The latest polling hasn’t made life any better for either of the two Chrises. An Anacta poll (conducted by Labour’s former pollster Talbot Mills for corporate clients) has Labour on 29%, National on 28%, the Greens on 15%, New Zealand First on 10%, ACT on 9%, and Opportunity on 5.4%. Te Pāti Māori is languishing at 1.9%, but that is part of the strategy. The poll was conducted before the Mongrel Mob visit became controversial, however. The 1News Verian poll earlier in the week also placed Opportunity in the position of potential kingmaker. There continues to be little enthusiasm for either of the Chrises with both on 22% as preferred prime minister in the Anacta polling.
National has released its fiscal plan, promising a continuation of fiscal discipline which is odd because in order to continue something you tend to have had to do it in the first place. They are dangling tax relief in 2029 once the books return to surplus. ACT has pushed their fiscal plan further promising $12.4 billion less debt by 2031, an earlier return to surplus, and a smaller government with 19 departments and 18 ministers.
Labour, meanwhile, has spent the week promoting what it calls the $6,000 “Cost of Luxon”, an attempt to calculate how much worse off households are as a result of increases in living costs they blame Luxon for. Trouble came, however, when campaign chair Kieran McAnulty was asked what those same household expenses would be under a Labour government. Labour hadn’t done those calculations.
National had its own woes stemming from Luxon’s minimum wage gaff during the NZ Herald leaders’ debate in which he ended up agreeing that the minimum wage should rise in line with inflation, before subsequently clarifying that he had not intended to make any such commitment.
New Zealand First’s proposal to replace the Accredited Employer Work Visa with a system tied to genuine occupational and regional shortages received an unexpected endorsement from the Migrant Workers Association. President Anu Kaloti acknowledged that removing the dependence on individual employers was something migrant advocates had been requesting for years. Slightly awkward since she and the organisation held a mock public execution of Winston Peters just a few months ago.
The gang pad visit that has given Hipkins a migraine
Of all the brainfarts to have during this election campaign, Green and Te Pāti Māori politicians visiting a Mongrel Mob gang pad to campaign for votes and then posing enthusiastically for photographs with patched gang members must rank fairly highly.
The visit, involving Green MP Hūhana Lyndon, Green candidate Michel Mulipola, and Te Pāti Māori MPs Oriini Kaipara and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, was facilitated by Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam.
Green co-leader Marama Davidson has defended her candidates and insists that there was nothing inappropriate about the visit. When asked by Guyon Espiner whether the Greens would take a similarly accommodating attitude towards Destiny Church, she objected to the church’s harmful rhetoric. Espiner responded that the Mongrel Mob has rather an established record of harmful conduct itself.
Chris Hipkins has rapidly denounced the visit and ruled out giving the Greens or Te Pāti Māori the Police and Corrections portfolios in a future Labour-led government. Even Willie Jackson acknowledged that the visit was politically stupid though his emphasis was on its impact on the left’s ability to win.
The Greens have also indicated that they would consider restoring funding for rehabilitation programmes run by gang-affiliated organisations. Chris Hipkins again reacted in horror and probably had to swallow the impulse to scream “will you shut the hell up!” at his potential coalition partners. Either Swarbrick or Davidson could well be Deputy Prime Minister in his government should the left prevail.
The public seem pretty united in their disapproval of hanging out with the Mob. Curia polling from 2023 found just 3% of New Zealanders viewed the Mongrel Mob positively, compared with 82% who viewed it negatively. Even Green voters were overwhelmingly negative.
READ MY REACTION TO THE MONGREL MOB PAD VISIT.
Election 2026: The travelling circus
Labour held a rally at Kelston Girls’ College in West Auckland, where Chris Hipkins was unrelenting in his attacks on Luxon, reminding the audience that Labour had achieved record low unemployment during its time in government. He left out the bit where this was achieved during pandemic restrictions, border closures, enormous government expenditure, and labour shortages.
Luxon headed to Greymouth, where he was met by about a hundred supporters and some fairly blunt assessments of the country’s position. One local businessman gave the coalition a 6 out of 10 and said 3 years hadn’t been enough to sort out the economy.
In Auckland Central, Chloe Swarbrick is facing a changed electorate due to boundary adjustments and an excellent National candidate in Candace Kinser who has impressive business and governance experience and is capable of encountering disagreement with without scowling and becoming petulant.
In Tāmaki, Hipkins joined Labour’s top antisemite, Max Harris, on the campaign trail. Also in the electorate (my own) ACT’s James Christmas has faced the ire online for comments he made to Winston Peters about abortion which led to him whacking back with accusations of stealth co-governance agendas. It is unlikely to bleed into the real world where the men of the electorate tend to be loyal to the centre-right while their wives reject social conservatism.
The Wellington Bays electorate provided a little campaign spectacle when National candidate Karunā Muthu walked out of a public meeting, complaining that the questions were biased towards the left. Naturally, the left wing candidates say there was nothing wrong with the questions.
The Aro Valley candidates’ debate was predictably chaotic. ACT’s Matthew Hague was booed, NZ First’s Taylor Arneil endured jokes about tobacco, and Tamatha Paul was moved to tears when the audience started singing in te reo. People who couldn’t fit inside the community centre listened and asked questions through the windows.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: get enrolled to vote ASAP if you have not. Enrolment closes on 25 October.
Opportunity knocks. Luxon pretends nobody's home.
