Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 7 February 2026

Waitangi Week 2026: unity, utu and political theatre

This year Waitangi Day was a battlefield and not because of the usual hecklers and protestors, but because Māoridom is at war with itself.

The Prime Minister returned after heading south last year and for the first time in more than two decades, Ngāi Tahu sent a delegation to Waitangi. The pre‑dawn commemoration drew thousands of people. Unsurprisingly, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour received a rowdy reception. He was booed and heckled throughout his reading and until the Bishop stepped in to ask the crowd for calm. Those boos set the tone for a day in which politicians talked unity in the midst of hostility.

The haukāinga (people of the marae) had set a theme of unity for the commemorations this year, but somebody forgot to tell Te Pāti Māori. Co‑leader Rawiri Waitit used his speech to apologise to Ngāpuhi for snubbing them at the end of last year (apology not accepted), but then told Ngāpuhi’s Eru Kapa Kingi to “do something meaningful”. Moments later, Waititi’s wife performed an impromptu haka metres away from Mariameno Kapa Kingi, which several elders saw as crossing a cultural line. The only thing more disingenuous than their talk of kotahitanga is the party’s claim to be the sole voice of Māori while creating the biggest dramas in Māoridom for many years and expelling elected MPs who question the party president John Tamihere. Also expelled former-Vice President of Te Pāti Māori, Eru Kapa‑Kingi, criticised the Government and then both Labour and Te Pāti Māori.

Crowds gathered early for the dawn service. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii

Meanwhile Labour MP Peeni Henare used the events to announce he would not contest Tāmaki Makaurau, before dropping news that he was stepping away from politics while Chris Hipkins was in the middle of a press conference. Note his choice of language. “Stepping away” is vastly different from retiring.

I wrote about the days preceding Waitangi in more depth here.

Te Pāti Māori in court

Te Pāti Māori spent the first part of the week in the High Court defending its expulsion of MP Mariameno Kapa Kingi. Lawyers for the party revealed that the leadership offered to rerun the vote on Kapa Kingi’s membership prior to the court date. They also admitted that co‑leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa‑Packer were themselves projected to overspend by about $42,000 despite an alleged overspend forming part of the basis for the dislplincary action taken against Mariameno Kapa Kingi.

Kapa Kingi’s lawyer Mike Colson KC argued that the party’s National Council had no power to expel her and that it had breached its own dispute process and tikanga, calling the saga “a serious injustice”. He said she received no notice of the hui where her membership was cancelled and highlighted the irony that a party created to fight injustice could so quickly visit injustice on one of its own. The court must decide whether Te Pāti Māori followed its own dispute resolution process; if it didn’t, the co‑leaders’ internal coup could implode... again.

Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere. Photo / Mark Mitchell

🇺🇸 A mixed week in the world of gender woowoo with sanity creeping into medicine and failing in sport

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) suddenly broke with the “gender‑affirming” orthodoxy this week by recommending that genital surgery for minors be delayed until at least age 19. The ASPS statement notes there is low‑quality evidence supporting gender surgery in adolescents. The group opposes punitive bans, however, but emphasises individual decision making and recognises the lack of data. In a complete turn around, the American Medical Association came out agreeing that the evidence for surgical intervention in minors is insufficient and surgeries should generally be deferred to adulthood. This is a watershed moment given that the AMA, long captured by activists, now admits the so-called science doesn’t justify chopping healthy tissue off teenagers. Expect accusations of transphobia to follow.

Meanwhile, “new” (highly flawed and observably ridiculous) research claiming that “transgender women”, also known as men, have no physical advantage over “cisgender women”, also known as women, is making headlines. The study is a meta‑analysis of 52 studies with 6,485 participants and it found that “transgender women’ retain more muscle mass than “cis women” after 1–3 years of hormone therapy but have comparable physical fitness, with no difference in strength or VO₂ max. However, the researchers concede the evidence is of poor quality, doesn’t cover elite athletes and shouldn’t be used to justify blanket bans. In other words, it isn’t worth the paper it is written on. That hasn’t stopped trans activists and their simping media running with hyperbolic and celebratory headlines.

