Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 26 September 2026

Just who is engaging in dirty politics?

After several days of breathless speculation and a launch that excited as many as 200 New Zealanders and the media, Nicky Hager finally released Dirty Work: The Taxpayers’ Union and New Zealand’s Hard Right. Like a dead cat whacked on the dining table the day before Parliament rose for the end of term, it was intended to impact the election.

I have not read it because I need to get through House of Mirth for Thought Crimes Book Club (and because why would I want to), but there is a chapter about me so I ran it through AI and got a summary. Needless to say, I have a poor opinion of Mr Hager and his poorly-researched, highly-partisan novella of nonsense.

The media appeared to quickly realise what a sham the book is and their initial enthusiasm, including live-streaming the launch, fizzled out. The Greens and Labour continue to desperately try to make it into a “thing” though, with Chloe Swarbrick clutching a copy of the book throughout the last week in Parliament. Both parties have withdrawn their candidates from the Taxpayers’ Union debates which is a shame because with Damien Grant and former Labour MP Anna Lorck hosting the events were pretty bipartisan.

Interest remains almost solely in the most egregious allegation made in the book concerning what Hager alleges was a sexual harassment claim against Jordan. In the book, he says the Taxpayers’ Union board paid money to deal with it, but current chair of the Taxpayers’ Union Ruth Richardson has checked records and spoken with every living previous chair and says there has never been such a claim or settlement.

Hager admits he has not seen a settlement document and changed his story when interviewed on Herald NOW with Ryan Bridge saying that actually the board didn’t know about the secret pay out. But he says he has two sources who “know what happened”. Hager maintains he would not have published the allegation unless he was confident it was true. He is demanding through the media that Jordan prove it did not happen.

Stuff’s informal poll painted a picture of a New Zealand 

that does not give a monkey’s…

Another serious claim involving co-founder David Farrar was very quickly disproven. Hager alleged Farrar used privileged access to National Party electoral data to target Taxpayers’ Union material before the 2020 election. To be clear this would be illegal. The Taxpayers’ Union went back through their records and found the invoice for the data company through which they had purchased the address data legally.

Hager deliberately did not put the book’s allegations to the Taxpayers’ Union (or me) before publication. Had he done so his should-have-been-an-op-ed book would have been even slimmer as a great deal of it would have been corrected. He says books are particularly vulnerable to injunctions and that approaching subjects creates a risk of publication being stopped. Perhaps this one should have been.

Parliament clocks off

After a fortnight of late night urgency, MPs gathered on Wednesday for the final sitting day of the 54th Parliament and gave us the traditional end-of-term spectacle in which everybody spends several hours telling everybody else that they are about to lose their jobs.

This term, Parliament introduced 240 bills and enacted 230 pieces of legislation. Ministers faced more than 2600 primary oral questions across 219 Question Times, plus an extraordinary 188,165 written questions. Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan managed to ask more by himself than the entire Te Pāti Māori caucus.

Labour gets the imaginary campaign chequebook out

Labour has announced a $4.3 billion building programme promising at least 6000 additional social housing places, upgrades at more than 2000 schools, and $200 million for hospital remediation. The programme consists of about $3.5 billion in capital spending and $810 million of operating spending through to July 2031. Labour has indicated that it is comfortable allowing core Crown expenditure to sit at up to 33% of GDP, compared with National’s planned 30% ceiling.

The inevitable KiwiBuild comparisons have already begun, but to be fair Labour is being a lot more realistic in promising 6000 social housing places rather than the undelivered 100,000 KiwiBuild homes. Hipkins will be hoping voters will give them the benefit of the doubt.

After spending this term describing restoring interest deductibility as a “tax break for landlords”, Hipkins has confirmed Labour will not be reversing it saying Labour’s capital gains tax requires them to change their approach. Whatever terminology people prefer, this is a massive policy reversal. Indeed Renters United called it a “complete U-turn”, while the Property Investors Federation was delighted.

Labour also lost one of its high-ish ranked candidates this week. Warrick Cleine, chief executive of KPMG Vietnam and Cambodia, withdrew after previously indicating he intended to relocate to New Zealand for the campaign. Hipkins says Cleine’s circumstances changed and he was no longer able to make that commitment. Cleine’s brother continues as a candidate for New Zealand First.

