem to view this election as existential, as if we are standing on a precipice and one outcome spells disaster.

In this essay, I want to explore what I see as some of the core philosophical differences between the two futures we are to choose from.

Colinxy: The Green Party’s Staggering List of Promises

When the numbers get so large that nobody is supposed to ask where the money comes from.

One of the easiest ways to understand a political party is not by what it says, but by what it promises.

And by that measure, the Green Party is either the most generous party in New Zealand history, or the least economically grounded.

Guest Post: A Respectful Reminder Regarding National’s Constitutional Legacy

Guest post on No Minister by Ivan Barnett

Dear National Party Leadership,

I recently received Sir John Key’s message encouraging voters to continue supporting National and to trust the Party to complete the work it has begun.

Damien Grant: Electorate candidates deserve your vote on merit, not tactical gaming

I’ve spent this election hauling myself around remote electorates hosting debates with former Labour MP Anna Lorck, thanks to the excellent folks from the Taxpayers’ Union, and interviewing political leaders with fellow Stuff columnist Verity Johnson.

I’ve met a retired All Blacks captain, a Certified Parrot Behaviour Consultant, a couple of mayors and, with some trepidation, a former police detective. Let me tell you, those who are running for an electorate seat put in the mahi. Hard, relentless, grinding hours spent debating, door knocking, presenting, memorising party lines and talking to potential voters, random strangers and other candidates.

Richard Prebble: Interesting electorate races - James Christmas

National is winning so many electorates that taking Tāmaki back from ACT could leave it with no list MPs.

ACT’s James Christmas is seventh on its list and will be an MP regardless.

But Tāmaki matters because our electorate vote lets us choose the best candidate.

Bob Edlin: Rongo Wetere’s stance on discrimination suggests ACT should recruit him...

....in promoting needs-based govt policies

PoO has been alerted to the “impassioned speech” of Rongo Wetere, founder of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, which he delivered after award-winning historian Vincent O’Malley spoke in Te Awamutu last week about the 1864 Invasion of Waikato.

Wetere described the invasion by British forces in 1864 as a land grab that had never been fully compensated for.

Dr Eric Crampton: The pricey and perversely unexpected outcomes of parties’ social media controls

Whatever government manages to form after 7 November seems likely to bring substantial new restrictions for online freedom of speech, including social media age limits and an online regulator.

Experience with similar regimes overseas does not suggest that this will end well. And it will be difficult for any online age-verification regime to keep kids off social media without also imposing substantial encumbrances on adults or threatening privacy.

Let’s look first at what each of the parties has proposed, and what the different coalitions might then bring.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Rosebank divides Cabinet as pressure mounts over Britain’s energy costs

This week, Rosebank has exposed divisions within the Government, while Tony Blair’s think tank calls for a rethink of Britain’s energy strategy. Meanwhile, households face rising bills despite promises of relief in the Budget, and Germany’s green transition faces a multitrillion-euro price tag. How much longer can the Government put net zero ambitions ahead of affordable energy and Britain’s industrial future?

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Ten years for keeping quiet? NZ eyes end to right to silence

In April 1638, guards in London tied a young man to a cart and whipped him through the streets to Westminster. There they locked his head and hands in a wooden frame for all to see. When he kept talking to the crowd, they gagged him.

His name was John Lilburne, and the authorities had arrested him for spreading leaflets that attacked the church’s bishops. Yet the whipping was not punishment for the leaflets. It was for refusing to swear an oath demanded by the Star Chamber, a royal court that sat without a jury.

Dr Nathan Peres: How wars in the Middle East affect New Zealand’s economy

Whether you fill your tank, book a flight or pay for groceries, the rising costs stem from a war in which this country is not involved. Since the Gulf war broke out on 28 February, Iran has kept shipping through the Strait of Hormuz largely choked.

From January to September, petrol prices rose 24.3 percent and diesel 55.8 percent. Food prices rose just 2.4 percent, but that restraint will probably not last.

Dr Benno Blaschke: Who runs the country after the election

In August, two senior coalition politicians in the governing coalition disagreed in public about the officials who serve them.

ACT's Simon Court said new governments arrive in office to find 'a wall of people who don't necessarily agree with you'. National's Chris Bishop admitted it can be frustrating to get the government's priorities through the system and said that officials could improve on how free and frank their advice is. But he praised the public service for being apolitical.

Every three years, New Zealanders vote for a government. But there is one part of government nobody votes for: the permanent public service. These are the officials who turn the government's plans into action. Their job is to help each elected government deliver on its promises.