Roy Morgan: August National-led Government leads Labour-led Parliamentary Opposition (49% vs. 41%)

Roy Morgan’s New Zealand Poll for August 2026 shows the National-led Government (National, ACT & NZ First) unchanged at 49%, maintaining a clear lead over the Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori Parliamentary Opposition, unchanged at 41% - and a record high 9.5%, up 1.5% support Opportunity.

Damien Grant: The tax lesson that starts with a surf trip....

....and ends with a warning for Labour

Who is Ceteris Paribus? Sounds like a Roman general who came to a sticky end fighting Asterix in the backwoods of Gaul. Sadly not. That is as fun as this column gets.

Let me paint you a picture; you painting a fence for $300 a day. It isn’t much but it is honest work. Enough to pay the rent, Netflix and a few beers come Friday.

Joanne Nova: China is building Ultra super critical coal fired power plants in just three years…

The speed of construction would blow a Western political mind

China pumped out 78GW of coal fired plants last year, which got me wondering why there was such a boom, especially since the current Chinese coal plants are only working at a bit over half their real capacity.

Andi Cocroft: Carbon Credits or Productive Landscapes?

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has reignited an important discussion about the future of New Zealand’s landscapes. His latest report argues that forestry should gradually be removed from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), or at least its role significantly restricted, because the current system is encouraging carbon offsetting rather than reducing emissions at their source.

The recommendation will inevitably be viewed through the lens of climate policy, but there is a broader question that deserves equal attention.

Colinxy: Shooting the Messenger

An old fallacy in politics, dressed up as modern discourse

One of the most reliable indicators that someone has run out of arguments is when they stop attacking the point and start attacking the person making it. The logical fallacy is ancient — shooting the messenger — and it is often paired with its close cousin, poisoning the well. Together, they form the perfect shield for people who cannot, or will not, engage with ideas.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Summer is over. Now energy reality bites.

UK

British Gas boss warns of gas storage shortage

The boss of British Gas’s owner has warned the UK is facing the risk of gas shortages this winter as stockpiles fall. “We have almost no gas in storage in the UK for the coming winter, and this is a huge concern as energy security is national security.” The low storage levels leave Britain more open to paying higher prices for shipments of energy.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Balancing the books is only half the job

Over the past couple of weeks, the two major parties have told us about their fiscal policies. Both promise to return the budget to surplus before the end of the decade.

National aims to bring down government spending to 30% of GDP, while Labour wants to stabilise it around 33% of GDP. National has pledged not to introduce any new taxes, while Labour is campaigning on a new capital gains tax.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Rates caps are not ratepayer empowerment

No competent physician would prescribe a remedy for a symptom before determining its cause.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts wants to cap council rates increases at 2 to 4 percent. Why? Because, ratepayers have been hit with "steep and unexpected" rises that add to cost of living pressure.

That describes a symptom. It is not a diagnosis.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: A bad tax is not a down payment on a good one

On Monday evening, I sat on a panel at Foxglove on Queens Wharf in Wellington, where I was expected to play the neoliberal villain.

The Institute for Democratic and Economic Analysis is a think tank devoted to fighting poverty and political exclusion. It launched a new report on capital gains taxes, including the one Labour has proposed, and invited me to be one of the discussants.

A centre-left think tank, a Wellington audience and a Labour tax policy sounded like a home game for the tax. And I was presumably cast to declare that a capital gains tax would wreck the economy.

However, the evening did not follow that script.

Dr Eric Crampton: Protecting the children

This week, the government introduced legislation intended to protect youths from online harms.

If the Bill passes, covered social media platforms will be required to take ‘reasonable steps’ to stop under-16s from having accounts. Platforms that do not do enough will risk large fines. And Kiwis of every age could be blocked from accessing sites that fail to comply.

Bob Edlin: TOP is guided by developmental science on youthful criminality....

....but how is young adult voting behaviour affected?

