NZCPR Newsletter: Election Concerns

Last week I received an email from a colleague expressing outrage over his experience with the Electoral Commission.

The Electoral Commission is, of course, the independent Crown Entity tasked with running New Zealand’s General Elections. Since most of us are aware of the agency through the quirky antics of the “orange man” and his “orange dog”, let’s take a deeper dive to examine how they operate.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 16.8.26

Saturday August 22, 2026 

News:
Tainui unleashes scathing attack on Govt after river protection rules halted
One of the country’s largest iwi is “deeply upset” the Government is pausing farming provisions that took 14 years to design and would have helped protect the already degrading Waikato River.

Tainui said the halting of several provisions under Plan Change 1 (PC1), a set of farming regulations designed to protect the Waikato River, was a “complete and total betrayal” that breached its Treaty settlement.

Gary Judd KC: Judicial Power, Democratic Accountability, and the Smith Case

The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill received its third reading on 18 August and has now passed into law. It amends the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to bar tort liability for emissions‑related climate change effects, including for cases already before the courts. This directly affects the Smith v Fonterra litigation, preventing the tort claims from proceeding. A Law Association submission when the Bill was before the Select Committee was critical of some aspects of the Bill. That submission was subjected to careful examination by Peter Watts KC in an article published in the Association’s LawNews.

Peter Wiilliams: When a system fails

Here’s a question. If an organisation experiences “systemic failure” isn’t it the responsibility of the person who oversees that system to take the blame for the failure?

Therefore when Tauranga City Council has systemic failure, isn’t it ultimately the fault of the Chief Executive?

David Farrar: The Attorney-General gets it in one

Attorney-General Chris Bishop had made a hugely important speech. He politely but firmly pushes back against the courts making law, rather than interpreting law. He notes:

Ryan Bridge: Kiwibank's result proves there is competition for banks

There's a lot of noise around banks in this country, but results speak for themselves.

If I had a dollar for every time a politician said there's no competition in the banking sector, that they're price-gouging tyrants, I'd be richer than Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos put together.

But let's take a closer look, shall we?

Geoff Parker: History Or Historical Interpretation?

Christopher Burns, a history teacher at Auckland University of Technology, has criticised the new Social Sciences curriculum, describing its presentation of New Zealand history as “sanitised” and calling for a more honest engagement with our past.

I agree that history should not be sanitised. But surely that principle must apply to all of our history.

Kerre Woodham: The damning report on the Mount Maunganui landslide

The report into this devastating landslide at Mount Maunganui is so desperately sad, because it was all so preventable. Six people died when the landslide from Mauao hit the council-owned campground at the foot of the mountain on January 22nd after record rainfalls, including one heroic woman who knew something was wrong. She and her husband were staying at the campground in a campervan, were woken at 4:30 when a landslide hit the back of their campervan, a minor landslip. She knew something was wrong. From that point, she and her husband partner tried to call someone, anyone, someone who was in charge who could make the call to say, "No, it's fine, it's safe," or "No, get out."

Hugo Bromley & Eyck Freymann: Why China’s Taking of Intellectual Property Matters—and What to Do Now

Beijing broke the bargain that built the WTO. The US and its allies must create new safeguards and agreements.

China’s appropriation of intellectual property is so familiar a complaint that we have almost stopped voicing it.[1] Chinese private firms and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) use many techniques to access IP. They range from nominally legal but coerced joint ventures to outright theft—ignored or neglected by Chinese courts—and industrial espionage by employees at Western firms.[2] The biggest beneficiaries have been technology firms, above all Huawei.[3] For years, Western governments and companies have tolerated China’s behavior as the “price of doing business.” Many firms now central to the AI supply chain, including Samsung and TSMC, have profited enormously from China despite its systematic IP theft. Accepting that anything on the mainland would eventually be stolen, they made copying as hard as possible and tried to use their Chinese revenues to stay a few years ahead of the copies.

Bob Edlin: What Carl Bates says about expertise in tax policy....

....and (good grief!) the Finance Minister lacks those credentials

As one measure of the politicians’ preoccupation with tax policy in the runup to the general election, Hansard recorded the word “tax” 371 times in its record of proceedings in the House of Representatives yesterday.