NZME to conduct review into departure of senior managers

Three senior managers at NZME have resigned abruptly in short succession after separate reports of inappropriate conduct. Chairman Steven Joyce has launched an independent review to examine what led to their departures and “ensure staff feel safe”. Reports say one manager behaved inappropriately on a work trip and another left after complaints of misconduct. The other is unable to be discussed due to court orders. Employment lawyer Andrew Scott Howman will lead the inquiry, which aims to understand how issues are reported and to restore trust.

Departing minister Judith Collins gets in public sector code update

Departing Public Service Minister Judith Collins has strengthened the Public Service Code of Conduct, emphasising integrity, accountability and merit‑based appointments. The updated code includes new standards on merit‑based hiring and workplace culture; resources and training will be available later this year. It is both tragic and ironic that we need a ministerial directive to remind bureaucrats not to hire their mates or bully their staff.

Wayne Brown increasingly looks like he is pushing for a change of government

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown appears to have launched a campaign of provocation and undermining against the Government. Whispers say that he wants a change of Government seeing a Labour led executive as easier to fob off and control. He has gone to war with the Coalition over rate caps and his vision for a second harbour crossing. It is also said that he has expressed to various audiences that he wants to set up his own foreign affairs department at the council claiming he would do a better job of bringing business to the country. Mr Brown needs to get back in his lane swiftly and ingest some humble pie.

He also needs to treat his constituency with respect. Despite telling Sam Warren fro Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance to “F*** Off” last year, his anti-rate caps campaign appears to have proven the ARA right.

Kiwi kids are not alright as parents fail to prepare them for school

A survey by the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association reveals an alarming decline in children’s basic skills. It showed that 90% of schools reported new entrants lacking basic skills like talking, eating and toileting, and 92% said children don’t even know the letters of their names. Lucy Naylor, the association’s president, noted that 87% of schools say new entrants need more support than ever and 98% say children struggle to follow directions and share. She emphasised that this problem predates Covid, though the pandemic did not help.

Christchurch terrorist set to appear in court and rumoured to be intending to change his plea

The Christchurch mosque terrorist, Brenton Tarrant, is set to return to court next week, not in repentance but in revisionism. Appearing before the Court of Appeal, it is said he will claim that his guilty pleas were extracted under “torture” and duress. The appeal was filed well out of time, but the court must now decide whether to grant him leave to proceed, a technicality that hands him the attention he clearly craves for his horrendous acts. Survivors and victims’ families will watch via video link from nearby rooms as he recasts himself as the wronged party, a victim of the system.

This will probably mean that we will hear for the first time directly from Tarrant albeit via audiovisual link from prison. His lawyers have been granted name suppression as they are at significant risk of “undue hardship” and harm due to representing him. Defence lawyers play a crucial role in our system and we need them to ensure the terrorist gets a fair hearing so that the families and victims aren’t subjected to more of this kind of thing.

🌎 Epstein files make waves as bit by bit more high profile people are implicated

The latest Epstein file dump runs to more than 3.5 million pages. The document trove reveals that Epstein maintained relationships with powerful figures well after his 2008 conviction. The media is obsessed with trying to tie the scandal to Donald Trump, but so far it is figures like the Clintons, Bill Gates, and Prince Andrew implicated in more gross and extensive correspondence.

One of the more bizarre conspiracy theories emerged when a correspondence between publicist Peggy Siegal and producer Colin Callender showed that Epstein sought tickets to the Broadway opening of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The rumour mill morphed this into claims that J.K. Rowling invited Epstein. The author promptly denied ever inviting him, calling the idea “beyond silly”. Emails actually show that while Siegal requested tickets, Epstein was turned away at the door.

