Breaking Views Update: Week of 18.10.26

Wednesday October 21, 2026 

News:
National's marine reserve promise raises questions from frustrated locals
A National Party promise to set up a marine reserve off Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf is raising questions from frustrated locals.

Iwi say the party shouldn't be promising anything without their involvement, and a community group which has been asking for a marine reserve since 2021 wants to know why it's taken so long to get a decision.

Ani O'Brien: Scaremongering unions have a bad case of amnesia

What NZNO's own figures reveal about the health system crisis

I am not here to dispute the reality that New Zealand’s hospitals and wider health system is struggling. Nurses are burnt out, patients have to wait too long, and our resources are never enough. Nothing in this essay is intended to pretend this is not the case. However, I am going to challenge the particular political narrative that our health system has fallen apart all of a sudden under this government due to unprecedented underfunding and understaffing because that just isn’t true.

Pee Kay: We Get the Government We Deserve

Catching up with old friend Bruce recently and naturally, the conversation turned to politics but more specifically, the abysmal standards of our political leaders. Realising we weren’t going to fix the country, Bruce wrapped up the discussion with a grim, undeniable truth: “Sadly, we will get the government we deserve.”

Yes, we’ve all heard that phrase “we get the government we deserve.” While it’s often mistakenly credited to Thomas Jefferson, it actually belongs to the 19th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre, who bluntly penned in 1811 that “every nation has the government it deserves.”

Brendan O'Neill: How ‘Palestine’ conquered France

Saturday's violent desecration of the French Republic was a mob jihad against democracy itself.

I’m old enough to remember when we called it ‘conquest’ when a mob of masked men stormed a town hall or a parliament building to raise the flag of a foreign nation. I can recall a time when the violent invasion of a nation’s high seats of civic power by a faceless swarm draped in the standard of a distant land was considered an act of brazen, treasonous hostility. So why do so many insist on referring to the thuggish usurping of the streets of Paris and beyond by gangs flying the Palestine flag as a ‘protest’?

Richard Prebble: The other election

There is another election going on that may have far more influence than the election result.

The Kiwi is the world’s 10th most traded currency.

Every day up to NZ$140 billion is traded. Currency traders, every minute, 24 hours a day, are holding a referendum on New Zealand.

Caleb Anderson: Fascism - the uncomfortable truth

It is pretty standard for the far left to throw the accusation of fascism at the political or institutional right. This has become common currency when the left encounter something, or someone, they don't like.

It saves arguing the case. Just throw the insult, and assume it will stick. Throw it often, and it becomes orthodoxy.

Richard Prebble: It is bizarre

Every election one sees the bizarre, but Christopher Luxon’s actions are inexplicable.

I saw on TV Luxon campaigning in Epsom with Paul Goldsmith. Goldsmith was claiming he would be a good electorate MP. I laughed.

A friend of Goldsmith’s told me that Paul has often said how lucky he is not to be an electorate MP. Being National’s flag bearer in Epsom he gets a high list place, no one expects him to win, campaign seriously or do constituency work.

Kerre Woodham: Will changing the right to silence allow justice to be served?

National is promising to take away the right to silence in child murder cases if re-elected. Which might be an enormously popular move. Who doesn't want to see somebody held accountable for the deaths of so many babies and children in this country over the years? But I hope they've done their homework on how exactly they're going to force people to speak and what the unintended consequences might be.

Douglas Elliffe: A Tale of Two Meetings

Last month I attended the Free Speech Union’s annual conference to hear panel discussion of hate speech between Andrew Doyle, Samira Taghavi and David Cumin, chaired by Tim Wilson of the Maxim Institute. Naturally, the audience was alive to the dangers of governmental restriction on free speech and the implicit reintroduction of blasphemy laws, and the panel shared those concerns.

Penny Marie: Make Your Vote Count - Maurice Williamson on Why 2026 Is Like No Other MMP Election

Maurice Williamson explains the complexities of New Zealand’s voting system and why 2026 is different to all previous elections

This week on People in Politics I sat down with Maurice Williamson: National MP for 30 years from 1987, holder of 18 ministerial portfolios, front-bench Cabinet minister, and later New Zealand’s Consul General in the United States. In his own words, he is still “at heart a right-wing free market Tory”, and he is “frightened as hell” about what happens if the other side forms the next government.