Christopher Luxon has repeatedly ruled out working with Opportunity. On Thursday, however, he told supporters on the West Coast that he would work with “whoever I have to” to secure another term. His office promptly issued a clarification insisting that whoever did not, in fact, include Opportunity.
It is difficult to see how this position will be sustained if Opportunity clears 5% and holds the balance of power. David Seymour has told supporters that a 4 party coalition involving Opportunity would be preferable to allowing Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori into government. But he remains sceptical about who was really calling the shots at Opportunity. Interestingly, Labour’s Kieran McAnulty has been candid in indictating that he would prefer working with Opportunity over Te Pāti Māori.
Opportunity has meanwhile found itself facing criticism from its own founder, cat-culling enthusiast Gareth Morgan. He has criticised its proposed land tax as regressive and damaging to entrepreneurship.
Speak Up For Women takes NZ Police, Customs, and Human Rights Commission to court
In news that has been totally ignored by the media, Speak Up for Women has commenced proceedings in the Wellington High Court challenging the legality of New Zealand Police and Customs policies governing who may carry out strip searches.
Spokeswoman Suzanne Levy argues that the agencies have unlawfully substituted gender identity for biological sex when interpreting the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. Section 126(4) of that Act requires strip searches to be conducted by a person of the same sex as the person being searched, and prohibits them from being carried out in view of people of the opposite sex.
Strip searches are among the most intrusive powers the state can exercise over an individual, involving a profound loss of privacy and personal autonomy, often in circumstances where the person has no ability to refuse.
Speak Up for Women raised its concerns with Police and Customs in March 2025. But correspondence with both agencies and a subsequent review of Customs guidance failed to resolve the issue, prompting the legal challenge. The Attorney General is named as respondent on behalf of Police and Customs and Justice Grau has directed that the proceedings also be served on the Human Rights Commission.
The court will be asked to determine whether the agencies’ interpretation of the legislation is lawful. This is super important because public agencies do not have unlimited authority to reinterpret statutory safeguards according to whichever fashionable understanding of sex and gender happens to be popular with their staff. If Parliament intended a particular protection to apply on the basis of gender identity rather than sex, that is a matter for Parliament to legislate.
Is the Teaching Council even fit for purpose?
An independent review into the Teaching Council’s handling of convicted child sex offender Timothy Fisher is some of the most appalling reading I have encountered in quite some time.
Fisher was sentenced to 4 years and 5 months in prison after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting 9 students, attempting to make intimate recordings of children, possessing thousands of objectionable publications, and producing objectionable recordings. His offending included filming himself masturbating in proximity to students and most of the convictions involved children under 12.
Katherine Anderson KC’s 127 page interim report examines how somebody with such an alarming history was allowed to remain within the teaching profession notwithstanding repeated opportunities for intervention. Fisher was first registered as a teacher in 2011 despite having previous indecency convictions from 2002. Those convictions were concealed due to the Clean Slate Act and were not disclosed in initial police vetting. But by 2015, Fisher’s history had come to the council’s attention, including a police warning that he should not have unsupervised access to children. The council nevertheless failed to take action and Anderson’s impression was that the police warning was simply in the “too hard basket”.
Education Minister Erica Stanford says the Teaching Council has developed a rotten culture, one in which maintaining the profession’s standing, and preserving relationships is put above the obligation to protect children. She has also criticised the influence of teaching unions over the council, arguing that those responsible for advocating for teachers should not simultaneously dominate their professional regulator. Too right.
Current NZEI president Ripeka Lessels, a former deputy chair and long serving member of the Teaching Council during the period in which it repeatedly failed to act against the child sex offender, has come under particular scrutiny. Stanford has questioned whether her continued leadership of the union is tenable. The current council chair, Patrick Walsh, also held previous roles within the council’s governing and disciplinary structures during the period.
Victims advocate Ruth Money has called for heads to roll. I am inclined to agree.
How to make a story more interesting by leaving bits out
There were two stark examples this week of reporting which raised eyebrows about the information journalists choose to put before the public.
The first concerned RNZ publishing a story using Health New Zealand staffing data obtained by the Nurses Organisation. Its accompanying chart showed the proportion of shifts below staffing targets increasing over the year and reaching approximately 85% in August. However, there is a more complete chart available showing the figures continuing beyond August. On that updated graph, improvement was clear with September’s figure was 73.3%, while the period from 1 to 14 October was 33.3%.
The second example relates to The Press published an interview with former Clutha mayor Bryan Cadogan, who described himself as a long time National voter who had become disillusioned with the party. Catnip for our media.
Unfortunately, they left out a kinda pertinent detail. Labour MP Ingrid Leary had publicly thanked Cadogan in an earlier Facebook post calling him “our New Zealand Labour Party campaign lead here in the Clutha parts of Taieri”. The connection was highlighted by commentator Liam Hehir due to the fact that The Press article did not contain a disclosure or authorisation statement.
Leary says his involvement has largely consisted of putting up hoardings, but Cadogan acknowledged participating in a Labour policy committee.
The miraculous progressive awakening of retired National politicians
Former National Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has emerged from political retirement to criticise his old party’s proposal for random drug testing of Jobseeker beneficiaries. Coleman describes the policy as punitive and argues that people with serious addiction problems need treatment rather than further stigma.
Which is kinda ironic given in August 2012, when he was a Cabinet Minister, National announced that Jobseekers who refused suitable jobs requiring drug tests, or if they failed those tests, could face benefit sanctions.
