Guest Post: Another proposed "Treaty racket"

Guest Post by John McLean on No Minister

Guess what! The pale faces of the tribal elite have just thought up a new way of extracting more money out of the long-suffering taxpayer. This time it’s TEETH.

That master of one-sided bias and misinformation, the taxpayer funded Radio New Zealand, reported on 20 March, 2026, that the reason why so many Maori have bad teeth is because of “colonisation”. Without bothering to check the accuracy of what it was reporting it gave its piece the blazing headline of “Calls grow for Universal Te Tiriti consistent dental care”.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Consider the LNG terminal idea killed

Geez, that old LNG terminal idea didn’t last long, did it? Seven weeks - that’s it. From the moment it was announced on February 9 to the first knife stuck in it today, seven weeks to the day.

Now, before you come at me arguing that the LNG terminal hasn’t been killed - yes, it has. It is dead. The Herald report this morning that multiple ministers are privately admitting they may have to kill the project did not happen by accident.

Ani O'Brien: He knew - The paper trail Chris Hipkins can’t explain

Either there was a massive conspiracy to deceive the Minister in charge or that Minister is lying

I genuinely didn’t know what I was looking for when I went searching through FYI.org on Friday night. I was confused by timelines that weren’t making sense and increasingly implausible deniability.

Olivia Pierson: Trump didn't blink

On March 26 President Trump laid out an important truth: NATO countries have done absolutely nothing to help sort out that “lunatic regime” in Iran, which by all accounts has been militarily smashed to bits. “The USA needs nothing from NATO,” he said calmly.

Before Trump even became President in 2016, he said then he was going to “rethink NATO.” I guess he's done just that.

I caught the Promethean Action live stream, also on March 26th, and Barbara Boyd hit the nail on the head: “He did not blink. He is reordering the entire world.”

Dr Don Brash: Hidden in the Agenda: When Your Vote Isn’t Enough

The following is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge Trustee

While the hard-working people of Otago go about their lives, the Otago Regional Council (ORC) is moving pieces across the board that fundamentally change who makes key decisions in that region.

A few days ago, ORC held a council meeting, and we spotted something in the agenda that made us tune in to the livestream. Decisions were being made about the new Integrated Catchment Management Board (ICM), and yet again, a council was ignoring principles of democracy and appointing unelected members to decision-making roles.

Colinxy: The Public Sector as Political Actor - When Bureaucracy Forgets Its Job

The Principle We Pretend Still Exists

New Zealand’s public service is supposed to operate on a simple constitutional rule:

The government decides; the bureaucracy implements.

Not “interprets.” Not “nudges.” And certainly not “advocates.”

Yet every few months, we discover, again, that parts of the public sector have quietly redefined themselves as political actors with taxpayer funding.

Dave Patterson: Is Putting Troops on the Ground in Iran a Good Idea?

As the conflict in Iran continues, a debate is ongoing as to whether the US should put combat troops on the ground in Iran. Naysayers claim such an escalation is unnecessary and puts ground forces at risk. Those who favor the action are as resolute that without soldiers occupying Iranian real estate, there is no winning. Both positions are at opposite poles of the argument. Those against envision an invasion force storming the beaches and airdropping from the skies with enormous casualties. Those in favor believe that there is no opportunity to bring the Tehran government to submission without significant US forces on the ground. Neither position is necessarily right.

Damien Grant: Is this moment that the PM forces me to eat my words? I hope so

While our collective focus is on the impending economic collapse driven by a lack of petroleum, my attention has been diverted by a speech given by a relatively obscure, but important, government apparatchik. The Reserve Bank chief economist Paul Conway.

The problem with government economists is their language is constrained by the necessities of convention. They would describe an invasion of Orcs pouring over the balustrades howling with bloodlust as an incoming negative external shock with the potential for adverse economic outcomes in the short to medium term.

Deborah Palma: How Clear Property Rights Built the American Frontier

Property was clearly defined, so the future made sense.

In the mid-19th century, the town of Peoria, Illinois, originally established as a French outpost in the 18th century, underwent a period of rapid expansion. Although not a newly founded settlement, its transformation during this period reflects a broader pattern seen across the American frontier. Within a few decades, it evolved into a regional agricultural and commercial hub. This was not the result of luck or central planning. The decisive factor was clear, recognized, and transferable property titles. Farmers knew that the land they cultivated belonged to them. Merchants felt secure investing in warehouses, mills, and river transportation. Families built homes with the expectation that their children would inherit the fruits of that effort. Where property was clearly defined, the future made sense.

Alwyn Poole: How endemic is this type of spending in government Ministries?