That is why he is urging National supporters to think hard about their party vote on 7 November. He is not telling you to abandon National. He wants you to use both your votes so they actually do something.

Guest Post: Max Harris

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Juliet Moses:

I recently heard Max Harris, the Labour Party candidate for Tamaki, speak at an event. He introduced himself as having a “strong moral compass”.

That’s a bit odd, I thought, and more than a bit self-righteous. Sometimes you hear someone describing someone else that way, but not self-identifying as such. I decided it warranted more investigation.

Mike's Minute: Do you know the policies of the party you're voting for? Or does it not matter?

One of Opportunity's polices is to stop you from using your KiwiSaver for first home purchases.

The big question around that policy is - did you know that?

Everyone, and I mean everyone, I have talked to that is even contemplating supporting Opportunity can't name a single one of their policies out side of land tax and universal incomes, which ironically, although they were the ideas that got them to prominence, didn’t actually make the so-called "bottom line" reveal.

 Tuesday October 20, 2026 

                   ⇩

1News Verian Poll: National jumps, leaving Labour’s position perilous

Christopher Luxon’s National Party has surged four points to open a five-point lead over Labour in the latest 1News Verian poll, its strongest result since February.

John Raine: The Left is Up for Co-Governance – Could this Mean a Future Ethnocracy?

In an Ideal World……

Most New Zealanders want to live in a unified country where all have equal rights under the law, while respecting the cultures and traditions of the many ethnicities that make up our population - over 200 in the 2023 population census. Of these, the four major groups self-identified as:

• European – 67.8%
• Māori – 17.8%
• Asian – 17.3%
• Pacific Peoples – 8.9%

Wendy Geus: Luxon refuses help to save the Coalition, prefers political oblivion

…. and left wing media panic as it becomes clear their guys might lose

'We need to inject more ACTness into the Coalition' reads a comment on David Farrar's Kiwiblog. Yes, I thought, this is truly a watershed moment, when voters can give ACT (and NZ First) the power to stop the hushed up marxist tyranny in the public service, operating under the guise of eliminating racism and threats to diversity. Ardern would be proud.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Greens and Te Pāti Māori are committed to digging this hole deeper

Unbelievably, the Mongrel Mob drama is still rolling on. It's been six days.

A video has emerged from the hui at the gang pad in which Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara tells the Mongrel Mob that Te Pāti Māori's policies would reinstate what should have existed all along.

Chris Penk: Central and local government love blaming each other. Voters don’t care

What’s the difference between local and central government?

While that might sound like the start of a joke – and some would maintain it is – actually it’s a pretty serious question this election.

Both tend to maintain that they alone are true representatives of the people. And, in fairness, each would have some justification for that claim. Councils are closer to action on the ground, so might just be more in touch with citizens. On the other hand, ministers and other MPs are scrutinised much more closely, so we may feel more responsive in that sense.

Damien Grant: We escaped the whims of kings....

.....Did we just create a new kind of dependence?

Henry II had four legitimate sons. His heir and namesake, Henry, died before he could ascend to the throne. His second would rule as Richard the Lionheart. The third, Geoffrey, pre-deceased his father but had a son, Arthur of Brittany. And then there was John.

When gangrene from a crossbow wound took the life of King Richard outside the town of Châlus, there was uncertainty as to who had the greater claim to the throne: Arthur or John.

Peter Williams: The Teaching Council Disgrace

Teacher registration has been fraught since it was introduced nearly 40 years ago

Among the understandable outrage over the Timothy Fisher scandal and the Teaching Council there was one incident which doesn’t inspire much confidence for the future of this organization which is responsible for the registration and regulation of the country’s 124,000 teachers.

Fisher was the sexual deviant who was finally sent to prison last year for crimes committed while he was a teacher, crimes the Teaching Council knew about as far back as 2015 but it never intervened or cancelled his registration, thus allowing him to continue working as a teacher.

Guest Post: It’s Time for Direct Citizen Led Democracy for Our Country

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Tony Argyle:

In 1440 Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press and heralded in a silent revolution that would change the world. It is unlikely he realized the full significance of his creation nor would he have seen it’s impact before his death in 1468.