🇬🇧 Lord Mandelson in the Epstein Files and what this means for Keir Starmer

In Britain the fallout from the Epstein files could lead to the downfall of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It looks like he will not be the one to break the curse that has seen back-to-back Prime Ministers fail to complete their terms. Starmer is in hot water after Lord Peter Mandelson was found to feature heavily in the Epstein files including multiple photos of him in his underwear. Police have opened a criminal investigation into the Labour Lord for allegedly leaking market‑sensitive information to Epstein as well and the British government is apparently preparing legislation to strip him of his lifetime peerage.

Peter Mandelson in his underwear were released 

in the latest tranche of the Epstein files.

Bank documents show Epstein sent three payments totalling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner, but he claims to have no memory of receiving the money. Mandelson has resigned from the House of Lords, and the Starmer government, which appointed him as US ambassador in 2024, has been forced to apologise to victims.

Labour MPs now question the prime minister’s judgement and the whispers about a leadership coup are growing louder with his former deputy Angela Rayner allegedly doing the numbers.

Hutt Hospital fails to keep woman safe from male predator

The Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) has reported back on a female patient at Hutt Hospital who was harassed by an allegedly “confused” male patient. The patient was in a female only room, but the ward was mixed sex. The man fixated on her, entering the women’s only room, watching her, making sexual comments to her, and even touching her. She was immobile having had a leg amputated. The HDC found that the hospital’s response was inadequate and recommended an apology and improved training. They had given her an alarm bracelet, but took no action to deal with the man, ultimately failing to protect her which resulted in her family discharging her early.

🇬🇧 Palestine activists caught on camera breaking the back of police officer found not guilty

Across the world, six Palestine Action activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary after breaking into the UK offices of Israel’s Elbit Systems. This despite body‑cam footage clearly showing an activist swinging a sledgehammer that fractured a female police officer’s spine. Yet the jury could not agree on a grievous bodily harm charge and acquitted them of aggravated burglary. Brendan O’Neill of Spiked argues that such activists receive special legal protection because their “Israelophobia” is deemed virtuous calling it a “two‑tier morality” where elite opinions shield law‑breakers from punishment. He warns that if certain causes can break the law with impunity, respect for equal citizenship collapses. The group could face a retrial over the charges where the jury could not reach a verdict. Don’t hold your breath though.

🇪🇸 Pedro Sánchez set to create Merkel-esque migrant crisis

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has opted for executive fiat over democratic consent, bypassing parliament to issue a royal decree that will grant residency to around 500,000 undocumented migrants. The amnesty applies to anyone who has lived in Spain for just five months and completed a short period of vocational training, a crazily low bar with continent-wide consequences.

This has huge implications for Europe as those newly regularised in Spain gain effective freedom of movement across the EU, turning this domestic decree into a de facto European border policy. Sánchez has been warned that it risks recreating the dynamics of Angela Merkel’s 2015 open-border decision. Immigration is already set to dominate Spain’s next election, and Sánchez’s move may win applause from NGOs and Brussels, but it is sure to fuel populist backlash and not just in Spain, but across a Europe.

🇨🇳 🇺🇸 China’s bio labs in America

One of the most unsettling stories of the year has barely registered with the media and I can’t see that it has reached New Zealand at all. Unauthorised clandestine Chinese-run biolabs, with unclear funding and links, operating inside the United States have been discovered in Las Vegas and California. These are not university labs or regulated research facilities. They were found in residential properties and warehouses.

The labs were stocked with biological materials, lab mice, testing equipment, and pathogens, and run by Chinese nationals with no clear licensing, oversight, or disclosure.

It is insane how little curiosity and concern the labs have inspired. After our collective pandemic trauma, lockdowns, and “trust the science” sermons, you’d think the prospect of foreign-run, unregulated biological research on US soil might prompt a few uncomfortable questions.

After Covid, we were told lessons would be learned. Transparency, oversight, and vigilance. The existence of these labs suggests China doesn’t care.