A few years back two schools I was involved in managing took the Ministry of Education to formal mediation on six non-performance issues on their part.

While all of the outcomes remain confidential I can comment on one of the processes for their response.

Monday March 30, 2026 

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Pee Kay: Are these two......

the biggest threats to the continuance of democracy in New Zealand?

Ryan Bridge: There's still too much uncertainty around mining

New Zealand First’s mining policy hits all the right notes but ultimately is not worth the paper it’s written on.

I’ll tell you why.

On the whole, Kiwis don’t mind a bit of mining, so long as there are good jobs to be had in the right place — preferably not the middle of Milford Sound.

Pee Kay: Farting Against Thunder Continues

On Tuesday, March 10th, an EF-1 tornado destroyed the Dunns Bridge Solar I and II facilities owned by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO). The facilities, located outside of Wheaton, Indiana, had 2.4 million solar panels, totaling 700 megawatts (MW) of power capacity, and reportedly cost $1 billion to construct—a little over $1,400

 per kilowatt (kW).

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: The oil price policy traps from the 1970s which the Government should learn from

Brent crude hit $112 a barrel last Friday. Goldman Sachs says it could reach $147 if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed; the futures market predicts it will be $86 in six months. Anyone who knew for sure could make a fortune. But no one does.

The inexorable pressure on governments to “do something”, always has dangers New Zealand has been here before. Twice. First in 1973–74 and again in 1979–80.

Dr James Kierstead: Another academic freedom case

Academic freedom has become a major concern at universities across the English-speaking world in recent years. Speakers have been disinvited, papers retracted, and academics disciplined or even dismissed for things they have said or positions they have taken. My 2024 Initiative report on academic freedom at New Zealand universities demonstrated that academic freedom is also at risk here.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Just the opening act

The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Flights through the Middle East have been cancelled. Petrol has surged well past $3 a litre.

Four thousand shipping containers of New Zealand meat and dairy sit stranded on rerouted vessels. Tourism operators are fielding mass cancellations. The Reserve Bank Governor gave an emergency speech to business leaders on Tuesday.

Henry Olsen: The immigrant's odyssey

Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey is expected to be a big hit this winter. Closer to home, Kiwis may want to discover another perilous journey: that of at least 80,000 foreign neighbours, through cumbersome bureaucracy, to reach these shores across the wine-dark Tasman Sea.

Tell us, O muse, of what it takes to acquire an Accredited Employer Work Visa!

Ele Ludemann: Incompetence or worse?

Derek Cheng writes : Chris Hipkins says he never got the ‘unnecessary risk’ advice on teens and Covid vaccine. This Cabinet paper shows otherwise:

Then-Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins received advice about the potential risks of a second Covid-19 vaccine dose for teenagers at a time when tens of thousands of them had yet to get a follow-up jab.

David Farrar: Hold my beer, Willow-Jean, says Ginny

It was almost beyond dispute that Willow-Jean Prime was the worst Labour Education Spokesperson in living memory. It is hard to think you can do worse than having your leader criticise the Government for a lack of consultation over NCEA, and then learn Willow-Jean personally ignored or declined three personal requests from the Minister to brief her.

Lindsay Mitchell: Hipkins under-performing and underwhelming

Opposition leader Chris Hipkins does a regular slot with host Nick Mills on the Wellington NewstalkZB morning show.

On Wednesday, much of the half hour was consumed by the host trying to extract from Hipkins what Labour would be doing about the fuel 'crisis' if in government. This was fastidiously avoided with various excuses, one being that, as opposition, they weren't privy to the kind of information the government has. Yet later in the show, when pressed on how long he thought the Iran conflict would go on, Hipkins said, "The official advice we got yesterday, when we met with the government and thankfully they did give us the opportunity to get a bit of a briefing, was even if the conflict ended quickly there will be months of disruption to fuel supplies so as a result, we are going to experience higher fuel prices for longer." So that excuse didn't wash. Luxon's crystal ball is no clearer than Hipkin's.

Mike's Minute: Here's the problem with the Reserve Bank economists

The problem with people like Paul Conway, who is the Chief Economist at the Reserve Bank, is they “know” some stuff.

They sound good in a speech, but their record exposes them badly.

Paul gave a speech this week to the National Financial Advisers conference.

Sunday March 29, 2026 

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Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - Sleepwalking into the worst crisis since Covid

“Thought Covid was bad? If New Zealand runs out of diesel, Covid will look like the rehearsal.” That line from Matthew Hooton in the Herald this morning lands like a slap. Not because it’s designed to alarm, but because Hooton is making a precise argument, not a rhetorical one. During the pandemic, the circulatory system of the economy kept pumping. He explains today that trucks still delivered to supermarkets, harvesters still picked crops, milk tankers still collected from farms, and ambulances still ran. None of that is guaranteed now.