Rodney Hide: Raw data that isn't raw - Australia catches up with what we were told to ignore

Australians woke last week to a story I knew well. The Australian's Graham Lloyd reported that a forensic audit had found chunks of the Bureau of Meteorology's "raw" temperature data copied and pasted from one period into another.

The standout example is Sydney Observatory. The minimum temperatures shown for August 1867 are the same as those for August 1907. The paper checked the handwritten logbooks at the National Archives. The 1867 numbers online are simply wrong.

Eric Ness: The 4% Rates Cap — Now We Find Out What Councils Really Think Is Essential

For years the council rates debate has followed a familiar pattern. Council announces another increase, ratepayers choke on their coffee, and council explains that everything costs more. Insurance is up, interest is up, construction is up, infrastructure is ageing, roads need repairing and pipes need replacing. Much of that is true.

But there is another part of the story that gets less attention. Councils are also doing far more than they used to.

Lindsay Mitchell: If welfarism matters, the choice is clear

Benefit numbers are out for September. The last before the election. Up again. There are now 417,000 working age people on a main benefit.

Christchurch, New Zealand's second largest city, has a population of 411,000. Think about that.

Up till the mid seventies the percentage of 18-64 year-olds on a benefit never exceeded two. One person in fifty. Right now it's 12.9 percent or one in eight people.

Richard Prebble: Gangs and politics

Commentators cannot understand the Greens and Te Pāti Māori’s courting of gang support.

The association between organised crime and political parties is hardly new. Politicians and organised crime have done deals from New York to Sicily, from Chicago to Mexico.

Politicians have done deals with gangs because they saw an advantage.

Peter Dunne: Politically Homeless

With just over three weeks till election day I am feeling increasingly politically homeless. None of the parties currently in Parliament, or aspiring to be, entice me to vote for them. Their policies are either too much of a muchness, too dislocated and small focused, or in some cases too downright crazy to attract my support.

Having previously been a member of the Labour Party for 22 years, and a Labour MP for over 10 years, I still have some residual interest in its activities. But any passing thought that I could vote for them again vanished during the first leaders' debate when Chris Hipkins made it clear that the teachers' unions, not parents, would be calling the shots on education policy if he were to lead the next government. It reminded me of one of the reasons why I quit the party all those years ago. The constant fixations of imposing higher taxes and always doing what the unions wanted had become just too much for me.

 Monday October 19, 2026 

                   ⇩

Graeme Spencer: Election 2026 - What Sort Of Country Do We Want?

Remember the Treaty Principles Bill?

More than 300,000 submissions were made. Whatever your opinion of the bill, the campaign demonstrated something that every New Zealander should recognise: organised political movements can mobilise significant numbers of people - it was defeated by the volume of submissions, not the content and the quality.

Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori have supporters who are highly committed to their political causes. They organise, campaign, protest and make their voices heard.

Colinxy: The Left and Their Lust for Power

One of the great myths of modern politics is that the Left opposes power. They oppose your power. There is a difference.

For more than two centuries, Left-wing movements have presented themselves as enemies of hierarchy, privilege, wealth, authority, and oppression. Their rhetoric is full of liberation, equality, justice, democracy, and empowerment.

Yet whenever one examines their history, a strange pattern emerges: the problem is never power itself. The problem is who currently possesses it.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: The false economy of aged care

Last week, we co-hosted a dinner with the Selwyn Foundation. Its chair, former Labour health minister David Cunliffe, led the Government's aged care advisory group and presented their report, A place to grow old.

The report describes an underfunded, fragmented system facing more than twice as many over-85s by 2047. It recommends paying providers enough to build beds, more home care, an independent pricing authority and higher contributions from people with assets.

Roger Partridge: The bank of the children

We hear a great deal about the Bank of Mum and Dad. The Bank of the children gets rather less attention, although we have been drawing on it for years.

The Bank's terms are simple. Voters choose what they want, politicians arrange delivery and Treasury does the paperwork. Anything the adults would rather not pay for goes on the kids' account.

Nick Clark: Deals without the devolution

Greater Manchester's 2014 devolution agreement included powers over transport, housing and skills, with matching funding.