But if we listen to Carl Bates, National MP for Whanganui, only some were qualified to discuss it.

David Farrar: How much land tax will you pay?

TOP has proposed a 1.75% tax on the value of urban land (except Maori communal land) and 0.5% on rural land. It is worth noting that land values have been declining for the last five years, so TOP’s policy is to tax you on an asset that is declining in value!

Mike's Minute: Our housing market is smashing Australia's

Cotality's Housing Affordability numbers paint what even a sceptic would have to agree is a pretty good picture of our housing market.

Especially for first timers and when you compare us to Australia.

Australia's market is a mess, and one of the biggest messes within the mess is the result of their Labor Government changing tax deductibility around landlords and expenses.

 Friday August 21, 2026 

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Ngai Tahu Want To Co-Govern The South Island - This Is Their Plan

Michael Laws talks about Ngai Tahu’s booming business operations and South Island council boundary plans which he thinks could morph into co-governance.

Click to view

Caleb Anderson: New Zealand's True tipping point may be closer than we think

It certainly appears that New Zealand, and the West generally, is facing a number of utterly persistent, concurrent, and often interconnected crises.

Worrying signs are evident in many Western economies. Health sectors are under strain, racial tensions simmer, immigration tensions persist, and crime, media, governance, adherence to (and respect for) due process, freedom of speech, parenting, and so on, seem to be breaking down. The speed at which this is happening has taken most by surprise.

David R. Henderson: The Deadly Focus on Income and Wealth Inequality

Myths that make for stirring political slogans hold back—and even harm—actual people.

Readers under age fifty-five might not realize this, but economic inequality was not a large issue in American political discussions until 1992. After that year, discussions of the issue ebbed and flowed. So much of what has been said by opponents of inequality is simple assertion. What has been missing in the statements of those who want government to reduce inequality is much information about why it exists and any sense of why some kinds of inequality are good.

Ashley Church: “He doesn’t believe in climate change”

Back in June, I published an article titled The Prophecy of Catastrophic Climate Change: 50 Years of Failed Predictions.

It wasn’t an argument that the climate never changes, but rather an expose’ of the more than half a century of warnings of climate catastrophe that failed to come true.

Dominic O'Sullivan: The Opportunity Party’s Treaty policy is closer to Labour than National. But is it a bottom line?

During the current parliamentary term, the debate over te Tiriti o Waitangi’s place in public life is arguably more polarised than at any time in the past 50 years.

But the parliamentary split on the issue could shift if the Opportunity Party becomes a player in forming the next government.

Roger Partridge: Hiding in Plain Sight - Chief Justice Winkelmann’s revolutionary vision

This column was first published in LawNews on 1 August 2026. It continues a series examining the Supreme Court’s departure from the constitutional limits of judicial power.

Suppose a public official holds an office with limited powers. The limits are not in doubt. They are written down, and the official has never denied them. Yet the office acts, case by case, in ways that are hard to square with the limits. Then, in a series of measured public addresses, the official sets out an account of the office under which its powers exceed those limits. The account is careful and scholarly, delivered to expert audiences. No one objects, because it is offered as observation, a reflection on how things have come to work.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Unravelling MMP - How the 2026 election could break the voting system from two sides

At its campaign launch in Gisborne on Sunday, Te Pāti Māori told its supporters to split their votes: candidate votes for the party, party votes for its allies on the left. A new research note by The New Zealand Initiative warns this call could set off a chain of tactical voting that kills MMP.

Kevin: She Must Be Taking Lessons From Chlöe

Opportunity leader Qiulae 7ong has defended accepting more than $400,000 in political donations this year while campaigning to ban them, saying the party has to “play the game with everyone else” to get into parliament.

[…] But the party’s leader was grilled as she appeared on Q+A this morning.

Kerre Woodham: I'm all for paying what you owe, but...

Every bailiff in the country is going to be out in force today, scanning the number plates of parked cars to identify those amongst us who have overdue court fines and reparation. You can run but you cannot hide. And if you can't pay your fines or make arrangements to pay them, your car may well be clamped or towed away to be sold to recoup the parking fines you haven't paid.