Guest Post: How AI Can Build a Smaller, Smarter State

A guest post by Chris Scott on Kiwiblog:

Every so often, New Zealand produces a piece of public policy that doesn’t really belong to the left or the right — it simply works. ACC is the classic example. When it arrived in the 1970s, it wasn’t universally adored, but it solved a real problem in a way both sides could live with. The left valued the universality and fairness; the right appreciated the end of endless litigation and the stability it brought to business.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 28 March 2026

NCEA is dead, Stanford pulls the plug on a broken system

Education Minister Erica Stanford has confirmed the beginning of the end for NCEA. A system she says had become “fragmented, difficult to understand, and too easy to game”. And that diagnosis will resonate with a lot of parents, teachers, and students who have watched the credibility of the qualification steadily erode. The replacement is set to be more structured with a foundational literacy and numeracy award at Year 11, followed by two subject-based qualifications in Years 12 and 13. It is a shift back toward a system where what you achieve actually signals what you know, rather than how effectively you’ve navigated the credit-collecting maze that NCEA became.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - Te Kāika and the broken model of social service contracting

In Dunedin, a charity called Te Kāika has been receiving tens of millions of dollars in government funding to provide health and social services to some of the city’s most vulnerable people. Over the past year, the Otago Daily Times has been methodically pulling back the curtain on what is going on inside this organisation. The picture is not pretty: nepotistic governance, unexplained payments to the leadership, staff fleeing in droves, government contracts unfulfilled, a youth facility shut down over abuse allegations, and a senior manager convicted of domestic violence. The Department of Internal Affairs is now investigating.

Professor Jerry Coyne: Indigenous “ways of knowing” invade Canadian science classes

I’ve spent a lot of time pushed many electrons going after the fallacy in New Zealand that indigenous “ways of knowing”—in this case from the Māori—are just as valid as so-called “Western ways of knowing,” which is what Kiwi progressives call “science”. You can see my pieces here, but there are many.

This sacralization of the oppressed, whereby the beliefs of minorities are given extra credibility, has now spread to Canada, a pretty woke place. Lawrence Krauss, who now lives in British Columbia, was astonished and depressed to find indigenous (Native American) superstitions treated as science in the secondary-school curriculum.

Melanie Phillips: Finish the job, Mr. President!

In the new reality of warfare, winning can be losing and losing can be winning

As the clock ticks away toward US President Donald Trump’s latest “negotiate or I unleash hell” deadline, the Iranian regime thinks that it’s winning.

In the West, the serried ranks of “experts” also think that America and Israel are heading either for a deepening quagmire or a humiliating retreat. It’s not possible to predict how the war against Iran will end — or even what the next day will bring.

Zachary Collier: What Gives Something Value?

Understanding how trade works.

It’s spring, which is bad news if you have pollen allergies, but is good news if you are planning to buy or sell a home: this is typically the busiest season for home sales. If you are buying a home or selling a home, the concept of value is one that is very important to keep in mind. Why is one buyer willing to offer more than another for the same house? Or why would a seller be willing to lower the price of their home?

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Labour MPs demand a rethink on Net Zero

UK

Up to 40 Labour MPs write to Starmer demanding the party waters down its Net Zero commitments

Dozens of Labour MPs have written to Sir Keir Starmer and three Cabinet members demanding the Government looks at watering down its Net Zero commitment to drive sales of electric vehicles amid fears UK carmakers might have to shed jobs.

Kerre Woodham: Chris Hipkins has got to go

The former Prime Minister, the former Health Minister, the leader of the Labour Party has to go. His position is simply untenable. Chris Hipkins has consistently maintained he never received advice telling him there was a risk involved in requiring 12 to 17-year-olds to have a second Covid vaccination. As the Herald headline says this morning, a Cabinet paper shows otherwise.

Bob Edlin: The nuclear threat that has been obliterated and cut out like a cancer – so what next?

Is there a difference between a precision strike and a surgical one?

We ask because in June last year the White House declared: –

Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News

Yep.

Obliterated.

David Farrar: Hipkins did receive advice he says he didn’t

The Herald reports:

Then-Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins received advice about the potential risks of a second Covid-19 vaccine dose for teenagers at a time when tens of thousands of them had yet to get a follow-up jab.

The Phase Two report from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 response said the advice was never delivered to ministers, but the Herald has unearthed a Cabinet paper, in Hipkins’ name, from March 2022 that includes the advice in question.

Saturday March 28, 2026 

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Victor Davis Hanson: Week 3 - What’s Next In Iran?