🌎 Ilhan Omar, the Falklands, and Canadian insanity
In international news, the perpetually aggrieved US Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar has found herself under renewed federal investigation with agents searching her Washington home.
Investigators are examining whether Omar or her relatives provided false information when entering the United States as refugees in the 1990s or when obtaining citizenship. Questions reportedly include whether her date of birth was misrepresented (and later changed) and whether her father omitted information about his military background in Somalia. She is also alleged to have married her own brother for immigration reasons.
Predictably, Omar has responded by accusing Donald Trump of political intimidation and weaponising the justice system against his opponents. Unfortunately for her preferred narrative of persecution, federal prosecutors were already examining Omar’s finances under the Biden administration.
Down south, Argentina’s President Javier Milei has managed to drag the Falkland Islands back into the international conversation, with an adviser claiming that Britain is becoming sufficiently Islamised that Argentina should rescue the Falklands from its future.
Back up North, the Supreme Court in Canada has been performing judicial gymnastics trying to reconcile two apparently competing priorities of keeping Indigenous men out of prison and protecting Indigenous women from violence. Unfortunately, in this particular case, the woman has drawn the short straw.
In June 2021, Harry Arthur Cope, a Mi’kmaw man with a substantial criminal history, brutally assaulted his Indigenous partner in Nova Scotia. He repeatedly punched her and threw her to the ground, leaving her face swollen and covered in blood, with serious injuries. Cope pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, but at sentencing, the court heard about his mental health problems, drug use, and trauma, and how much of this was due to the effects of colonialism. A First Nations sentencing circle concluded that further imprisonment wouldn’t help him and recommended treatment instead. The sentencing judge considered all of this, but taking into account the seriousness of the violence and the particular vulnerability of Indigenous women, sentenced him to 5 years in prison.
That, apparently, was too harsh! The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal reduced his sentence to 3 years, and last week Canada’s Supreme Court upheld that reduction in a narrow 5–4 decision. The majority found the original judge had not given adequate consideration to the sentencing circle’s recommendations.
Helen Clark reckons saying “no” to the UN is a national emergency
Winston Peters directed New Zealand to abstain from a United Nations declaration on pandemic preparedness. The declaration was non-binding, and New Zealand was among a tiny group of countries that did not support it. Of course, true Leader of the Opposition, Helen Clark, described the decision as “humiliating”, while her understudy, Chris Hipkins, accused the Government of indulging conspiracy theories.
Peters says the issue is sovereignty and New Zealand’s ability to make its own health decisions. National ministers reportedly preferred supporting the declaratio, but the decision was ultimately made by Peters as Foreign Minister.
Buck off! How Kiwibank made a sheep an international sex symbol
New Zealand is once again receiving attention from American late-night television host John Oliver, and this time it is because people on the internet have decided they would like to have sexual relations with Kiwibank’s cartoon sheep. Nope, not kidding.
Kiwibank introduced Buck, a green sheep mascot, as part of a advertising campaign and somebody on X posted that they would like to “f***” the sheep, and the internet did what the internet does. An elaborate collection of jokes, memes, and other deeply questionable artistic contributions about Buck’s supposed attractiveness ensued. Kiwibank, apparently unfamiliar with the fundamental laws governing the internet, responded by issuing copyright takedown notices and this made everything approximately a thousand million times worse.
The controversy eventually made its way onto John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, where it was presented to an American audience already quite familiar with the longstanding stereotype involving New Zealanders and sheep. It is not the first time Oliver has developed an interest in our little country. He famously hijacked the 2023 Bird of the Century competition by campaigning for the pūteketeke, complete with elaborate advertising and an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show dressed as the bird. He has also previously enjoyed making fun of our flag referendum and “dildo-gate” when Steven Joyce was struck by one on the campaign trail.
The Free Speech Union has entered the fray, challenging Kiwibank’s use of copyright law to suppress parody and commentary. If we cannot make fun of a sheep with luscious eyelashes what can we make fun of?
Starship's sick children deserve better than political point-scoring
The reports about children’s cancer treatment being delayed at Starship Hospital are deeply distressing. Health Minister Simeon Brown has confirmed that “a handful” of chemotherapy sessions had faced “some minor delays”. He went on to say “Any delay is unacceptable for any patient. But I’m the first to acknowledge that our health system has significant pressures and there is always more work to do to make sure patients are getting the care and treatment they need.”
As part of the coverage, NZ Herald ran the headline “Dad blasts Simeon Brown over response to Starship cancer treatment delays”. However while the father of an ill child did have choice words for the Minister, further down the article he is quoted saying “Frankly it’s just a load of s***. To see cancer kids being used as political footballs ... I’m equally p***** off with Labour.”
While I have no interest in pretending these problems are insignificant and that we don’t have deeply entrenched decades long issues in our health system, it is worth examining the extraordinary amnesia of the media and opposition politicians that leads them to treat every adverse development in the public health system as proof that the present Government has stopped funding healthcare and have created a crisis. That simply isn’t supported by evidence.
According to the Ministry of Health, funding for 2026/27 is approximately $33.03 billion, compared with $30.48 billion at the beginning of 2025/26. When Labour are complaining about funding, they conveniently forget that in their last budget in 2023/24 they funded health $27.13 billion. These are nominal funding figures, of course, and they don't account for inflation or population growth. But they do make the claim that the health system has simply been starved of money difficult to sustain.