Chris Lynch’s Christchurch Newsroom earlier this month reported that the Opportunity Party has scrubbed the age of 25 from a policy proposing a major expansion of New Zealand’s youth justice system.

Sunday August 30, 2026 

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Insights From Social Media: $2.2Million From The Maori Outcomes Gravy Train

Steven Mark Gaskell writes: Auckland Council is handing out up to $2.2 million to Te Kawerau ā Maki to help get a new marae project off the ground. The money comes from the council’s Tahua Huanga Ora Māori Outcomes Fund, which was set up under the 2018–2028 budget with $150 million allocated over ten years for Māori wellbeing and identity projects.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: If you want to cut taxes, accept the bad roads

Now listen, if you're one of the people celebrating Chris Hipkins for promising to cancel fuel tax rises if he wins the election, can I just warn you about the implications of him doing that?

And to be fair, it's not just him, okay?

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 29 August 2026

Election 2026: The Great New Zealand Tax-Off

Christopher Luxon has promised “no new taxes” if National is returned to government. This makes a hell of a lot of sense given the opposition parties appear to be trying to outdo each other with the amount of new taxes they are announcing. Except Labour who swear they will not adopt these “bottom lines” of their coalition partners.

Gary Judd KC: Mumbo-jumbo and all that

The Mullahs of Mumbo-jumbo advance the cause of racist superiority

The New Zealand Law Society (NZLS), in partnership with its provider of continuing education is advertising “Tikanga and the law”. Interestingly enough, in a Freudian slip, the advertisement betrays the reality, that tikanga is not law. It says, “hear firsthand perspectives from those working at the intersection of tikanga and the law.”

The advertisement treats tikanga as something distinct from law while promoting its use in lawyers’ professional and ethical decision-making. It forms part of a wider NZLS programme that risks turning ideological precepts into professional obligations.

Graham Adams: Māori gods rule the CRL underworld

Anyone reading the headlines last month announcing that Auckland’s underground City Rail Link had been “blessed” would not have needed to read the accompanying article to guess that it wasn’t Catholic or Anglican bishops conducting the ritual.

It was, of course, mana whenua, who performed a formal dawn mahi ōkawa (blessing) of the new CRL stations.

The purpose of the blessing — led by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and supported by seven other local clans — was allegedly to “provide important tikanga and cultural safety ahead of upcoming ‘First Look’ public open day events and the commencement of passenger services”.

Barry Strauss: Was the Trojan Horse a War Crime?

The modern heart of the filmed Odyssey is a transgression and its consequences. But how did the ancients see the epic ruse?

Christopher Nolan’s hit movie The Odyssey is entertaining, but it’s not Homer. It has as much to do with Homer Simpson or Homer Price as it does with the Greek bard. The film is neither a documentary nor a simple retelling. It is, rather, a riff on the work of the great epic poet, the way John Coltrane’s jazz version of “My Favorite Things” riffs on The Sound of Music’s Broadway original. Some of the story told in the film isn’t even in Homer but comes from other ancient writings, notably Virgil’s Aeneid, a Latin epic. That’s showbiz.

Roger Partridge: The Discovery of the Good Life

A Case for Liberalism from What We Cannot Know

Vera Rubin spent her career measuring the rotation of galaxies. When she began, the major observatories were closed to women. She pushed her way in anyway. In 1965, she became the first woman permitted to use the telescope at Palomar. By the 1970s, she had produced evidence that there is far more matter in the universe than we can see – the dark matter problem now central to physics. She lived a life no woman of her grandmother’s generation could have foreseen.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Spurred by heat from Trump, Iceland votes on reopening frozen EU talks

I have always liked Iceland. My first visit was on a cruise ship in the mid-1990s. Reykjavík felt like a town that had grown from a fishing village, and the country behind was mostly empty.

