Damien Grant: One blunt speech, one apology, and a Prime Minister losing control

There is, the Prime Minister observed, a “parent-child mentality” when it comes to businesses relationship with government. “ I have literally sat in boardrooms across New Zealand, and the conversation goes: 'I wonder what the government's going to do? I wonder what the government's going to think?'. Who cares what the government thinks or does? Our job is to be adult, adult, adult.”

The Prime Minister was right although I’m not sure it was wise to say it out loud.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 9.8.26

Monday August 10, 2026 

News:
Greens propose $2.4b marae fund: 'When roads close, marae stay open'
Marae would receive funding through a $2.44 billion permanent trust owned and governed by hapū and iwi under a Greens policy which the party says would end reliance on short-term government funding cycles.

Te Waonui a Tāne, the party's proposed 2026 Tiriti policy, would create Te Rangatiratanga Trust with dedicated Crown funding of $1.22 billion a year paid over two years.

Lindsay Mitchell: What the Left constantly ignores

Here is the political argument from the Left:

Poverty causes hardship for children. Whether the parent is working or on a benefit makes no difference. It's the lack of income that matters.

My argument is that the source of income matters. A lot.

Children in households with the same low income suffer hardship disproportionately if their parent is on a benefit.

Mike's Minute: Some political operators want to undermine your future

Perhaps the Labour Party's small target election year strategy has started to unravel as one of their MPs, Helen White, told us all of her desire for house prices to fall.

She wants them to come down.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Thoughts for reducing child material hardship

Last month, the Ministry of Social Development released the latest of its excellent statistical reports documenting the extent of child poverty, hardship/deprivation in New Zealand.

The proportions are much below their peak rates around 15 years ago but are still too high.

Richard Shaw: Coalition leadership is hard. Luxon’s ‘nuclear option’ of electoral reform is not the answer

Much to everyone’s surprise – including, it seems, his National Party colleagues – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has committed to offering voters the chance to revisit their electoral system. Again.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised – National has form when it comes to constitutional change.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Embed, align, continue, refresh

The cover of MBIE’s new Workforce Diversity Action Plan shows nine staff holding signs reading “I belong” in several languages. Inside, it declares itself “People-centred | Performance-driven | Evidence-informed”.

Treasury’s plan appeared a few weeks after MBIE’s. Both are organised around the same three focus areas. Both culminate in the same heading “Apply the merit principle comprehensively”.

Gary Moller: New Zealand Has Abundant Energy, So Why Are Our Families Cold?

It's 5:30 in the morning as I write this, and the temperature is only 5°C. I'm dressed in a warm hat and a puffer jacket, with a small heater under my desk to keep my feet warm. Despite our efforts to save energy, last month's power bill was the highest our family has ever seen. Additionally, we've just received our first water services bill. I'm worried about the way things are heading and question if it will ever cease. The financial pressure on hard-working Kiwis appears to be relentless and worsening each month.

Dr Eric Crampton: What New Zealand can learn from Andy Burnham’s UK plan

Election 2023 brought us a new government committed to localist approaches. National had campaigned on greater localism as an alternative to the prior Labour government’s more centralising tendencies across water services, polytechnics, housing and farming regulation.

In his Waitangi speech in 2024, the Prime Minister said that, “We, like you, believe in localism and devolution, not centralisation and control. No one understands your iwi like your iwi does.”

JC: Time to Call a Spade a Spade

A couple of weeks ago I headlined my article ‘Mouthing Off is a No No’. Since then more examples have arisen. What is becoming very clear, at least among politicians, is that this is very much a generational divide. I wonder if the younger generation of current politicians in parliament have heard of the phrase ‘call a spade a spade’? They should have as it has been around since 1542. If so, they seem very reluctant to apply it to their everyday lives. The two politicians most likely to apply the phrase are Winston Peters (81) and Shane Jones (66). They are two of four politicians over 65 years old: the other two being Gerry Brownlee and Damien O’Connor.

Sunday August 9, 2026 

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David Farrar: National’s 2026 party list

National has released their 2026 party list.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Are the days of building big roads really over?