Labour follows other Labour parties on Palestine

Labour also laid out their foreign policy platform. Foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters described Labour’s approach as “independent, principled, and unafraid”. Labour says it would recognise Palestinian statehood, impose economic sanctions on Israel, and intervene in support of South Africa’s Genocide Convention case at the International Court of Justice.

Current Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ position is more conditional rather than an outright rejection of Palestinian recognition. He says New Zealand recognising Palestine should follow a properly conducted Palestinian election.

Palestine has become a significant political issue inside centre-left parties elsewhere in the Anglosphere and it appears that Labour are looking to mirror their peers overseas. Labour parties in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand are all wrestling with pressure from their memberships and the parties to their left to take more aggressive positions on Palestine.

After 35 years, the RMA is done

The Resource Management Act has finally been replaced. The Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill passed their third readings just in the nick of time. The Government says the new regime puts property rights closer to the centre, makes infrastructure and development easier, and reduces the ability of parties without a direct interest to hold projects up.

Labour’s Rachael Brooking says a Labour government will amend the new regime rather than return to the old RMA. Willie Jackson says Labour would restore Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements, the statutory mechanism for iwi participation which will not carry over automatically into the new framework. The Government says the replacement iwi-participation agreements are intended to be narrower and more focused.

The Greens also complain that environmental safeguards have been weakened.

Three billion here, two hundred million there: Te Pāti Māori‘s new policies

Te Pāti Māori produced two policy announcements this week and no one knows what they are basing their numbers on. The first is its Mana Takatāpui policy which relates to “rainbow communities” and centres on a new independent Takatāpui Commission with $200 million in ring-fenced funding. The commission would be governed by takatāpui ( LGBTQ+) representatives and distribute funding without ministerial discretion. The wider package includes guaranteed access to “gender-affirming healthcare”, including hormones and pathways to surgery where clinically indicated, alongside mental health, housing, and cultural programmes.

They also have a plan to spend $3.1 billion on “kai sovereignty”. The largest component is an income tax “kai credit” for people earning $60,000 or less, which the party estimates would cost $2.8 billion. There would also be a Māori Kai Sovereignty Board, a $100 million community food fund, another $100 million for food production on Māori land, and $100 million of seed funding for Māori-owned supermarkets and related programmes.

We haven’t heard much from the new Te Tai Tokerau Party lately, but they announced this week that former co-chair of Te Pāti Māori’s Te Tai Tokerau electorate executive Kyla Campbell-Kamariera has joined Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s breakaway party as a list candidate.

Aside from policy, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has announced she is substantially reducing her campaign schedule because her mother is sadly very unwell. She will not be taking part in upcoming debates.

Lobbyists for thee, business class for me

The Greens started the week in the House asking questions that related eerily well to the content of Hager’s book which was set to be launched Tuesday night. One might even wonder if they had an advanced copy. Especially since they quickly announced 2 bills aimed at dealing with issues raised in the book.

One of their proposed bills would cap individual political donations at $30,000, prohibit donations from companies, trusts, unions, and other organisations, and lower the threshold for publicly disclosing donors’ names and postcodes from $6000 to $1000.

The other would establish a lobbyist register, require professional lobbyists to disclose who they lobby and on whose behalf every 4 months, create an independent Lobbying Integrity Commission and impose cooling-off periods. Ministers would have to wait 2 years before becoming lobbyists, and MPs, ministerial staff, and senior public servants 1 year.

Swarbrick’s fury at lobbyists is a tad comical given her famous trip to the UK in business class was a trip arranged by the Insurance Council of New Zealand. The Council said all parliamentary parties had been invited and that it reimbursed premium-economy fares. Swarbrick, as a party leader, was entitled to have the taxpayer fund her upgrade to business class.

FENZ cannot put out its own fires

The Fire and Emergency New Zealand saga staggered into another week, with firefighters turning up at Parliament carrying a petition signed by more than 50,000 people demanding an inquiry, while undertaking their 64th strike in just 2 years.

This came after the spectacularly bad week prior when a select committee found FENZ had misled Parliament and badly mishandled the purchase of 30 new fire appliances. Minister Brooke van Velden also withdrew confidence in chief executive Kerry Gregory after discovering that significant information had been kept from her for around a year.