And while, yes, our system continues to be under pressure as it was under the last several governments, performance figures show improvements across all 5 health targets. In the April-June quarter, 72.6% of patients received elective treatment within 4 months, compared with 63.9% in the same quarter the previous year. The proportion receiving a first specialist assessment within 4 months increased from 62% to 66.1%. And emergency department patients admitted, discharged, or transferred within 6 hours increased from 73.9% to 76.3%. Faster cancer treatment also improved, with 87% of patients beginning treatment within 31 days, up from 86.3% the previous year. Childhood immunisation rates have improved as well.
These are the official Health New Zealand performance figures, not numbers somebody in National’s campaign office has invented.
🌎 Please, just play the bloody music
The New Zealand music industry held its annual Silver Scroll Awards this week, and Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith stoically showed up even though he would have known he would be about as welcome as dog turd ground into in the carpet. Host Madeleine Sami even jokingly asked whether he had come for a roast. While others, who I had never heard of, fancied themselves as New Zealand’s answer to Macklemore and gave impassioned speeches riddled with political ignorance. Other interruptions continued throughout the evening, including someone making vomiting noises every time the minister was mentioned. Goldsmith eventually left early and fair enough too. I do sometimes wonder whether the arts community realises how tiresome its political self-importance is.
Also this week, musicians that people have actually heard of called out this crap. Metallica frontman James Hetfield spoke during a concert at the Las Vegas Sphere, explaining that Metallica wasn’t there to influence them with political bullsh*t. The band’s agenda, he said, was love, energy, and heavy music. And Nothing Else Matters.
Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx has expressed a similar sentiment, telling audiences that the band doesn’t care whether they are Republican, Democrat, gay, straight or somewhere in the middle. Everybody is welcome to enjoy their music together.
Brian Tamaki gets a visit from the police
Destiny Church’s bishop is in trouble again. Brian Tamaki was visited by police on Thursday and served with a summons to appear at the Manukau District Court on Monday, facing 3 charges of allegedly inciting racial disharmony under the Human Rights Act. Tamaki livestreamed the visit and immediately described the prosecution as an attack on free speech.
He believes the charges are about comments he made a few months back regarding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But he contends he criticised political and religious beliefs rather than people on the basis of race, and denies advocating violence. He could find himself in a spot of bother with his call for a “purge” of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, and asking why mosques and temples should not be burned down. It was in the context of comparing to Christian persecution in India, but it does take him closer to the incitement line.
The charges require the consent of the Solicitor General to prosecute, and police have confirmed the matter is before the court.
In short — other stuff that happened
I have had a busy week and in addition to the piece I wrote about the Mongrel Mob, I also wrote about the promises parties are making about jobs and about the Cornell 7 situation (as promised.
A piece by Roger Partridge for LawNews also caught my attention this week. He examines the extent of the Chief Justice’s influence over appointments to New Zealand’s most senior courts, arguing that the process has developed beyond what Parliament provided for and has insufficient democratic accountability. It is worth reading, especially given the continuing debate about the proper boundaries between Parliament, the executive, and the courts.
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.
Labour, meanwhile, has spent the week promoting what it calls the $6,000 “Cost of Luxon”, an attempt to calculate how much worse off households are as a result of increases in living costs they blame Luxon for. Trouble came, however, when campaign chair Kieran McAnulty was asked what those same household expenses would be under a Labour government. Labour hadn’t done those calculations.
National had its own woes stemming from Luxon’s minimum wage gaff during the NZ Herald leaders’ debate in which he ended up agreeing that the minimum wage should rise in line with inflation, before subsequently clarifying that he had not intended to make any such commitment.
New Zealand First’s proposal to replace the Accredited Employer Work Visa with a system tied to genuine occupational and regional shortages received an unexpected endorsement from the Migrant Workers Association. President Anu Kaloti acknowledged that removing the dependence on individual employers was something migrant advocates had been requesting for years. Slightly awkward since she and the organisation held a mock public execution of Winston Peters just a few months ago.
The gang pad visit that has given Hipkins a migraine
Of all the brainfarts to have during this election campaign, Green and Te Pāti Māori politicians visiting a Mongrel Mob gang pad to campaign for votes and then posing enthusiastically for photographs with patched gang members must rank fairly highly.
The visit, involving Green MP Hūhana Lyndon, Green candidate Michel Mulipola, and Te Pāti Māori MPs Oriini Kaipara and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, was facilitated by Mongrel Mob life member Harry Tam.
Green co-leader Marama Davidson has defended her candidates and insists that there was nothing inappropriate about the visit. When asked by Guyon Espiner whether the Greens would take a similarly accommodating attitude towards Destiny Church, she objected to the church’s harmful rhetoric. Espiner responded that the Mongrel Mob has rather an established record of harmful conduct itself.
Chris Hipkins has rapidly denounced the visit and ruled out giving the Greens or Te Pāti Māori the Police and Corrections portfolios in a future Labour-led government. Even Willie Jackson acknowledged that the visit was politically stupid though his emphasis was on its impact on the left’s ability to win.
The Greens have also indicated that they would consider restoring funding for rehabilitation programmes run by gang-affiliated organisations. Chris Hipkins again reacted in horror and probably had to swallow the impulse to scream “will you shut the hell up!” at his potential coalition partners. Either Swarbrick or Davidson could well be Deputy Prime Minister in his government should the left prevail.
The public seem pretty united in their disapproval of hanging out with the Mob. Curia polling from 2023 found just 3% of New Zealanders viewed the Mongrel Mob positively, compared with 82% who viewed it negatively. Even Green voters were overwhelmingly negative.