Bob Edlin: Brownlee’s bet with Willie Jackson is intriguing....

......but who has a record of it?

What was it that Mr Speaker said during Question Time? That Labour’s Willie Jackson – correction, the Honourable Willie Jackson – had not settled a bet with him?

Alwyn Poole: Dear “Chippy” - Why only 15% of voters want you as PM

(Not that the media even seem to but notice that aspect of the polls).

I have lived and worked in Auckland, primarily in Education, from 1998 until now (with a 6 year gap when I was in the BoI, which co-incided with your covid response).

I will try and keep this reponse to points.

Thursday August 20, 2026 

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Who really believes Labour won't give us more taxes?

Hands up - who believes Labour when they say none of their political mates will be allowed to introduce their taxes in a future Labour-led Government?

This started on Mike's show, with Ginny Andersen on Politics Wednesday saying, "Nah, the Greens aren't going to be allowed to introduce their wealth tax, and nah, Te Pāti Māori isn't going to be allowed to introduce its land tax."

Clive Bibby: Finding and adopting our Multi-Cultural Heritage

When I was a kid, I had little control over what we ate.

In retrospect, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing as most Mum's were a damn sight better judge of the food that was good for us than the stuff dished up if it had been left to us youngsters.

Mind you. I personally would have preferred a roast meal every night rather than occasionally being force fed sheep offal like tripe.

Dr Eric Crampton: The troubling gaps in Treasury’s performance.....

...and in its knowledge of how it might tackle them

New Zealand’s Treasury has two big jobs that nobody else can do.

They’re both highlighted in the first line of Treasury’s ‘Who we are’ website. Treasury is “the Government’s lead economic and financial adviser and steward of the public sector financial management systems.”

June’s Performance Improvement Review for Treasury did not go well at all on one of those big jobs. It may point to issues in staff capabilities.

Mike's Minute: Our access to Australia could soon be limited

I couldn’t understand it at the time, but you may remember four years ago then-Prime Minister Ardern did a deal with Anthony Albanese over our access to Australian citizenship and welfare.

Essentially, they gave us a bunch of stuff we previously hadn't had.

JC: She’s a Must to Avoid

Many reading this will be old enough to remember the Herman’s Hermits song, “She’s a Must to Avoid”. That is how the leader of the Opportunity Party, Qiulae Wong, presented in last weekend’s Q+A interview with Jack Tame. Mr Tame, who does not often inspire me, deserves credit for pushing to get to the bottom of what Opportunity stands for. This was no easy task, as Wong has an unflappable streak, where every criticism or query is met with a smile and is seamlessly brushed away. The interviewer therefore has to dig deep and press for answers that the audience wants. Tame’s ‘dog with a bone’ technique often frustrates me, but on this occasion it was necessary.

Ani O'Brien: Don Brash & Te Pāti Māori agree on a strategy

How both sides of politics are thinking strategically about voting.

After 30 years of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) representation, we may finally have reached the point where everyone works out how to properly game the system at the same time. For most of the MMP era, political parties have called for “two ticks” with a few notable exceptions like the Epsom electorate. The idea has been to not encourage voters to think too hard about the fact that they have been given two separate votes because parties would very much like both of them.

Kerre Woodham: Auckland's harbour crossing - a discussion that goes round in circles

I can imagine 50 years from now, the morning host on ZB 9am to Noon will be nearing retirement and they'll have talked about everything, as I have done over my time here. So, they'll be opening their show on the 18th of August 2076, and they'll say, “Harbour crossing, tunnel or bridge? Meola Reef crossing or a bridge alongside the existing one? 0800 80 10 80.” And 50 years from now, the discussion will begin again and again and again.

Bob Edlin: ACT wants to ban working-time karakia in the public service....

..... but MBIE shows why more prayers might be a blessing

The Taxpayers’ Union has drawn attention to the cost of daily prayers and sing-songs in just a few of the country’s many state agencies.

Fair to say, the union’s figure – around $3.5 million – is a small drop of the $180 billion or so spent by the government in 2024/25.