Everyone is in agreement that things are bad. Very bad indeed. The argument this week was over what anyone is actually going to do about it. National says that, if returned, it will make FENZ a departmental agency directly accountable to the Emergency Management Minister. Labour and the Greens want a full inquiry. The firefighters’ union thinks everyone in Wellington is moving at the speed of one of their broken-down fire engines and is demanding action now.

In addition, there is a bungled restructure still sitting in the background. FENZ proposed removing around 140 positions and changing roughly 700 roles last year, and in March the Employment Relations Authority found it had breached its good faith and consultation obligations in the way it handled the process. Good luck to whoever gets this mess to sort out after the election.

The first rule of OIA club…

Dr Catherine Law, the Avonside Girls’ High School principal seconded into the Ministry of Education to lead work on the secondary curriculum, was caught on video telling staff not to put exchanges with Education Minister Erica Stanford’s office in writing because they could be requested under the Official Information Act.

And she did not leave much room for an innocent interpretation:

“What we do not need is anything in response in writing that shows that this stuff has gone backwards and forwards between them and us.”

Secretary for Education Ellen MacGregor-Reid has since said the comments were wrong and should never have been made and Stanford says neither she nor her office instructed officials to try to avoid the OIA.

Other whistleblowers have come forward claiming managers had on other occasions told staff not to write things down because they might be discoverable under the OIA. One alleged staff were told to stop taking notes during criticism of curriculum work. Chief Ombudsman John Allen has now opened a formal investigation.

The OIA is a wonderful law that everybody adores when they are in Opposition but becomes an utter pain in the @r$e once they are in government. Back in 2022, you may recall Labour MP Gaurav Sharma alleged that new Labour MPs had received training which included advice on how to communicate with ministers without creating material that could later be released under the OIA. Then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office denied Sharma’s characterisation. But then Sharma produced a caucus message from then-Conservation Minister Kiri Allan in which she reminded MPs that written correspondence with ministers was subject to the OIA and said that, where colleagues were lobbying ministers, having matters “unfolding through OIA process” was “less than desirable”. Of course, Ardern said the message had been taken out of context.

Dr Law’s comments are, in my view, more egregious because she was not caught merely saying that the OIA exists. She was caught explicitly talking about what should not appear in writing, immediately after reminding staff that the material was “OIA-able”.

New Zealand First: tax cuts meet intravenous vitamin C

New Zealand First has released some substantial policies this week. First of all, they are campaigning on cutting the company tax rate from 28% to 20% for businesses with turnover below $30 million.

The party estimates the initial cost at around $1 billion and argues the reduction would eventually pay for much of itself through increased investment, employment, and economic activity. They point to Australia’s lower SME company tax rate as a comparative model.

Some of us might prefer that the rate was simply lowered across the board, but it is arguably a move in the right direction. A friend who owns an SME and has 2017 PTSD told me that this policy might just be enough for him to recover from his trauma and vote for NZ First.

They also launched a 15-point plan called Make New Zealand Healthy. The media quickly leapt on the fact that the policy shared the name of a health advocacy group and 13 of the 15 points were very similar to material published by the group.

Winston Peters straddled the space between bemusement and irritation as he explained that the party has worked with the organisation for years, agrees with much of its platform, and worked through the ideas independently. It isn’t a secret, a collusion, or a conspiracy.

The 15-point policy is:

1. Put prevention back at the heart of healthcare.

2. Have a strong focus on metabolic health, the key driver of chronic illness.

3. Ensure that informed consent is a core part of quality healthcare.

4. Recognise that consumer choice is what leads to healthier decisions.

5. Promote nutrition from primary school to medical school.

6. Require a full independent review of our dietary guidelines.

7. Reduce administrative burden and restore professional autonomy in General

Practice.

8. Support our GPs by bringing health coaches into primary care.

9. Find better ways to acknowledge our nurses.

10. Fund our New Zealand scientists to assess nutritional interventions for

preventing and treating mental illness.

11. Remove Medsafe/Pharmac barriers to recognised safe nutrients.

12. Invest in hospital trials to assess the effectiveness of intravenous vitamin C

pre- and post-surgery for preventing and treating infections.

13. Fund a review of vitamin D and determine optimal levels for maintaining

health.

14. Support farmers and growers by investing in agricultural innovation that

improves productivity, soil health, sustainability and resilience while

researching practical alternatives to potentially harmful agricultural sprays.