READ MY REACTION TO THE MONGREL MOB PAD VISIT.
Election 2026: The travelling circus
Labour held a rally at Kelston Girls’ College in West Auckland, where Chris Hipkins was unrelenting in his attacks on Luxon, reminding the audience that Labour had achieved record low unemployment during its time in government. He left out the bit where this was achieved during pandemic restrictions, border closures, enormous government expenditure, and labour shortages.
Luxon headed to Greymouth, where he was met by about a hundred supporters and some fairly blunt assessments of the country’s position. One local businessman gave the coalition a 6 out of 10 and said 3 years hadn’t been enough to sort out the economy.
In Auckland Central, Chloe Swarbrick is facing a changed electorate due to boundary adjustments and an excellent National candidate in Candace Kinser who has impressive business and governance experience and is capable of encountering disagreement with without scowling and becoming petulant.
In Tāmaki, Hipkins joined Labour’s top antisemite, Max Harris, on the campaign trail. Also in the electorate (my own) ACT’s James Christmas has faced the ire online for comments he made to Winston Peters about abortion which led to him whacking back with accusations of stealth co-governance agendas. It is unlikely to bleed into the real world where the men of the electorate tend to be loyal to the centre-right while their wives reject social conservatism.
The Wellington Bays electorate provided a little campaign spectacle when National candidate Karunā Muthu walked out of a public meeting, complaining that the questions were biased towards the left. Naturally, the left wing candidates say there was nothing wrong with the questions.
The Aro Valley candidates’ debate was predictably chaotic. ACT’s Matthew Hague was booed, NZ First’s Taylor Arneil endured jokes about tobacco, and Tamatha Paul was moved to tears when the audience started singing in te reo. People who couldn’t fit inside the community centre listened and asked questions through the windows.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: get enrolled to vote ASAP if you have not. Enrolment closes on 25 October.
Opportunity knocks. Luxon pretends nobody's home.
Christopher Luxon has repeatedly ruled out working with Opportunity. On Thursday, however, he told supporters on the West Coast that he would work with “whoever I have to” to secure another term. His office promptly issued a clarification insisting that whoever did not, in fact, include Opportunity.
It is difficult to see how this position will be sustained if Opportunity clears 5% and holds the balance of power. David Seymour has told supporters that a 4 party coalition involving Opportunity would be preferable to allowing Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori into government. But he remains sceptical about who was really calling the shots at Opportunity. Interestingly, Labour’s Kieran McAnulty has been candid in indictating that he would prefer working with Opportunity over Te Pāti Māori.
Opportunity has meanwhile found itself facing criticism from its own founder, cat-culling enthusiast Gareth Morgan. He has criticised its proposed land tax as regressive and damaging to entrepreneurship.
Speak Up For Women takes NZ Police, Customs, and Human Rights Commission to court
In news that has been totally ignored by the media, Speak Up for Women has commenced proceedings in the Wellington High Court challenging the legality of New Zealand Police and Customs policies governing who may carry out strip searches.
Spokeswoman Suzanne Levy argues that the agencies have unlawfully substituted gender identity for biological sex when interpreting the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. Section 126(4) of that Act requires strip searches to be conducted by a person of the same sex as the person being searched, and prohibits them from being carried out in view of people of the opposite sex.
Strip searches are among the most intrusive powers the state can exercise over an individual, involving a profound loss of privacy and personal autonomy, often in circumstances where the person has no ability to refuse.
Speak Up for Women raised its concerns with Police and Customs in March 2025. But correspondence with both agencies and a subsequent review of Customs guidance failed to resolve the issue, prompting the legal challenge. The Attorney General is named as respondent on behalf of Police and Customs and Justice Grau has directed that the proceedings also be served on the Human Rights Commission.
The court will be asked to determine whether the agencies’ interpretation of the legislation is lawful. This is super important because public agencies do not have unlimited authority to reinterpret statutory safeguards according to whichever fashionable understanding of sex and gender happens to be popular with their staff. If Parliament intended a particular protection to apply on the basis of gender identity rather than sex, that is a matter for Parliament to legislate.
Is the Teaching Council even fit for purpose?
An independent review into the Teaching Council’s handling of convicted child sex offender Timothy Fisher is some of the most appalling reading I have encountered in quite some time.
Fisher was sentenced to 4 years and 5 months in prison after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting 9 students, attempting to make intimate recordings of children, possessing thousands of objectionable publications, and producing objectionable recordings. His offending included filming himself masturbating in proximity to students and most of the convictions involved children under 12.
Katherine Anderson KC’s 127 page interim report examines how somebody with such an alarming history was allowed to remain within the teaching profession notwithstanding repeated opportunities for intervention. Fisher was first registered as a teacher in 2011 despite having previous indecency convictions from 2002. Those convictions were concealed due to the Clean Slate Act and were not disclosed in initial police vetting. But by 2015, Fisher’s history had come to the council’s attention, including a police warning that he should not have unsupervised access to children. The council nevertheless failed to take action and Anderson’s impression was that the police warning was simply in the “too hard basket”.
Education Minister Erica Stanford says the Teaching Council has developed a rotten culture, one in which maintaining the profession’s standing, and preserving relationships is put above the obligation to protect children. She has also criticised the influence of teaching unions over the council, arguing that those responsible for advocating for teachers should not simultaneously dominate their professional regulator. Too right.