A few years later, I returned for a proper holiday. It confirmed that earlier impression and added more peculiar observations like tiny but ridiculously priced hotel rooms or spotting puffin on the menu of a restaurant in the capital. In the end, I passed on that and had the most expensive pizza in my life instead.

Kerre Woodham: Politicians need to stop ruling out raising the fuel tax

Labour has jumped on the no new taxes bandwagon, promising that if they're elected, there'll be no increase on the fuel excise duty for their first term.

I don't know why Labour and National don't just join forces and be done with it and leave the left hand side to the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and the Opportunity Party.

Barrie Davis: Captain Cook by Tony Ballantyne

Captain Cook and the Unsettled Afterlives of Empire is the latest book by Tony Ballantyne, who is Distinguished Chair Poutoko Taiea in History at the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. Ballantyne writes (The Post, 8 August, here):

“Cook was not a great hero, but a flawed, uncomfortable and difficult cultural ancestor, who provokes and challenges, reminding us of the weight of history and the painful legacies of an imperial past.”

Bob Edlin: Media and the matter of Maori tribal links....

....why are they mentioned in some reports but omitted in others?

A PoO reader has drawn attention to two articles published in The Post earlier this week.

One was headed Former Māori fisheries chief executive sentenced over child exploitation material

The other was headed The Wellington teen charting a course to the stars.

David Farrar: Green MP says Govt MPs are worse than Adolf Eichmann!!

A speech in Parliament by Green MP Steve Abel which is so deranged, that it should make him inadmissible for ministerial office. In response to the bill which simply states climate change policy is to be formulated by Parliament, not the courts, Steve Abel said:

Saturday August 29, 2026 

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Robin Grieve: Policies based on need, not race are more equitable

Increasingly, we are told that equity is important and to achieve it the Maori people of New Zealand need special treatment.

The argument is that, because Maori as a population experience poorer outcomes in areas such as life expectancy, specific measures targeted at Maori are necessary to close the gap.

Clive Bibby: Another Shakespearian Gem

"There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune"

I make no apologies for repeatedly quoting the Bard in some of my humble offerings in the columns of this blog.

Davina Smolders states her case to the Far North District Council

Davina Smolders states her case, in this short video, before the Far North District councillors voted to remove her from the council’s Te Kūaka committee, following her public criticism of its structure, unelected iwi and hapū representatives and Te Tiriti partnerships.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 23.8.26

Saturday August 29, 2026 

News:
Invercargill council votes against Māori ward following 'slam dunk' feedback
Invercargill city councillors have voted against establishing a Māori ward, opting to stick with the status quo.

The decision was made at a meeting this week where council manager Michael Morris said there had been overwhelming feedback from Te Rūnaka o Awarua and Waihōpai Rūnaka to not progress with a ward.

Ryan Bridge: Are we about to witness the return of the pothole?

Are we about to witness the return of the pothole?

Both Labour and National want to freeze increases to the petrol tax.

Labour would stop 22c a litre over three years. The Nats probably won't, coalition willing, go ahead with the 12c hike pencilled in for January.

Nathan Smith: How To Properly Fix A Shringking Population

Much of the talk about collapsing birth rates assumes that every generation must be replaced. Don’t believe it. A falling birth rate is not, by itself, a crisis. The real crisis is in figuring out why your children aren’t having their own children.

The only people genuinely worried about low birth rates are the farmers of men who want GDP always to go up. After all, they can’t make much money on only a handful of peasants. Rather, a low birth rate is simply a sign that an ecological limit has been reached.

Dr Don Brash: Why The Reserve Bank Should Remain Focussed On Inflation

As we approach the 2026 election, both Labour and NZ First want to change the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy mandate from its current single focus on the control of inflation to a dual mandate - controlling inflation while also maximising employment.

And to a great many people that sounds like a sensible change.

But it's not.

Peter Dunne: Kingmakers

In the wake of the rise of the Opportunity Party in recent opinion polls there has been much commentary about the role of smaller parties as kingmakers when it comes to forming governments under MMP. Most of it has been overstated.