That was my model for New Zealand two years ago, in a research note for The New Zealand Initiative. I urged the Government to strike City and Regional Deals that live up to the name.

New Zealand's centralisation leaves councils with weak incentives for growth. Wellington takes much of the tax revenue, while councils and ratepayers bear infrastructure costs. Devolving powers and sharing revenue would help.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: NZ’s mixed-up electoral system threatens to blow results out of proportion

Here is a paradox that ought to trouble ministers more than any single threat named in the NZSIS’s 2026 Security Threat Environment report, released in August.

The New Zealand Government has never had more useful intelligence available to it than it does today. Yet it is not digesting that intelligence quickly enough to matter.

The problem is not what we know. It is how we decide.

Dr Eric Crampton: Importing youth to offset an ageing population

Virtuous and vicious cycles in policy are both entirely possible. Sometimes at the same time.

Voting has long been heavily age-skewed, with greater proportions of older people voting. Combine that with an ageing population across the developed world and a very bad vicious cycle can easily take hold.

As the median voter gets older, politics shifts to provide more of the kinds of things that older people like and fewer of the kinds of things that younger people like.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat - Labour’s energy price ‘doom loop’: the Net Zero legacy

Household energy debts are heading towards £7bn, with paying customers facing a £100 annual charge to cover unpaid bills. Ministers, meanwhile, are weighing Rosebank and Jackdaw as researchers warn that blocking them could forgo almost £11bn in tax revenue. Overseas, the IEA is accelerating emergency diesel releases as supplies tighten.

Kerre Woodham: Government gang rehab programmes need to show us their value

The Greens are under fire with Marama Davidson doubling down on her desire to work with the mob to get positive health outcomes. First there was the photo in the mob headquarters, cha ching, look at us, woo hoo! That was the Greens and Te Pāti Māori MPs popping along to a health hui.

And when asked about that in faintly judgy tones by the media, Greens co leader Marama Davidson said, "We are open to funding the Mongrel Mob to deliver drug prevention programs. We're open to funding what works. We're an evidence-based party." And that instead of pushing problems under the carpet, they want to bring problems out into the light, get to the people who are hard to reach, and if that means working with the mob, well, all well and good.

Richard Prebble: Those about to be defeated

“The average length of time served in Parliament has dropped since MMP was introduced”, says the Association of Former Members of Parliament. For list MPs it is “about four years”.

The Association ran at a loss this year of $2,806, but the treasurer “expects the situation to improve next year as more MPs leave Parliament following the 2026 General Election.”

The Association reports that many former MPs struggle to find employment.

Rodney Hide: Henry Cooke wants a do-over if you vote wrong

The Post's political editor, Henry Cooke, has a plan if the MSM’s relentless campaign for the Opportunity Party fails. It’s a simple plan: if you vote the wrong way, you vote again.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361099333/dirty-deal-chris-hipkins-and-christopher-luxon-should-actually-strike

He says so plainly. He wants Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins to promise that "if an overhang is the only path to government, then we'll ask the Governor-General to call another election instead." He says it "would be called a 'dirty deal' between the big two almost immediately."

 Sunday October 18, 2026 

                   ⇩

NZCPR POLITICAL PARTY TREATY POLICY 2026

 

Executive Summary 

The 2026 election presents New Zealanders with a stark constitutional choice. For the first time in our history, voters must decide whether the country remains a Parliamentary democracy based on equal citizenship — or whether it will begin a transition towards a Treaty-based constitution that would replace democratic authority with tribal control. 

Peter Williams: The Minor Parties Hold The Keys To Power

 

The political week has been dominated by debates, with three of them generating numerous headlines and reactions – the televised leaders' encounter on Wednesday, the so-called Kingmaker show on Tuesday and the Queenstown finance spokespersons' debate also on Wednesday, which drew an audience reported to be 800 strong, possibly the biggest turnout of the campaign so far.

Geoff Parker: The Real Constitutional Instability Is The Attempt To Rewrite New Zealand By Stealth

Writing for the University of Auckland, political theorist Stephen Winter warns of “short-sighted constitutional instability”, pointing to changes involving Treaty principles, Māori wards, electoral law and the Bill of Rights. He proposes stronger institutional safeguards, including a permanent constitutional select committee.