Current NZEI president Ripeka Lessels, a former deputy chair and long serving member of the Teaching Council during the period in which it repeatedly failed to act against the child sex offender, has come under particular scrutiny. Stanford has questioned whether her continued leadership of the union is tenable. The current council chair, Patrick Walsh, also held previous roles within the council’s governing and disciplinary structures during the period.
Victims advocate Ruth Money has called for heads to roll. I am inclined to agree.
How to make a story more interesting by leaving bits out
There were two stark examples this week of reporting which raised eyebrows about the information journalists choose to put before the public.
The first concerned RNZ publishing a story using Health New Zealand staffing data obtained by the Nurses Organisation. Its accompanying chart showed the proportion of shifts below staffing targets increasing over the year and reaching approximately 85% in August. However, there is a more complete chart available showing the figures continuing beyond August. On that updated graph, improvement was clear with September’s figure was 73.3%, while the period from 1 to 14 October was 33.3%.
The second example relates to The Press published an interview with former Clutha mayor Bryan Cadogan, who described himself as a long time National voter who had become disillusioned with the party. Catnip for our media.
Unfortunately, they left out a kinda pertinent detail. Labour MP Ingrid Leary had publicly thanked Cadogan in an earlier Facebook post calling him “our New Zealand Labour Party campaign lead here in the Clutha parts of Taieri”. The connection was highlighted by commentator Liam Hehir due to the fact that The Press article did not contain a disclosure or authorisation statement.
Leary says his involvement has largely consisted of putting up hoardings, but Cadogan acknowledged participating in a Labour policy committee.
The miraculous progressive awakening of retired National politicians
Former National Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has emerged from political retirement to criticise his old party’s proposal for random drug testing of Jobseeker beneficiaries. Coleman describes the policy as punitive and argues that people with serious addiction problems need treatment rather than further stigma.
Which is kinda ironic given in August 2012, when he was a Cabinet Minister, National announced that Jobseekers who refused suitable jobs requiring drug tests, or if they failed those tests, could face benefit sanctions.
🌎 Ilhan Omar, the Falklands, and Canadian insanity
In international news, the perpetually aggrieved US Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar has found herself under renewed federal investigation with agents searching her Washington home.
Investigators are examining whether Omar or her relatives provided false information when entering the United States as refugees in the 1990s or when obtaining citizenship. Questions reportedly include whether her date of birth was misrepresented (and later changed) and whether her father omitted information about his military background in Somalia. She is also alleged to have married her own brother for immigration reasons.
Predictably, Omar has responded by accusing Donald Trump of political intimidation and weaponising the justice system against his opponents. Unfortunately for her preferred narrative of persecution, federal prosecutors were already examining Omar’s finances under the Biden administration.
Down south, Argentina’s President Javier Milei has managed to drag the Falkland Islands back into the international conversation, with an adviser claiming that Britain is becoming sufficiently Islamised that Argentina should rescue the Falklands from its future.
Back up North, the Supreme Court in Canada has been performing judicial gymnastics trying to reconcile two apparently competing priorities of keeping Indigenous men out of prison and protecting Indigenous women from violence. Unfortunately, in this particular case, the woman has drawn the short straw.
In June 2021, Harry Arthur Cope, a Mi’kmaw man with a substantial criminal history, brutally assaulted his Indigenous partner in Nova Scotia. He repeatedly punched her and threw her to the ground, leaving her face swollen and covered in blood, with serious injuries. Cope pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, but at sentencing, the court heard about his mental health problems, drug use, and trauma, and how much of this was due to the effects of colonialism. A First Nations sentencing circle concluded that further imprisonment wouldn’t help him and recommended treatment instead. The sentencing judge considered all of this, but taking into account the seriousness of the violence and the particular vulnerability of Indigenous women, sentenced him to 5 years in prison.
That, apparently, was too harsh! The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal reduced his sentence to 3 years, and last week Canada’s Supreme Court upheld that reduction in a narrow 5–4 decision. The majority found the original judge had not given adequate consideration to the sentencing circle’s recommendations.
Helen Clark reckons saying “no” to the UN is a national emergency
Winston Peters directed New Zealand to abstain from a United Nations declaration on pandemic preparedness. The declaration was non-binding, and New Zealand was among a tiny group of countries that did not support it. Of course, true Leader of the Opposition, Helen Clark, described the decision as “humiliating”, while her understudy, Chris Hipkins, accused the Government of indulging conspiracy theories.
Peters says the issue is sovereignty and New Zealand’s ability to make its own health decisions. National ministers reportedly preferred supporting the declaratio, but the decision was ultimately made by Peters as Foreign Minister.
Buck off! How Kiwibank made a sheep an international sex symbol
New Zealand is once again receiving attention from American late-night television host John Oliver, and this time it is because people on the internet have decided they would like to have sexual relations with Kiwibank’s cartoon sheep. Nope, not kidding.
Kiwibank introduced Buck, a green sheep mascot, as part of a advertising campaign and somebody on X posted that they would like to “f***” the sheep, and the internet did what the internet does. An elaborate collection of jokes, memes, and other deeply questionable artistic contributions about Buck’s supposed attractiveness ensued. Kiwibank, apparently unfamiliar with the fundamental laws governing the internet, responded by issuing copyright takedown notices and this made everything approximately a thousand million times worse.
The controversy eventually made its way onto John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, where it was presented to an American audience already quite familiar with the longstanding stereotype involving New Zealanders and sheep. It is not the first time Oliver has developed an interest in our little country. He famously hijacked the 2023 Bird of the Century competition by campaigning for the pūteketeke, complete with elaborate advertising and an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show dressed as the bird. He has also previously enjoyed making fun of our flag referendum and “dildo-gate” when Steven Joyce was struck by one on the campaign trail.
