Mike's Minute: Election issues are already popping up

We are standing by for the election date today.

It’s not what it was, kind of like budgets. The suspense, the scuttlebutt, the guessing game – it’s all gone.

Graham Adams: Hipkins Revives Failed 2023 Election Tactics

When Chris Hipkins succeeded Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister in January 2023, he adopted what was essentially a “smaller target” strategy.

He announced a policy bonfire to sideline some of the Labour government’s most contentious proposals — including the RNZ-TVNZ merger, hate-speech laws and the biofuels mandate. Instead, he claimed he would concentrate on “bread-and-butter” issues.

Ani O'Brien: Labour’s BlackRock climate fund collapsed without investing a dollar

A case study in how announcement-driven climate policy collapses under scrutiny

The New Zealand Climate Infrastructure Fund was born at a moment of visible political scrambling rather than strategic confidence. By mid-2023, the Labour government was under pressure on multiple fronts including rising energy costs, slowing growth, public fatigue with climate rhetoric unaccompanied by delivery, and an approaching election with an air of change about it. Against that backdrop, the BlackRock partnership functioned less as the culmination of a coherent energy strategy and more as a high-impact signalling exercise; a way to demonstrate urgency, scale, and international validation without committing public capital or confronting domestic delivery failures.

Pee Kay: Don’t Mess With Us Bro!

“Ngāi Tahu will not host any Waitangi events next month – and will head to the Treaty Grounds instead.”

Strength in numbers! Luxon is being told, quite clearly, who is in control, who is holding all the cards! Don’t mess with us Bro!

Joanna Gray: The Social Media Ban for Under-16s Illuminates Our Erroneous Thinking About Children

Is a potential social media ban for the under-16s the ultimate nanny state interference, the beginning of a full-blown censorship state, or a sensible decision to protect tech-addled children? It is probably all of the above. More uncomfortably, it throws much needed light on society’s misunderstanding about what it is to be a child, and even worse, parental neglect on a scale no-one is really prepared to admit.

David Harvey: The Monroe Doctrine

And the Trump Corollary

In the United States National Security Strategy of November 2025, United States interests in the Western Hemisphere are centred upon the Monroe Doctrine.

The Strategy document states:

Peter C. Earle: The Price of Greenland — and the Cost of Attacking Sovereignty

President Donald Trump’s renewed push to acquire Greenland is now framed not as a novelty or negotiating stunt, but as a foreign policy and national security imperative. Administration officials argue that Greenland’s Arctic location, proximity to emerging shipping lanes, and potential role in countering Russian and Chinese influence make US control strategically essential.

Matua Kahurangi: When the Greens refuse to name the problem

The other day I wrote about the stripping of our rockpools around Whangaparāoa. Buckets emptied. Rockpools cleaned out. Coastal ecosystems smashed for quick gain. Once again, the Greens had nothing meaningful to say.

Now they have suddenly found their voice. Not to condemn the behaviour. Not to demand tougher enforcement. Not to stand up for the marine environment they claim to worship. Instead, they are insisting that immigration be left out of the debate entirely.

That position is not just dishonest. It is cowardly.

Wednesday January 21, 2026 

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Perspective with Ryan Bridge: Will Wegovy really solve everything?

I was at the movies recently and the first three ads that came up in the shorts beforehand were pretty interesting.

We had a fast food ad... I think it was KFC... some new chicken thing you can eat, then we had a Burger Fuel ad, and for dessert, to top things off, we had a Wegovy ad.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 18.1.26

Wednesday January 21, 2026 

News:
‘This year different’: Ngāi Tahu rūnanga won’t host Waitangi events, heading to Treaty Grounds instead
In what may prove an unprecedented political manoeuvre, South Island iwi Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu will not host any Waitangi events next month - and will head to the Treaty Grounds instead.

Ani O'Brien: Luxon's State of the Nation - Dull or disciplined?

The PM's State of the Nation laid out an election strategy built on continuity and trust

Christopher Luxon’s State of the Nation speech was notable less for what it announced than for what it signalled about how this Government intends to fight in this election year. Framed around competence, restraint, and “fixing the basics,” the speech leaned heavily into managerial reassurance rather than political ambition. There were no big policy reveals, no sharp ideological edge, and no attempt to reset the narrative in a dramatic way. Instead, Luxon positioned himself as a steady hand presiding over an economy that has turned a corner, urging voters to stay the course rather than demand bold new direction. It was an argument for continuity.

Mike's Minute: Should Anna Breman be in trouble?

Of all the nutty stuff Trump is up to, the most egregious is the DOJ-Jerome Powell investigation.

Powell —I have not one shadow of doubt— makes, along with his board members, decisions based on traditional economic or monetary thinking.

Trump does not.

Eliora: This Dark and Angry Man

This man talked, wrote and lived like he was possessed by the devil. He was ‘demon possessed’ according to his family members and friends and indeed many biographers. He was a dark, foreboding and angry man, who hated Jews and the Jewish God, but championed the devil of the Bible and, in doing so, rejected his family’s history of Jewish Rabbis. He railed against the political and religious establishment.

Some excerpts of his poems grew darker over time.

Alwyn Poole: Just how deep our school attendance crisis is

1. At last count 10,000 5 to 13 year olds in NZ were not enrolled anywhere and no one was actively looking for them.

2. Approx. 11,000 children are home-schooled. These children are not “truant” but it does indicate an amount of dis-engagement with our state system.

Brendan O'Neill: Hands off Greenland!

Neither President Trump nor his EU critics understand the first thing about sovereignty.

It’s hard to say who comes out worse in the war of words over Greenland. Is it President Trump, who has flagrantly abandoned his promise to the American people to wean Washington off its vain, destructive meddling in world affairs? Or is it the leaders of Europe, who expect us to buy that they are overnight converts to the cause of sovereignty, despite having spent years ravaging sovereignty across our continent? On one side, a president whose commitment to the ideals of sovereignty turned out to be thin indeed; on the other, leaders who never had any such commitment.

Matua Kahurangi: Maybe everyone in New Zealand should identify as Māori?

At this point, perhaps the simplest solution to New Zealand’s growing maze of race-based policy is for everyone to just identify as Māori.

Not because it reflects whakapapa. Not because of culture, reo, or the tikanga mumbo jumbo. But because, increasingly, identity appears to be the key that unlocks access to extra benefits, priority lanes, special funding, separate governance structures, lower tax rates and exemptions from rules that apply to everyone else.

Bob Edlin: Luxon is asked to join board for talks (which are bound to be boisterous) on rebuilding Gaza

What does Christopher Luxon have that Palestinian leaders do not have?

The answer – according to our reading of recent media reports – is an invitation to sit on the Trump-concocted “Board of Peace”.

Those appointed to this and the “Gaza Executive Board” will oversee the administration and reconstruction of Gaza,

Tuesday January 20, 2026 

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Damian Coory: NZ Deputy PM DEMOLISHES Reporters on ‘RACIST’ Identity Politics - SUMMER FLASHBACK

David Seymour is now New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and he has ZERO tolerance for any kind of divisive neo-marxist style identity politics as a reporter learned after the national budget was handed down.

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