🇺🇸 Culture Wars current trend produces irony to end all irony

At this year’s Grammy Awards, singer Billie Eilish accepted her award for Song of the Year with an “ICE OUT” badge on her dress and declared that “no human being is illegal on stolen land”. The irony that she would slink back to her multi-million dollar gated super mansion did not escape attention. Journalists showed up at her home, overseas influencers announced plans to camp in her back garden, and a representative for the Tongva people, who the land her home is on previously belonged to, said:

“As the First People of the greater Los Angeles basin, we do understand that her home is situated in our ancestral land. Eilish has not contacted our tribe directly regarding her property.”

Back in Minneapolis, ground zero for zealous activists, the same activists have now discovered the utility of borders and have erected makeshift roadblocks and checkpoints to identify federal agents.

One anti-ICE protestor explained:

“We are literally creating a place that we know who’s coming and going in and out of our neighbourhoods.”

Videos show them blocking streets with furniture, checking motorists’ number plates against a database and refusing to move even when police ask them to clear the way for ambulances. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety says such blockades threaten emergency services. A pretty rapid turn around from “no human being is illegal” to “papers please”.

🇺🇸 Trump makes medicine cheaper and improves access for millions of low income Americans

The Trump administration has made medicines cheaper. In December 2025 the White House announced that nine pharmaceutical companies agreed to align US drug prices with the lowest prices paid in other developed nations. The deals cover chronic‑condition drugs and will save billions. The administration’s TrumpRx platform will sell medicines at steep discounts including weight loss and fertility drugs to improve quality of life. The companies also committed to investing in domestic production and contributing to the Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve to reduce reliance on China.

A separate CMS initiative, GENEROUS, will allow states to purchase drugs at most‑favoured‑nation prices, improving access for Medicaid beneficiaries. While American progressives were busy getting between ICE and convicted sex offenders, Trump’s team went about improving access to medicine.

Chart of the Week:

On Wednesday, Westpac’s Chief economist Kelly Eckhold posted to X: “Today's labour market reports had both rough and smooth edges. The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.4% but that happened despite stronger employment growth (14 000 new jobs) because the labour force unexpectedly swelled. Wages measures remained restrained.”

Click to view

In a later reply he said: “The data showed positive employment growth of 0.5% for the quarter - strongest since June 2023. It’s perhaps understandable this could have attracted some people into the workforce. There was also an increase in participation of 15-19 yr olds.”

In short - other stuff that happened:

• Health Minister Simeon Brown welcomed a new collective agreement for Health NZ psychologists, approved by the APEX union and covering around 670 staff nationwide. The deal delivers pay rises of 2.5% in year one and 2% in year two, alongside new salary steps and professional development pathways aimed at workforce retention and stability.

• Wellington is full of sh*t, literally. A sewage discharge at Moa Point prompted urgent warnings to stay out of South Coast beaches.

• Wellington Deputy Mayor Ben McNulty was censured after calling a member of the public a “nonce” on X. He claims he did not know what the word meant.

• 🇦🇺 South Australia police have confirmed the search for missing four year old Gus Lamont is now a criminal investigation. They say a close family member (not his parents) is being treated as a person of interest, with particular scrutiny falling on the child’s crossing dressing grandfather.

• Roy Morgan’s January 2026 poll shows the Coalition Government on 52%, 8% points in front of a Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori coalition on 44%, down 3% points. This is the largest lead the Government has had since September 2024.

• 🇦🇺 The Victorian Labor government is under fire after it was revealed more than $421 million in government contracts were awarded to 23 companies that donate to the party.

• Driver licence changes are coming, with the Government scrapping the full licence practical test and extending time on learners.

• 🇻🇪 Venezuelan activist Javier Tarazona was released after 1,675 days in prison. The US has been pressuring authorities to free him.

• 🇳🇴 Mona Juul will no longer serve as Norway's ambassador to Jordan and Iraq after she appeared in the Epstein files. She says contact stemmed from her husband's relationship with the financier and was sporadic and private.

• 🇺🇸 Donald Trump has taken a jab at Nancy Pelosi saying she has “a little problem” after her husband sold Visa stock just before the DOJ announced legal action against the company, adding fuel to insider-trading allegations.