15. Back our organic producers, cut unnecessary barriers, encourage investment

and innovation, and grow new markets so New Zealand’s organic industry can

create more jobs, strengthen regional communities, and deliver greater value

from our land.

Turning to candidacy, NZ First has selected long-serving New Plymouth councillor Murray Chong as a list candidate.

Pet Refuge gets $2 million

The Government announced $2 million over 3 years to go to Pet Refuge, from money seized from criminals via the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Pet Refuge provides temporary accommodation for the pets of people escaping family violence which sounds like a kind of niche service until you understand how it fits into the overall picture of domestic violence. Abusers often threaten, injure, or kill animals as another means of controlling their victims, and for some the prospect of leaving a pet behind with their abuser is enough to stop them leaving at all.

Pet Refuge is an amazing initiative because it takes away a huge barrier to leaving a dangerous abusive situation. ACT is separately proposing to amend the Crimes Act so that using an animal as a tool of coercive control becomes an offence.

Back to basics, now with fewer iPads

National has rolled out its Set Up for Success education policy this week and the headline grabber is screens. National wants to end screen and individual device use altogether in early childhood centres, tightly restrict it in Years 1 to 3, and introduce age appropriate limits for older primary children.

The policy is more than just an anti-iPad crusade though. National also wants clearer developmental milestones throughout ECE, with parents regularly told how their child is progressing, and a new School Start Check before children leave ECE.

National itself says technology still has a place in education and that the limits for primary schools would be age appropriate rather than some sort of Amish educational experiment.

Van Velden’s final word

Brooke van Velden delivered her valedictory this week at an age when plenty of MPs have barely started their Parliamentary careers. Her speech recalled the End of Life Choice Act, which brought her into politics, her Holidays Act reforms, and the abuse that comes with public office. She also revisited the rather memorable day she used the C-word in Parliament after a newspaper columnist had used it about female ministers. Van Velden said she remained proud of standing up to what she regarded as misogyny.

She included in her parting remarks a proposal to abolish the Public Service Commission arguing that the present system lets senior officials move between agencies without meaningful accountability for previous failures and said ministers should instead directly appoint departmental chief executives.

The things Parliament didn’t quite get to

The final week of Parliament always results in a rapidly expanding pile of things that will now have to wait until after the election. Every government simply runs out of time.

The controversial local government amalgamations have landed on the pile and councils are grumpy. They were given 3 months to develop Head Start proposals and 18 were ultimately submitted. Ministers have now decided not to progress any before the election, saying none had unanimous regional support and further analysis was required.

The Government’s plan for an LNG import terminal has also been pushed into next term and, in a move I struggle to understand, National’s under 16 social media age restriction bill was not passed before Parliament rose. They got into a fight with their coalition partners about it, gave Labour leverage over them, Labour agreed to support it to second reading, and then they left it on the Order Paper. This is the issue of which Luxon said “We’re going to die trying to do something.”

And while Paul Goldsmith managed to introduce legislation abolishing the Broadcasting Standards Authority one day before the House stopped sitting, it did not receive a first reading.

Welcome to the age of pervert specs

Meta’s latest smart glasses arrived in New Zealand on Friday and I am interested to hear what my readers think about this because I want these pervert specs hurled into the sun.

The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 starts at $809 and looks sufficiently like ordinary eyewear that the wearer can film people without them having a clue. Meta includes an LED indicator while recording, but this must be very easy to cover. The glasses combine cameras, microphones, speakers, internet connectivity, and Meta’s AI tools.

University of Canterbury law lecturer Cassandra Mudgway has warned that covert filming in public can fall through the gaps in New Zealand law. Brisbane City Council has already restricted smart-glasses recording at public pools. In Britain, bans have appeared at schools, theatres, pubs, Comic-Con, and even the home of the UK’s nuclear submarines. Makes sense.

Look, this technology gives me the creeps for reasons that have very little to do with AI and everything to do with human beings. We already live in a world where strangers are filmed in gyms, supermarkets, and restaurants and turned into content without knowing it. We should be able to live without worrying about appearing on TikToks or some sexpest’s treasure trove of inspiring material.