The Free Speech Union has entered the fray, challenging Kiwibank’s use of copyright law to suppress parody and commentary. If we cannot make fun of a sheep with luscious eyelashes what can we make fun of?
Starship's sick children deserve better than political point-scoring
The reports about children’s cancer treatment being delayed at Starship Hospital are deeply distressing. Health Minister Simeon Brown has confirmed that “a handful” of chemotherapy sessions had faced “some minor delays”. He went on to say “Any delay is unacceptable for any patient. But I’m the first to acknowledge that our health system has significant pressures and there is always more work to do to make sure patients are getting the care and treatment they need.”
As part of the coverage, NZ Herald ran the headline “Dad blasts Simeon Brown over response to Starship cancer treatment delays”. However while the father of an ill child did have choice words for the Minister, further down the article he is quoted saying “Frankly it’s just a load of s***. To see cancer kids being used as political footballs ... I’m equally p***** off with Labour.”
While I have no interest in pretending these problems are insignificant and that we don’t have deeply entrenched decades long issues in our health system, it is worth examining the extraordinary amnesia of the media and opposition politicians that leads them to treat every adverse development in the public health system as proof that the present Government has stopped funding healthcare and have created a crisis. That simply isn’t supported by evidence.
According to the Ministry of Health, funding for 2026/27 is approximately $33.03 billion, compared with $30.48 billion at the beginning of 2025/26. When Labour are complaining about funding, they conveniently forget that in their last budget in 2023/24 they funded health $27.13 billion. These are nominal funding figures, of course, and they don't account for inflation or population growth. But they do make the claim that the health system has simply been starved of money difficult to sustain.
And while, yes, our system continues to be under pressure as it was under the last several governments, performance figures show improvements across all 5 health targets. In the April-June quarter, 72.6% of patients received elective treatment within 4 months, compared with 63.9% in the same quarter the previous year. The proportion receiving a first specialist assessment within 4 months increased from 62% to 66.1%. And emergency department patients admitted, discharged, or transferred within 6 hours increased from 73.9% to 76.3%. Faster cancer treatment also improved, with 87% of patients beginning treatment within 31 days, up from 86.3% the previous year. Childhood immunisation rates have improved as well.
These are the official Health New Zealand performance figures, not numbers somebody in National’s campaign office has invented.
🌎 Please, just play the bloody music
The New Zealand music industry held its annual Silver Scroll Awards this week, and Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith stoically showed up even though he would have known he would be about as welcome as dog turd ground into in the carpet. Host Madeleine Sami even jokingly asked whether he had come for a roast. While others, who I had never heard of, fancied themselves as New Zealand’s answer to Macklemore and gave impassioned speeches riddled with political ignorance. Other interruptions continued throughout the evening, including someone making vomiting noises every time the minister was mentioned. Goldsmith eventually left early and fair enough too. I do sometimes wonder whether the arts community realises how tiresome its political self-importance is.
Also this week, musicians that people have actually heard of called out this crap. Metallica frontman James Hetfield spoke during a concert at the Las Vegas Sphere, explaining that Metallica wasn’t there to influence them with political bullsh*t. The band’s agenda, he said, was love, energy, and heavy music. And Nothing Else Matters.
Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx has expressed a similar sentiment, telling audiences that the band doesn’t care whether they are Republican, Democrat, gay, straight or somewhere in the middle. Everybody is welcome to enjoy their music together.
Brian Tamaki gets a visit from the police
Destiny Church’s bishop is in trouble again. Brian Tamaki was visited by police on Thursday and served with a summons to appear at the Manukau District Court on Monday, facing 3 charges of allegedly inciting racial disharmony under the Human Rights Act. Tamaki livestreamed the visit and immediately described the prosecution as an attack on free speech.
He believes the charges are about comments he made a few months back regarding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But he contends he criticised political and religious beliefs rather than people on the basis of race, and denies advocating violence. He could find himself in a spot of bother with his call for a “purge” of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, and asking why mosques and temples should not be burned down. It was in the context of comparing to Christian persecution in India, but it does take him closer to the incitement line.
The charges require the consent of the Solicitor General to prosecute, and police have confirmed the matter is before the court.
In short — other stuff that happened
- 🇬🇧 William Chapman was killed after entering tiger enclosure at Yorkshire wildlife park. Witnesses reported that the man was heard telling the animal to stop being naughty before he was fatally attacked. The park has confirmed the tiger, Altai, will not be euthanised.
- 🇬🇧 Russell Brand’s rape trial has begun in London. Brand (51) faces 7 charges involving 6 women, including 3 counts of rape, 3 of sexual assault and 1 of indecent assault, relating to alleged incidents between 1999 and 2009. Prosecutors described him as a “ruthless” and “manipulative” sexual predator, while Brand denies all charges.
- 🇺🇸 Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem (42) seems to have lived his own version of Final Destination before he died this week after falling from a rollercoaster in Georgia, USA. He had survived cancer twice, a serious COVID-19 illness, and a car fire just 3 weeks earlier.
- Police are examining the Free Palestine Party’s celebration of the October 7 Hamas attacks. Party president Paul Hopkinson described the October 7 attacks as a “victory” at a Christchurch rally attended by Green MP Kahu Carter, while the party published a statement celebrating Hamas fighters. The party has been allocated more than $82,000 in taxpayer-funded election broadcasting money.