• 🇬🇧 A 15-year-old girl told her teacher she had been raped by the son of a Labour councillor. Prosecutors say his mother, a former Labour mayor, delayed police and shouted instructions to him to hide a phone containing evidence in Urdu.

• 🇦🇺 One Nation leader Pauline Hanson returned to the Australian Senate floor after serving her suspension over the burqa stunt. “My concern is, as a nation, for national security... Also for women's rights, that they’re not forced to wear the full burqa against their will,” she said.

• 🇬🇧 Chaudhry Zaman (70) was convicted of sexually assaulting a 12 year old girl as she walked home from school in Slough. He has been spared jail, receiving a 9month sentence suspended for 18 months.

• 🇦🇺 Australian police arrested a 6th man in relation to an alleged online child-abuse network with “ritualistic” or “satanic” themes. He was refused bail. Investigators have identified 145 overseas suspects and have referred cases to multiple jurisdictions.

• 🇳🇬 More than 170 people were killed in an Islamist attack on a remote village in central Nigeria, with survivors saying gunmen demanded residents accept Sharia law before opening fire. Officials said villagers were rounded up, bound, and executed.

• 🇦🇺 Posters glorifying one of the attackers from the massacre in Bondi have appeared in more than 40 locations across Melbourne. He killed 15 innocent people, children among them.

• 🇺🇸 Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home to the Palisades fire, has filed paperwork to run for LA mayor against Karen Bass.

• 🇺🇸 Former US Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo has called the UK’s Chagos deal “one of the dumbest geostrategic mistakes that the UK could possibly make”.

• 🇦🇺 Sydney’s famous Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has been “scaled back” due to the event running at a financial loss. Funny how when you marginalise the actual gays and lesbians the trans and queers can’t afford to keep things going.

• 🇬🇧 A Premier League player reportedly complained to his club after being featured in promo material for the Rainbow Laces campaign two seasons in a row, saying it made him appear gay. The Premier League is rolling back compulsory pride symbolism and has ended its Stonewall partnership.

• 🇺🇸 The US government has launched a formal investigation into NIKE for anti-white hiring practices.

• 🇺🇸 Minnesota counties are now letting ICE into jails to arrest illegal immigrants and cooperating with them. This means there will be fewer arrests taking place in the community.

Stuff I found interesting this week:

Issue 18 of The Frontline is a single long read, The Archive Keeper, an account of a South African feminist organiser trying to preserve sex-based analysis of male violence inside an academic “Gender Studies” environment increasingly captured by gender-identity ideology. The piece follows Fezikile Mxenge, a veteran activist assembling a PhD grounded in the material realities of women’s bodies and female vulnerability, only to be pressured by supervisors to dilute her language (“women” becomes “gendered bodies,” “male violence” becomes “interpersonal violence”) and to treat refusal as “harm,” “exclusion,” even “TERF rhetoric.” It contrasts experience of rape culture, femicide, and frontline organising with the sterile, status-driven jargon of institutions that want compliance more than truth.

This is a powerful piece of writing that captures the mechanism of trans activist erasure of women. It will feel very relatable to those who have spent the past decade being gaslit and cancelled for speaking the truth about biological reality.
READ HERE.

I also watched Katie Hinde’s TED Talk What we don’t know about mother’s milk. It’s a brisk, mind-blowing corrective to how casually modern culture treats breastfeeding. She doesn’t approach breastfeeding ideologically, but as deep evolutionary biology. Hinde shows that human milk is not a generic fluid but a living, adaptive system that is biologically older than dinosaurs, tailored to individual babies, even varying depending on whether the child is male or female. It’s food, medicine, and communication all at once.

It is unsentimental and rigorous in presentation and Hinde doesn’t moralise or romanticise motherhood. She explains what science actually tells us, and what we still don’t understand, after hundreds of millions of years of natural selection shaped this system. The talk restores a kind of respect for biological reality, maternal labour, and the complexity of how we all begin life.
WATCH HERE.

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.