🇺🇸 Trump and Milei take on the UN

US President Donald Trump and Argentinian President Javier Milei both used their UN speeches this week to argue that international institutions have become too powerful, too bureaucratic, and not particularly good at doing the things they were created to do.

Trump used his address to promise progress on Ukraine, attack the International Criminal Court, and take another swing at the international institutions he believes constrain American sovereignty without delivering much in return. On Iran, he said the United States faced a choice between reaching a deal and potentially “annihilating” the Islamic Republic.

The next day Milei described the UN as a “useless organisation” sustained by a caste of bureaucrats, while accusing it of failing on war, terrorism, and dictatorship but becoming increasingly enthusiastic about regulating democratic countries. But the largest chunk of attention went to the Falkland Islands/Malvinas, which Milei called a “national cause”. He accused the UN of looking the other way while Britain undertook unilateral economic activity around the islands and called on Britain to negotiate a peaceful settlement over sovereignty.

Britain responded almost immediately and, unsurprisingly, did not find Milei’s interpretation terribly persuasive. Its UN mission said the UK had “no doubt” about British sovereignty over the Falklands and argued that the relevant UN resolutions do not override the islanders’ right to self-determination or prevent them developing their own natural resources.

🇺🇸 A brief history of presidents hating journalists

Donald Trump’s latest fight with the media has been thwarted by US District Judge Timothy Kelly, who Trump himself appointed in 2017. Trump had barred CNN, Politico, and MS NOW journalists from White House grounds, initially attacking their reporting as lies and later invoking national-security concerns. The outlets sued and Kelly ordered access to be restored temporarily while the case proceeds.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, other major news organisations including Fox News supported the legal challenge, and the main television networks temporarily refused to film some presidential appearances in solidarity with the banned media outlets.

No doubt this was another Trumpian drama, but Barack Obama’s comments condemning him were a tad on the hypocritical side because despite his attempts to rewrite history, Obama’s administration absolutely did try to marginalise Fox News. Officials publicly questioned whether it was a genuine news organisation and in 2009 attempted to exclude Fox from a pooled interview. The other television networks rallied together back then too and the White House backed down. Obama’s administration also excluded Fox from a round of Sunday-show interviews.

In short — other stuff that happened

• Two 19 year olds have been charged with murdering a toddler in Ōtautau. The child died at Starship Hospital after initially being admitted in a critical condition. The accused man and woman have interim name suppression and were denied bail.

• 🇺🇸 The new US-Denmark-Greenland security agreement stops well short of Trump’s earlier talk of taking over Greenland, but it does expand US military access and restrict hostile powers from establishing bases or making sensitive investments.

• Health New Zealand is hiring 380 additional nurses, midwives, and healthcare assistants after its annual staffing review, with the majority of the new roles expected to be nurses. The allocation includes 120 FTEs in the Northern region, 32 in Midland, 76 in Central, and 149 in the South Island. Health NZ is also considering replacing its current staffing formula with patient-to-staff ratios.

• 🇺🇸🇬🇧Prince Harry was giving a speech in New York about the dangers of artificial intelligence when his teleprompter failed. He stood silently for around 11 seconds, eventually said “and that’s it”, and walked off. He eventually returned about 40 minutes later once the technology had recovered. So whose intelligence is artificial?

• A Royal New Zealand Navy lieutenant was acquitted of 3 rape charges at a Devonport court martial on Thursday. His interim name suppression remains in place.

• New Zealand is putting $23.7 million into the next US Wideband Global SATCOM military satellite. We are one of 10 international partners in the programme and receive communications capacity in return.

• 🇺🇸 Dawn Aerospace won both the Defence, Space, and Security with the USA award and the Supreme Award at the AmCham-DHL Express Success & Innovation Awards. The Christchurch-founded company is increasingly building its US presence and has a US$17 million deal to establish operations for its reusable Aurora spaceplane in Oklahoma from 2027.

• 🇬🇧 The BBC has cut 11 sketches from the iPlayer version of That Mitchell and Webb Look, including material involving blackface, a burqa makeover spoof, and jokes about Jimmy Savile, after deciding some of the 20 year old comedy no longer “works today”.

• 🇦🇺 Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford have reportedly bought a NZ$6.5 million, home on Sydney’s northern beaches in the suburb’s largest residential sale this year.