- The High Court has declined to grant an interim injunction preventing the NRL’s new Papua New Guinea Chiefs from using the name, but New Zealand Rugby’s main trademark infringement case remains before the court.
- The Greens are promising to repeal the gang patch ban. Co-leader Marama Davidson confirmed the party would reverse the Government’s ban, arguing it had failed to reduce gang numbers and further marginalised gang members.
- Cliff Curtis was excused from Auckland District Court on Thursday while recovering from internal injuries sustained in a crash that left a taxi driver seriously injured. Curtis faces charges of reckless driving and driving with excess breath alcohol causing injury, but has yet to enter a plea. He has been bailed.
- The Government has advanced plans for a floating LNG facility at Port Taranaki. MBIE has confirmed it is negotiating with a preferred provider for a floating storage and regasification vessel at the port’s main breakwater, although ministers say no final contract will be signed before the election.
- Former Earth Sciences chief executive John Morgan, previously head of NIWA, received $574,489 in termination benefits and accrued leave when he departed in February, bringing his total annual remuneration to $1.15 million.
- Taranaki’s Ōwae Marae’s monthly bills reportedly increased fivefold from around $400 to as much as $2,000 after installing solar panels, an oversized 300kVA transformer, and the application of higher commercial electricity network charges.
- 🇺🇸 Illinois police arrested Alexandros Paporakis (19) after colleagues reported an alleged plan to massacre Indian people, with investigators recovering an AR-style rifle, ammunition, Nazi imagery, and a manifesto expressing hatred towards Indians, Jews, and black people. Paporakis faces terrorism-related threat and weapons charges and is being held pending trial, with a judge ordering he may continue gender-transition hormone treatment.
- Speaking at a Local Government NZ event in Rotorua, Chris Hipkins said his Government failed to adequately support former Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta against “racist abuse” during the Three Waters controversy. He said he had apologised to Mahuta personally and explained that he transferred the portfolio to Kieran McAnulty in 2023 partly to spare her further abuse.
- NZ First is campaigning on a new Combat Sports Commission to oversee boxing, MMA, and kickboxing events, introduce contestant registration, and mandatory medical standards. This is intended to target unsanctioned fights following concerns about gang-affiliated events.
- More than 30,000 Wellington residential and commercial customers have failed to pay their first Tiaki Wai bills, with average annual charges reaching $2,390 and debt collection a possibility. The Commerce Commission has ruled out capping prices, while Mayor Andrew Little is demanding government intervention and Local Government Minister Simon Watts points to decades of infrastructure underinvestment in the city.
- 🇺🇸 A 16 year old gunman allegedly shot through locked doors to enter Silver Rail Elementary School in Oregon, killing 3 children aged 5, 8, and 11 and a teacher, and critically injuring a 7 year old pupil and another teacher. The attacker was shot dead by a member of the public who pursued him into the school.
- Christchurch woman, Fa’alele Samoa Kaisami (49), admitted dishonestly receiving $290,997 in benefits over 15 years by repeatedly claiming to be a single parent despite living with her husband, who was employed full time. She faces sentencing in March 2027.
- Energy Minister Simeon Brown says a re-elected National Government would complete safety regulations within 6 months to allow consumers to buy plug-in solar panels from retailers such as Bunnings, Mitre 10, IKEA, and The Warehouse.
- 🇰🇷 A 59 year old man attacked shoppers in Incheon, South Korea, with knives strapped to both hands, injuring 6 women and 2 men before bystanders subdued him using chairs. The suspect was reportedly wearing an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and had previously served 4 years in prison for attempting to murder his former wife.
- NZ First has promised another $12 million annually for Coastguard. The party has pledged to increase Crown funding from approximately 40% to 70% of Coastguard’s funding, reducing its reliance on fundraising.
- The Greens propose $380 weekly payments for students on compulsory placements. The $311 million policy would cover students training in fields including nursing, teaching, social work, physiotherapy, dentistry, and veterinary science, with an additional $1,500 available to eligible students required to relocate.
- Media spokesperson Reuben Davidson says Labour would retain and modernise the Broadcasting Standards Authority rather than abolish it, with reforms potentially extending its oversight to online streaming and digital content. Labour also promises to revive the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill to require major technology companies to compensate New Zealand news publishers.
- National promises to remove resource consent requirements for more farming activities. Its agriculture manifesto proposes 19 sets of nationwide rules covering activities such as vegetable growing, water storage, farm tracks, gravel extraction, and seasonal worker accommodation, allowing qualifying work to proceed without individual council consents.
- KiwiRail will contribute another $37.5 million to Picton ferry infrastructure from its own balance sheet. It will cover automatic mooring technology and railway yard improvements for the two new rail-enabled Cook Strait ferries, Kupe and Cook.
- 🇦🇺 In Perth, a 43 year old woman has been charged after police alleged she placed metaldehyde-containing snail pellets in a colleague’s lunch.
I have had a busy week and in addition to the piece I wrote about the Mongrel Mob, I also wrote about the promises parties are making about jobs and about the Cornell 7 situation (as promised.
A piece by Roger Partridge for LawNews also caught my attention this week. He examines the extent of the Chief Justice’s influence over appointments to New Zealand’s most senior courts, arguing that the process has developed beyond what Parliament provided for and has insufficient democratic accountability. It is worth reading, especially given the continuing debate about the proper boundaries between Parliament, the executive, and the courts.
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.
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