Guest Post: Why excessive house prices are damaging NZ’s economy

A guest post by David Schnauer on Kiwiblog

 

Compliments to Ashley Church for a well argued Post headed “Declining house prices are killing our economy”. In this Post, I put the opposing case. High and appreciating house prices have not been good for New Zealand. Instead they have done and continue to do this country major economic damage.

David Farrar: Labour denies a tax it had in the ballot!

Simeon brown points out:

After National alerted New Zealanders to the 11 new taxes on the table between Labour and its coalition partners, Chris Hipkins claimed that two of the taxes are not Labour Party policy.

Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party cannot be trusted on tax, and today they’ve again proven why, National’s Campaign Chair Simeon Brown says.

Mike's Minute: Why all the angst around the Opportunity Party?

I have been surprised, and not surprised, by two aspects of the Opportunity Party.

1) I'm not surprised by the media's fascination,

2) I am surprised at the amount of angst shown by people increasingly alarmed at the prospect they may be heading for Parliament and some sort of influence.

Wednesday August 19, 2026 

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Ryan Bridge: Don't hold your breath for a new Harbour crossing, Auckland

We've been waiting for decades for somebody to build a new bridge, or a tunnel, or anything across Auckland's harbour.

The consultant bill is now $100 million across the current National and former Labour Governments.

JD: On the Qiulae Wong Interview

Guest post on The Good Oil by JD

Having watched Qiulae Wong, the Opportunity Party leader, being interviewed by Jack Tame, it is clear that she, and presumably those who advise her, have no idea when it comes to the two key planks of their manifesto. What will be the effect of their increased tax and land tax impositions and the Universal Basic Income, with all of the costs thereto attached?

Ashley Church: Could an MMP loophole return a centre-right government?

If you’re a centre-right voter, there’s a fair chance that a sense of dread has started to descend as you watch the National Party consume itself from within. The latest episode was the second leadership challenge of the year, this time involving Chris Penk, who has now lost his portfolios and announced that he won’t be standing at the November election.

But as dramatic as these latest events are – none of this should really surprise anyone. The events unfolding are the direct and entirely predictable consequence of a National party that came into government in 2023 with an enormous mandate for change, then inexplicably chose to deliver almost none of it.

Guest Post: An Urgent Matter of National Significance

Guest post by William Chambers on No Minister

Maori favouritism (racial division) has reached the point of being a form of apartheid in New Zealand. The fact being, there are hundreds of preferential “provisions” along with 96 Acts of Parliament exclusively benefitting those of Maori heritage.

This racist situation has eventuated through what could be described as deceitful manipulation of pertinent information. Which only an insignificant percentage of us are fully aware of. So, we are vainly trying to get the truth out there through Forums, Blog Sites and emails to each other.

Peter Williams: Should Nats follow the TPM Method?

Their best chance is to get a swag of electorate MPs

The lead story on Sunday night’s 1News was about Te Pati Māori and its plan to chase just the electorate vote.

For them, it makes sense. The party is hovering around three percent and dropping. They currently hold six electorate seats but two of their MPs have left the party after the internal squabbling.

Labour seem favourites to win Te Tai Tonga (all of the South Island and some of the lower North) and Te Tai Tokerau – parts of West Auckland and all of Northland.

DTNZ: Vance warns of ‘rising interest in socialism’ in US

Republicans risk losing younger voters unless living standards improve, the vice president has said.

The US Republican Party must address the economic pressures facing Americans or risk driving more young people toward socialism, Vice President J.D. Vance has said.

Vance made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, pointing to the cost of housing a

David Wojick: UN Green Climate Fund emission reduction claims are fraudulent

A database of Green Climate Fund (GFD) “projects” reveals that almost none are actual projects. Most are just specialized junior funds. Each has a supposed emission reduction number, but these are just fantasy guesses since no actual projects are involved. Thus, the GCF emission reduction claims are fraudulent.

The database is here.

(I might never have found it since it is in the voluminous UNFCCC site not the GCF site, but AI found it immediately when I simply asked for “GCF projects.” This is a good example of how AI can improve research.)

Melanie Phillips: Gaslighting on steroids

Jews must fight back against verbal ethnic cleansing

One of the most pernicious effects of the Soviet system of mind control was what’s called today “gaslighting,” the belief that you are guilty of the insanely preposterous things of which you are being accused but of which you are in fact innocent.