Lindsay Mitchell: Bigger benefits won't help children

Why are incompetents routinely called 'experts' these days? The election campaign brings them out in their droves. Today's Herald headline:

Child poverty experts urge politicians to adopt recommendations before election

Brendan O'Neill: How Cambridge became the epicentre of Western self-loathing

The uni that liberated the world now employs a woman who called on Muslims to make weapons for jihad. God help us.

Next time someone asks me what I mean by ‘suicide of the West’, I’m going to tell them that Cambridge University has a professor who once said Muslims should build ‘advanced weaponry’ for the coming ‘jihad’ to elevate Islam ‘over all other [religions]’. I’m going to let them know that at one of the highest seats of learning in Christendom, on the same dappled lawns walked by William Tyndale, Isaac Newton and Alan Turing, there now skulks an academic who once said ‘Allah’s reward’ will be ‘immeasurable’ for those who make ‘machinery for jihad’. For there it is, in all its snivelling idiocy and decadence: the West’s death wish.

Kerre Woodham: What will it take for public servants to be held accountable?

What will it take for public servants to be held accountable for their most egregious mistakes? Not even talking the little faffy silly ones. We're talking really, really big mistakes. Never was a group of people more misnamed than public servants. The current generation are not servants of the public, for the most part – many of them appear to have absolute contempt for the public they are supposed to serve.

Bob Edlin: Luxon keeps hooting (to the point of tedium) about no new taxes...

....but he dropped the ball when asked about Treaty policy

If you haven’t got the message, the Nats are counting on remaining in government by pledging not to introduce new taxes while portraying left-leaning parties as ravenous revenue grabbers.

The Nats might have other policies. But in the past week their campaign pitch has emphasised what they oppose – more taxes – rather than what they support.

David Farrar: Te Pati Maori’s bonkers tax plan

Te Pati Maori has announced the following as part of their tax policy:

• A top marginal tax rate of 48%
• GST of 15%
• A 2.5% tax on assets above a certain threshold
• An increase in the company tax rate by 5%

Friday August 28, 2026 

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Ryan Bridge: How low is too low for house prices?

How much do you really want the value of your property to fall?

Plenty of us say we want cheaper house prices, but do we really mean it?

Once you own a house, you usually have mortgage on it. The less your house is worth, the less equity you have.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: This Meta outcome could be more efficient than a social media ban

Listen, if you somehow find yourself weirdly unconvinced that social media is bad for kids, just take a look at what Facebook and Instagram have done. It's huge.

Without actually admitting that kids get addicted to social media, they have effectively admitted it by promising to make changes to their platforms designed to break that addiction.

Geoff Parker: Davina Smolders — When Dissent Becomes A Reason For Removal

The Far North District Council’s decision to remove Councillor Davina Smolders from its Te Kūaka Committee for Māori Strategic Relationships deserves considerably more scrutiny than it is likely to receive.

This is not simply a disagreement between councillors over Māori issues. It raises a much bigger question:

What happens to democracy when an elected councillor’s views become so inconvenient that the majority decides to remove her from a committee?

Mike's Minute: There are no punishments if you work in the public service

For those who don’t work in the public service, if you ever want a lesson into why it's completely different to the way the rest of us work, just look at yesterday's decision by the Privileges Committee when it came to Alison McDonald and Nic Blakeley and their misleading of ministers and an IT project at immigration.

They deliberately misled MPs. That's what the committee found.

JC: Debating the Need for Debates

The Media Insider in the Weekend Herald contained a list of the election debates, when they would be held and who of the left-wing media (Newstalk ZB being the exception) stars would be hosting them. I will reference them in the latter part of the article so those with a masochistic streak can diarise them. I question whether we even need them and how many will actually watch them. If you are after a dose of fiction there are plenty of good books on offer. That to me is a preferable and more relaxing pastime.