But this puts the cart before the horse. The far more fundamental question Winter does not adequately confront is:

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 17 October 2026

Election 2026: Polls, plans, and unexpected begrudging support

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.

Claire Deeks: You Don't Even Have To Like Them

With the election just a few weeks away, there's something I want to talk about.

I've heard from people who have decided they won't be voting this year. Others are still trying to work out who, if anyone, deserves their vote.

And I understand why.

Bob Edlin: Champions of Maori flag raise questions about their grasp of sovereignty and history

RNZ’s audience might have been left wondering about the nature of the curriculum at St Stephen’s School, when they heard the reasons that students were giving for championing the Tino Rangatiratanga flag.

The students’ thinking about identity, history and culture is recorded in a report about a campaign to have the flag flown permanently alongside the New Zealand flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Campaign supporters are reported as saying this would recognise Māori identity, history and “the dual heritage of Aotearoa”.

Campaign organisers aim to gather 80,000 signatures in support of permanently raising the flag from Waitangi Day next year.

The flag now flies on the bridge each Waitangi Day before being removed the following day.

Graham Noble: The Rise of Socialism in America....

.....Not Popular, but Not Shunned

In a sane world, there would be no need for anybody to conduct a poll asking voters whether they are concerned about socialist candidates running for public office because, in such a world, the percentage of people who say they are concerned would be 100. Still, the most recent poll published on this issue holds both good news and bad.

Alwyn Poole: Such a brilliant story in the NZ Herald today...

 .....re the progress of Auckland Girls Grammar

Great article:

“Earlier this year the Ministry of Education awarded AGGS the Education Excellence Award for Raising Student Achievement after the school recorded NCEA and University Entrance results above 90% in 2025.”

David Farrar: Green priorities

The Greens are campaigning on:

• Funding gangs to do drug rehabilitation

• Their right to campaign at gang pads for votes and selfies

• Repealing the gang patch law

• Allowing all prisoners to vote, even mass murderers

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm glad to see the back of public payphones

Do you know what I'm not going to miss? Public payphones.

Spark has finally reached the end of the road. They've made the decision to rip 90% of these public payphones out of the ground.

They tried to save them. They tried to talk Auckland Council into a deal where they could modernise the payphones in Auckland and operate them on behalf of the public. In exchange, Spark would have been allowed to run digital advertising on the sides of the phones.

Nicole McKee: Look who's courting votes at a Mongrel Mob pad

Look who's courting votes at a Mongrel Mob pad.

It's hardly surprising they think this is a promising place to campaign. The Greens oppose measures to put more offenders behind bars, and Te Pāti Māori wants to abolish prisons by 2040.

Oriini Kaipara says the visit was about the ‘health and wellbeing of the Mob community’. Their health and wellbeing would be a lot better if they stopped cooking meth, assaulting each other, and abusing their families.

Mike's Minute: Did October 15 change the election?

Is it too far-fetched to ask two things:

1) Whether the campaign turned dramatically against Labour yesterday.

2) If within a 24-hour period, whatever chance they might have thought they had is now blown to smithereens.

Saturday October 17, 2026 

                   ⇩

Breaking Views Update: Week of 11.10.26

Saturday October 17, 2026 

News:
How a West Auckland pilot brings Specialist Hauora Practitioners to Bilingual Units
A collaborative health initiative is currently underway in West Auckland primary schools to embed wellbeing practices into bilingual learning environments. The program, Whāia te Oranga, operates within the bilingual units at Rānui Primary School and New Windsor School, providing structured hauora sessions for over 150 students.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Taxpayers' Union's Chris Hipkins AI advert is brilliant campaigning

Right, so the question is whether the Taxpayers' Union has gone too far with its AI advert about Chris Hipkins.

If you haven't seen the ad yet, let me explain it. It's a short video that starts with a ginger-haired man in a suit and red tie sprinting down a suburban street. He kicks in a door and runs into a house where a family is having dinner. He grabs all their wallets from the table and runs off. Then he kicks in the door of another house. A woman is watching TV. He rushes in, takes her wallet and bolts out the door.