In the Soviet-style war of defamation that’s been waged against Israel ever since the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, the Jewish people have been relentlessly gaslighted.

Bob Edlin: IRD apologises for the boors among its bureaucrats....

....but it does not explain discriminatory tax decisions

The Inland Revenue Department has ducked the key question about its dealings with an aggrieved taxpayer.

The Post reports the taxpayer’s plaint under the heading –

Tuesday August 18, 2026 

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John Raine: EV or Not EV, That is the Question - Let's Be Smart About Transport Energy

Energy as Society’s Economic Enabler

Oil prices escalated as a result of the US-Iran war and have boosted electric vehicle (EV) sales. Once prices at the fuel pump restabilise nearer pre-war levels, should more buyers still be going electric? 

Ryan Bridge: Hey Labour, NZ is not Australia

Hey Labour. NZ is not Australia.

To justify their capital gains tax, they point across the ditch.

"Australia introduced a capital gains tax in 1985, and its economy and incomes have kept growing."

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I wouldn't be surprised if TOP peaks at 8 percent

So, I think some of the shine might be coming off the Opportunity Party. Helen Clark has taken to social media and described the leader's interview on Q+A on TVNZ as a "train wreck".

She said: "Simplistic responses trying to defend land tax, higher income tax, job cuts in the public sector. Fantasy posing as policy."

Mike's Minute: Time to go back to the bigger picture for the election

This should be it for coup gate questioning of the Prime Minister.

Bruce Cotterill's piece over the weekend in the NZ Herald I hope, and more importantly actually I think, represents a growing feeling in this country among middle New Zealand that the superficiality of what the media obsess in is not really what counts. And what counts is the record and, as Bruce very clearly lays out, the record is not a bad one - from crime, to education, to exports there is a very good story to be told.

Pee Kay: “Show me a starving parent, and I will…”

“More than one in four children in South Auckland growing up in poverty”

This was the searing headline in a recent edition of the Herald, serving as a blunt reminder of a crisis we can neither ignore nor fully agree on how to fix.

The report calls the rise in children living in material hardship between 2023 and 2025 “statistically significant”.

Claudio Grass: Freedom of Speech Dying a Slow Death in Europe

For decades, Western democracies operated under a comfortable consensus: censorship was a blunt instrument reserved for authoritarian regimes, while the “free world” relied on open debate, robust dissent, and constitutional safeguards. This sentiment allowed Western leaders to feel superior over the rest of the world, to lecture other countries on democratic principles and, in some cases, to invade and bomb them too, to spread these ideas by force. In recent years, however, that narrative has collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

Brendan O'Neill: For the love of God, stop the boats

It is a crime against sovereignty that hundreds of men are permitted to intrude on British soil every week.

Nine hundred and eleven. That’s how many people have illegally intruded into our country since Sunday. Just shy of a thousand foreigners, mostly blokes, sailed on to our shores and met not so much as a cough of opposition from border guards. An unresisted tide of newcomers washing upon a sleeping nation. It is intolerable. It is a grotesque insult to the hard-won liberty of this kingdom that armadas of men from distant, regressive lands are permitted to come, week after week after week. For the love of God, stop these boats.

Simon O'Connor: Rinse, Repeat, Revolt

Why National's latest leadership drama is not an ending, but another chapter in an unresolved political struggle.

Back in April, I wrote a Substack titled Rinse and Repeat about National’s attempted leadership spill. Four months later, the same dynamics are playing out once again: another leadership challenge, another ‘victory’ for Chris Luxon, another distraction for National, and little sign that the underlying causes have been addressed.

Rinse and repeat  Simon O'Connor  22 Apr

JC: Lose Your Principles, Lose Your Way

National, whether its MPs realise it or not, has shown the voters what utter brilliance they possess: a brilliance to engineer a situation where they have brought themselves down and, by association, the party. They are now in a sad and sorry state. Those involved in the debacle might be competent in their portfolios but that is not what they will be remembered for. They have portrayed themselves as lying cowards with huge egos. When voters go to the ballot box in November, that will be the picture that they have in their minds. They will be asking themselves what exactly National stands for. That is a very pertinent question.