Pee Kay: A race to the bottom?

This is from Sky News Australia in April this year. The news is a bit old but the stupidity has not aged!

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Australia’s Labour government is shutting down the 2,210-megawatt Loy Yang coal-fired power station, which was recently refurbished at a cost of AU$92million and sits on a 500-year supply of fuel!

Nicole Foss: Modern warfare has left the US behind

Drones have been a major game-changer in modern warfare. There’s been an arms race in the Ukraine war, and drones have been at the centre of it, with electromic jamming, then fibre-optic drones, then netting over roads used for logistics, and vehicles with cages to protect them from drone attack. Tanks with no anti-drone protection, such as those used by the US, are now obsolete. Both Russia and Ukraine are now setting up separate branches of their militaries to focus on drone warfare. Russia aims to have 210,000 drone operators over 1000 units embedded with each other branch of the military in the not too distant future.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: New Zealand needs asset recycling to fund its infrastructure future

A fortnight ago, the government agreed a sale worth $702 million. Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop sold the loans the Crown made to Chorus to help build the ultrafast broadband network, for $60 million above book value.

The money, we were told, will go to the Cambridge to Piarere expressway, hospital upgrades and new classrooms.

Bob Edlin: Game theory, conspiracies and the puzzle....

....of the way the media got a whiff of Penk’s plot

Sacked from the Luxon Cabinet for his role in the National caucus leadership challenge, the hapless Chris Penk – we are supposed to believe – was the sole plotter.

New Zealand first learned of this one-man conspiracy on August 12, after an emergency National Party caucus meeting and a secret confidence vote called by Prime Minister Christophe Luxon to address the speculation.

Reynold Macpherson: Rotorua Needs Democratic Reform, Not More Power

When I served on Rotorua Lakes Council from 2019 to 2022, I discovered how far local government could depart from the democratic processes I had expected.

Policy development was too often controlled upstream by the mayor and senior officials. Councillors formally voted, but officials largely controlled the information, framing, recommendations and implementation surrounding those votes.

David Lillis: Are Public Service Whistleblowers Safe from Retribution?

Punishment for Speaking Out

The Hāpai Public Newsletter of 25 August discusses the very real dangers of whistleblowing in New Zealand’s public service (Hāpai Public, 2026). The newsletter quotes research from the Office of the Ombudsman, showing that of public servants who made a protected disclosure, 40% claimed to have been bullied or harassed, 29% claimed that they had lost their job, and about 20% claimed to have been demoted (Office of the Ombudsman, 2026).

David Farrar: MBIE in contempt

Stuff reports:

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford has expressed support for MBIE’s chief executive, hours after he was found to have deliberately misled a select committee.

Kerre Woodham: A rates cap won't suddenly balance council books

The Government has decided it will cap annual council rate increases at 4%. We've been talking about it for more than a year now, but the cap will take effect in 2029 – councils will need to consider the cap from next year. Local Government Minister Simon Watts told Mike Hosking the reason for it was to ease pressure on households, and although the national average will be savings of just $34 a week, Simon Watts said for many ratepayers the cap will be meaningful.

Thursday August 27, 2026 

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Mike's Minute: Rate caps – not a moment too soon

So the Government has moved on rates.

The cap is 4%, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Of all the price pressures that are out of control, rates would have to be the worst.

Kelli Ballard: New Poll Shows Shocking Result - People Like China More Than the US

Some may find it hard to believe, but according to a new Pew Research poll, China is seen more favorably than America. Of course, there’s a good deal of politics at play, but there may also be more behind the scenes – the power of Hollywood.

America vs China

The July survey consisted of more than 42,000 people in 36 countries, and for the first time in 20 years since Pew started polling this topic, China came out on top. The US is viewed more positively than China in only six countries: India, Israel, Japan, Philippines, Poland, and South Korea. Even America’s closest neighbors, Mexico and Canada, favor China.