Yeah, I don't know what to make of Shane Jones's prediction last night that the days of building big roads are over. He was at this infrastructure debate in Wellington and he said, and I quote, I personally don't see ever another four-lane highway being built in New Zealand in my lifetime. The politicians are going to struggle to justify the cost.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 8 August 2026

Election 2026: polls in which nobody is winning

Neither Luxon nor Hipkins had a good week. The polls aren’t looking good for either and we are less than 100 days from the election. One Chris has taken to hating on MMP while the other is blaming a “rogue poll”.

The Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll released yesterday put Labour on a grim 27.8%, down 3.7 points in a month and only fractionally higher than what it got on election night 2023. National is back in front on 31%, NZ First is on 9.1, ACT 7.3, and the Greens 10.1. Te Pāti Māori has fallen all the way to 1.5%. On these numbers, the current coalition would scrape back into office with 61 seats.

Geoff Parker: If Official Status Doesn't Matter, Why Does It Matter?

Over the past week RNZ has published two articles criticising the English Language Act.

In the first, the Māori Language Commissioner argued that English never needed official recognition because it already dominates New Zealand society.

In the second, University of Waikato linguist Dr Julie Barbour went even further, describing English as a "predator language" that spread through conquest and colonialism, suggesting the legislation is "bizarre", unnecessary and simply reinforces English dominance.

Both arguments miss the point.

Gary Moller: Wellington’s Water Bill - When the Money Tree Finally Runs Out

Introduction
From 1 July 2026, property owners throughout Wellington, Porirua and the Hutt Valley will receive a separate bill for drinking water, wastewater and stormwater from the new council-owned organisation, Tiaki Wai. Our's arrived today. These costs are presently collected through council rates, so the councils will remove the water component from their rates bills. However, this is not merely an accounting exercise in which the same amount of money moves from one invoice to another. The overall cost to households will rise, and for many homeowners the increase will be substantial.

Nathan Smith: Let’s Bring Back The ‘Move-On’ Laws From Henry VIII

The government’s revamped Move-On powers have already had a positive effect on my life, but there’s so much more that could – and should – be done to fix the problem of the “sturdy beggar.”

Just down from where I live is a giant unused carpark. It’s flat and sits next to a major arterial route. It also has no restrictions on types of cars or campervans that can stay overnight. So, naturally, this carpark has attracted plenty of vagrants. At its peak, about three dozen shabby vehicles with shabby owners were semi-permanently camped for more than 18 months, going nowhere, doing nothing.

Troy Bowker: The Opportunity Party - A Radical Left Policy Manifesto

The audacity of the party to describe itself as centrist and moderate is, in some ways, impressive. That positioning, however, relies heavily on what appears to be a willing mainstream media environment that has devoted significant attention to TOP’s political story and leadership while providing comparatively limited scrutiny of the consequences of its actual policy platform.

Why has so much focus been placed on TOP’s rise, its leader and its political narrative, while there has been limited examination of the practical impacts of its proposed reforms?

Vijay Raj Jayaraj: India to climate cartel: Count us out!

Sometimes a story gets buried, not because editors conspire against it, but because the news cycle has room for only one crisis at a time. This year, the big news has been the Iran war. But even accounting for competing headlines, the silence around a genuinely consequential development is telling.

And that is the story of India’s explicit rejection of the global net-zero movement. India has walked away from its bid to host the COP33 UN climate conference, and the world’s climate press has treated it as a footnote rather than the signal it is.

Peter Dunne: Wellington City Council - Public Relations Disasters

You can’t beat Wellington on a good day” the saying goes.

It also seems you cannot beat Wellington, or at least its City Council, when it comes to public relations disasters.

Earlier this year, following years of mismanagement of and underinvestment in the city’s water system, the Council in conjunction with other local Councils, established a new entity, Tiaki Wai, to better and more transparently manage the region’s water resources. Part of the plan was that there would be a separation between what ratepayers paid for water services and their rates to local authorities, so that they could see more clearly the true cost of water services.