By all traditional methodology and criteria, Iran is now inert: naval and air forces eviscerated, missile defenses offline, and an army rendered largely useless, as no one is fighting on the ground.

However, tactical success is not necessarily equivalent to strategic victory.

Click to view

Victor Davis Hanson: Week 2 - Surreal War, Silent Media - Victor Breaks It Down

It’s the Second Week (17 March 2026) of the so-called Iran war, and we’re told that it’s dragging on, we’re losing, and the Trump administration has no real success plan, or clear end in sight.

 
How is it then that Iran has no military, navy or leaders left, asks Victor Davis Hanson on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”

“When you look at Iran… it has no military left… All of these special contingents are under enormous assault: The command and control is destroyed, the missile defense is destroyed. And yet people say that it's unconquerable. It doesn't make any sense... So what's going on?”

Click to view

Karl du Fresne: The Last Post

That’s it then. The End. Finito.

That was my immediate reaction to the news that Stuff’s printing plant at Petone will shut down next year and printing operations will be relocated to Christchurch.

The paper most affected will be The Post, Stuff’s Wellington morning paper – known in a previous incarnation as The Dominion Post, a masthead whose name was itself an ungainly amalgam of its precursor titles The Dominion and The Evening Post.

The Post is on its knees already. It won’t survive this upheaval.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Olympics decision is an 'enormous U-turn'

Now look it may not altogether surprise you today to hear that the International Olympic Committee has banned transgender women from competing in female events because this was so obviously going to happen once Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the IOC. She was clearly going to do it, given that she campaigned on doing exactly this.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 22.3.26

Saturday March 28, 2026 

News:
Gisborne $29.7m recovery funding bid awaits Government decision
Gisborne leaders are awaiting the Government’s response to a $29.7 million funding bid for a joint agency/iwi-led recovery plan after January’s severe weather event.

The letter was co-signed by representatives from Te Runanganui O Ngāti Porou (Tronp), the council and the region’s economic development and tourism agency, Trust Tairāwhiti.

David Harvey: Justice Should Be Seen By All

Why New Zealand's Courts Were Wrong to Abandon X

The courts and Parliament’s support services have quietly moved their social media presence to Bluesky — and in doing so, have made a political statement they had no business making.

The Rule of Law is not a bureaucratic abstraction. It is the foundational promise that the law applies equally to all, that decisions made in the name of the public are accessible to the public, and that no one — not even the state — is above accountability. Central to that promise is something deceptively simple: people must be able to find the law.

JC: Winston up to His Old Tricks

Winston is doing himself no favours by playing silly games.

So Winston is, once again, back to his old tricks of playing the joker in the pack, the wild card if you like. Winston is a bright cookie (and probably the best foreign minister this country has ever had) but has a mischievous streak and that engaging smile he so often beguiles us with. According to the Centrist, he will only not go with Labour if Hipkins is leader, because Hipkins lied to him. This is the Winston we are most familiar with. I would remind the elderly gentleman that a leopard doesn’t change its spots.

David Farrar: Labour’s fuel crisis policy is silence

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Chris Hipkins isn’t providing an alternative plan of action to help struggling New Zealanders facing pain at the pump and the threat of rising prices elsewhere.

Asked repeatedly what alternatives Labour could suggest, Hipkins said the onus to present ideas was on the current Government.

Mike's Minute: The war week four and what we've learnt

I think we have a couple of emerging themes as we come to the end of week four of Operation Epic Fury.

If you follow Australia as closely as I do, you will, like me, have been filled with a sense of pride or surprise that we are out doing them in adultness.

Ani O'Brien: Slashing taxes won’t fix the Fuel Shock, targeted measures the right move

The Fuel Shock explained: what’s actually going on
The Government has announced a $50 per week support package for working families in response to the fuel price surge that has resulted from the Iran conflict. Around 143,000 households will receive the payment through a boost to the in-work tax credit, with eligibility expanded to a further 14,000 families. It will cost up to $373 million if it runs for the full year. It will run for up to a year or until the price of petrol goes below $3/litre for four consecutive weeks.

Kerre Woodham: The Fisheries Amendment Bill – time to go back to the drawing board?

I doubt there'll be many people out on the water —certainly not in the upper North Island on the East Coast— but the next time you go out, let me know what the catch is like. The Government's done a U-turn on minimum size limits for commercial fishers, but that's not enough for fishing advocacy groups. They want the Government to kill the Fisheries Amendment Bill entirely. They say it's not doing enough to protect our fish stocks. Meanwhile, Seafood New Zealand says it's ironic that the change has resulted in an outcome that's not great for the environment and doesn't provide the incentive to avoid catching small fish. So when the advocacy groups and the commercial fishers are not happy, you'd have to wonder at the point of the bill.