• 🇺🇸 Prominent Philadelphia activist Hannah Gann has admitted that she has been lying for years about being Palestinian and Tunisian saying she is in fact “a white woman of significant privilege and wealth”. She presented herself as mixed-race and built a profile in pro-Palestinian activism.

• 🇰🇷 Converse have caved to the mob, pulling an ad that some viewers said resembled a lynching. A still screenshot from a video featuring K-pop singer Karina could, when isolated from the wider ad, cropped, zoomed in, and viewed in a particular way, make a pair of shoes look like dangling feet and part of a white skirt resemble a pointed hood.

• 🇺🇸 “Looksmaxxing” influencer Braden Peters, better known online as Clavicular, has been charged in Massachusetts with rape, administering a substance for sexual intercourse, and supplying alcohol to a person under 21. The allegations concern a girl who was 17 at the time. He is due to be arraigned next month.

• The Financial Markets Authority has admitted it was incorrectly calculating annual-leave entitlements for its own staff by using 1 July as a standard employment anniversary rather than employees’ actual start dates. Former FMA lawyer Nelson Curry says hundreds of current and former staff may have been overpaid or underpaid.

• ACC paid former chief executive Megan Main $160,630 when her departure was brought forward by several months, as well as nearly $10,000 in legal fees and $13,840 for an Institute of Directors governance course and travel taken after she left. ACC chair Jan Dawson said the principal payment was 3 months’ salary in lieu of Main’s contractual notice period and that the training had previously been approved.

• 🇦🇺The Royal New Zealand Navy and Royal Australian Navy have signed “Plan Tasman”, a new framework to deepen cooperation across training, personnel, capability development, war-fighting, engineering, regulation, and international engagement. RNZN deputy chief Commodore Karl Woodhead described it as moving the relationship from cooperation based on tradition towards “integration by design”.

• Dunedin city councillor Benedict Ong is standing as an independent candidate for the Dunedin electorate, saying council sanctions and political attacks have left him unable to achieve what he wants at local-government level. Ong was asked by councillors to resign after a code-of-conduct finding in March, was suspended from committees for 9 months in May, and was subsequently trespassed from University of Otago premises following complaints about his interactions with students, allegations he denies.

• 🇬🇧 April (James) Groves (51) has been sentenced at Bristol Crown Court to 20 years and 6 months after being convicted of 19 historical offences, including 9 counts of raping a girl whom police said he groomed and abused over several years. He was also convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice and will be subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

• Outgoing Labour MP Greg O’Connor is running as an independent for Wellington City Council’s Northern Ward in the 11 December by-election. O’Connor says he was encouraged to stand by people across the political spectrum and plans to campaign on population growth, business conditions, and Wellington’s cost of living.

• Counselling students say compulsory unpaid placements are driving trainees out of the profession, with a Massey master’s pathway requiring at least 200 hours of counselling practice with real clients. The concern comes as a recent survey found more than 1 in 5 professional counsellors intend to retire, reduce their workload or leave the profession within the next 2 years.

• The Ministry of Education is investigating Horowhenua College after more than a dozen staff and community members reportedly wrote to the Ministry and Teaching Council raising “serious concerns” about leadership and governance. Ministry officials have met the principal and board leadership and say they are establishing the facts before drawing conclusions.

• An unnamed teacher is before the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal accused of sexual contact with an intoxicated 16 year old boy at a New Year’s festival, buying him cigarettes and inviting him back to a caravan to take MDMA and have sex. The teacher denies all allegations and no criminal charges were laid after the teenager went to police.

• 🇧🇷 Trans-identifying male Aurora Naomi La Fey (31) has been arrested in Brazil, on suspicion of assaulting his stepfather (61) who fell from a third floor balcony while trying to escape. He lost both ears and suffered injuries that permanently destroyed his eyesight in the attack and while La Fey admitted assaulting him, he said he could not recall the alleged sexual violence.

• 🇫🇯 Fiji has declared a national HIV emergency after 2,016 people were diagnosed in 2025, UNAIDS estimated about 9,100 people were living with HIV, and government figures put prevalence at roughly one in 60 adults. At Fiji’s largest hospital, 59 babies were born with HIV last year and 18 died before turning one.