Chris Lynch: Canterbury Basin bid signals renewed push for oil and gas exploration

A new application to prospect for oil and gas off the Canterbury coast has triggered a competitive process, with the Government saying it reflects growing confidence in the sector.

New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals has opened a three month process after receiving an application from CBX Energy Limited to explore frontier acreage in the offshore Canterbury Basin.

David Farrar: Timely, targeted and temporary

I was at a forum on Tuesday where the Reserve Bank Governor was asked about the role of fiscal policy in responding to the increase in prices caused by the Iran war. She said that any assistance should be timely, targeted and temporary.

I agree, and this is of course in great contrast to what the last Government did with the Covid-19 response where the spent a shocking $30 billion of Covid-19 response funds on stuff that had nothing to do with Covid-19.

Friday March 27, 2026 

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Michael Laws: Why The New Water Entities Are A Financial Disaster

Michael Laws talks about Why the new water entities are a financial disaster about to seriously impact your wallet, on The Platform

Click to view

Ryan Bridge: Once again Trump rains on the parade of our economic recovery

For the second year in a row, Donald Trump has rained on the parade of our economic recovery.

The economists this week have been beavering away, updating the economic forecasts.

We'll kiss goodbye to up to a third of our growth for the year. What was 3% is now 2%.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm surprised the police allowed the Tom Phillips documentary to happen

My overriding reaction to news that a Tom Phillips documentary is being made for Netflix is surprise.

I’m surprised that the police are still allowing this to happen - especially now that it’s confirmed the documentary will appear on a platform as globally dominant as Netflix.

Ryan Bridge: Why's the world so hectic at the moment?

Everyone keeps asking why the world feels so hectic at the moment.

If life were a movie, they'd call it One Battle After Another.

Winston Peters, Judith Collins, and their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere all agree we’re living in the most dangerous era since the World Wars.

Mike's Minute: Are EVs having their moment?

I note the whinging has started from EV owners as their fixed price deals for recharging their Nissan Leafs at home come to an end.

Some claim the new deals will be 50% higher. How can you possibly be surprised?

Did you think you would get away with it forever?

Ani O'Brien: The truth about TOP

TOP isn’t above Left and Right. It’s just the Left in better packaging.

Every election cycle, like clockwork, Opportunity (TOP) reappears. It refreshes its branding, gets a new leader, rolls out a new slate of candidates, and the media, just as predictably, froths over them. Since Gareth Morgan founded the party in 2016, this has become a familiar ritual in New Zealand politics.

Colinxy: The Political Cruelty of Kindness - How Sentiment Became a Soft Authoritarianism

Jacinda Ardern’s political brand was built on a single, endlessly repeated injunction: “Be kind.” It was the slogan that launched a thousand puff‑pieces, the mantra that turned a mid‑tier Labour politician into a global celebrity, and the emotional adhesive that held together the most intrusive, divisive, and centralising government in modern New Zealand history.

But kindness, when wielded as a political doctrine, is not kindness at all. It is sentimentality weaponised— a velvet‑textured form of coercion that punishes dissent while congratulating itself for its gentleness.

Andrew Moran: Poland — The Very Model of a Modern Major Economy

From communist hellscape to free market symbol.

Borscht. Knife in the Water. Frédéric Chopin. Among the world’s 20 largest economies? Poland is famous for many contributions to humanity, but being a major economy may not be on everyone’s Bingo card. However, the Polish economic environment has evolved substantially since the post-communist ruins of decades ago, transitioning from Marx to markets. What happened?

Roger Partridge: The Alternative Was Not Nothing

This essay forms part of a longer series on Donald Trump’s second presidency – examining the erosion of constitutional constraints at home and the consequences for American power abroad.

Peter Smith asks a fair question. In Trump and the Paradox of American Power, I wrote that I had long favoured taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities – but not like this. Peter wants to know what “not like this” means. What was the alternative? He deserves a straight answer.

Kerre Woodham: The fuel relief package is simply a morale booster

So help is on the way from the Government, as expected. The announcement came around 12:30pm yesterday. Thought it might be too late, because according to Donald Trump, “me and the Ayatollah are going to be controlling the Straits of Hormuz”. Be open very soon, he says. Well, that's good, isn't it? But in the meantime, while we wait for that to eventuate, Donald Trump and the Ayatollah cutting the ribbon over the Straits of Hormuz, 140,000 New Zealand families with kids will receive an extra $50 per week through the boost in the in-work tax credit.