• 🌎 Macklemore has announced a “Free Palestine” tour beginning in the Islamic Republics of Dublin, Paris, and London next month after being removed as an opening act from 8 Ed Sheeran shows following his Palestinian activism. He says US dates and additional performers will follow and that proceeds will be donated to organisations supporting Palestinians.

• 🇺🇸 FIRE’s 2026 College Free Speech Rankings found 34% of surveyed US students considered using violence to stop a campus speech acceptable at least in rare circumstances, up from 20% in 2022. The same national data put acceptance of blocking other students from attending a speech at 54% and shouting down speakers at 71%.

• 🇬🇧 British think tank Policy Exchange has called for tighter regulation or abolition of police staff networks, arguing some have moved from internal staff support into contested political and religious advocacy. Its report focuses heavily on the National Association of Muslim Police, which previously hosted a document describing the IDF as a “Zionist terrorist group”.

Stuff you might find interesting this week

In case you missed it, I am going to introduce you to the most incredible drama to hit the internet this week. It is a tale of such extremes that if it were fiction editors would turn it away for being too ridiculous. It is a perfect expression of the woke mind virus and it is, in my opinion, bloody hilarious.

Allow me to introduce you to Last Ditch, a tiny lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts that has accidentally become one of the key drivers of subscriptions to the Boston Globe.

Last Ditch opened last year with earnest ambitions. It was a bar for “dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends”, where poor and homeless people would not be turned away for lack of money, the police were explicitly unwelcome, and everyone inside had to wear a KN95 Covid mask. Its founders talked about creating “systems of care and action and aid”. It was a lesbian bar with activism. Unfortunately, activism does not pay the rent.

More and more customers said they could not afford the cover charge, but the bar let them in anyway. The owners fell behind on bills and could no longer pay themselves or their staff. One of the founders eventually found herself responsible for a US$50,000 business loan and by the time the Boston Globe arrived, they were another $3,900 overdue on their rent.

So, after consulting the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce (yes, it is a real organisation), the bar made the apparently catastrophic decision to try to acquire some paying customers. It announced that Saturday nights would become mask optional.

The Instagram announcement attracted 442 comments. The bar was accused of ableism, racism, and eugenics. People said it was participating in a “mass disabling event”, that relaxing the mask rule would kill disabled people, and one particularly measured contributor said they hoped the venue would be firebombed for suggesting it.

The bar apologised and naturally this made everything worse.

Its apology was posted as an Instagram image without alt-text for visually impaired people, which immediately generated a whole new round of accusations of ableism. Then came the community meeting, which I think is where the story crosses over from satire into pure art. About 10 people sat in a circle in masks, another group joined by Zoom, 2 mediators were brought in to facilitate disagreement, everybody was given 2 minutes to speak, and proceedings began with a calming breathing exercise. Almost immediately, it descended into chaos.

When one mediator, a licensed therapist, suggested social media might be alienating everybody from one another and encouraged people to step away from their places of righteousness, Zoom participants accused her of discriminating against people attending remotely. Her status as a licensed therapist then became a problem because some participants worried that, as a mandated reporter, she was effectively an agent of the state who might have somebody hospitalised against their will.

Eventually the owner, Jackie Matellian, broke down crying while explaining that she had never wanted to run the place alone, had trashed her credit, lived in her truck, and was working 4 jobs to keep it going. And because God apparently decided the story required just one more flourish of the fantastical, it turns out she was having to manage the day-to-day operation of the bar solo because one of the other original founders had enrolled in clown school.

The response from one particularly empathetic member of the Be-Kind Brigade was to accuse her of shedding “WHITE THEY/THEM TEARS”, centring her own feelings, and engaging in racist behaviour. He later told the Globe that he had no sympathy for the owners’ financial predicament.

Relaxing the mask rule did not save the business. On the second mask-optional Saturday the Globe observed, the dance floor was basically empty. Just after midnight there was one customer left at the bar and when she floated the idea of a Lady Gaga night, the bartender explained that this would not do because “Gaga is canceled. Gaga is Zionist.”

Annalisa Quinn wrote all of this up for the Boston Globe, and the story absolutely detonated online. The Globe says it attracted hundreds of thousands of readers and was by far its most read story. Local newspapers have spent years desperately searching for a sustainable business model in the age of social media and AI. Apparently the answer was sitting there all along…

Intersectional Alphabet Mafia in-fighting.

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.