Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: National needs to keep fighting on education

If you're a regular listener, you'll know we've spent a lot of time predicting that voters would hate Chris Hipkins' claim in the TVNZ leaders' debate that he would scrap the hour of reading, writing and maths for kids.

And now I have the numbers to prove that prediction was bang on.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 11.10.26

Wednesday October 14, 2026 

News:
Māori outcomes framework shows positive progress
Auckland Council's work to improve outcomes for Māori is gaining momentum, with a new evaluation showing progress across the organisation and stronger partnerships with iwi and Māori communities.

Mike Grimshaw: The KISS election strategy…or is it just electoral caveat emptor?

As we enter the election campaign, two things are readily apparent.

1: Parties promise policies and decisions and implementations that they believe will both retain and attract voters

2: Any government is going to have to a be coalition so all that is expressed and claimed will be undertaken in point 1 is in fact only aspiration, not necessarily deliverable, nor indeed will define the actions of any government that is elected.

Mike's Minute: Why don't young people care about their future?

Latest numbers from the Electoral Commission as of the weekend show 63.4% of 18-24-year-old voters are enrolled.

It's a shockingly low number.

It's lower than previous elections. This is bad news for democracy and especially bad news for the Greens.

There's no excuse for this.

Caleb Anderson: Marxism in Disguise

In the 1960s, an ideology was seeded within our universities that would have a profound effect on our nation's direction of travel. Barely discernible to the majority at first, it moved slowly through our public institutions, filtered into our schools, and gradually corrupted the body politic.

Bob Edlin: Royal Society paper flaunts the Treaty....

......(in call for more govt funding for science) and bats for mātauranga Māori

Only in the past few decades has the Royal Society of New Zealand included the social sciences as an official class of scientific disciplines.

That shift controversially allowed a slew of professional social science organisations to formally affiliate with the society.

Kerre Woodham: We need to have a discussion about the future of NZ Super

Well, it looks like a matter of when, not if, given that Barbara Edmonds and Nicola Willis, Finance Minister and Finance spokesperson respectively, were appearing on Jack Tame's Q&A yesterday, and they've agreed they'll work together on the future of superannuation in this country.

JC: Country First It Must Be

Last week’s RNZ-Reid Research poll was anything but good news for those on the centre right. National crashed and the Greens surged. Opportunity sits knocking on the door. This is not the time to muse over whether this was a rogue poll. You could make a case for that, bearing in mind it was a RNZ poll and if their bias on air was translated into the poll via the framing of the questions asked...who knows. The fact is there are too many polls now all telling, to various degrees, the same story. National is in deep trouble. We all know why.

Andrew Dickens: We need to do something about the retirement age

With National finally releasing its fiscal policy it’s easy to generalise the plan as more of the same.

We’ve already seen and the only difference with Labour is that they are in love with pay equity which comes at a huge cost and leaves the whole balancing act with very little wriggle room.

David Farrar: Spending promises gone berserk

The latest update from the Taxpayers’ Union bribe-o-meter:

In the table below, two of the seven parties are being fiscally responsible. Two are being irresponsible, and three are just in the money goes on trees category.

Richard Prebble: Leaving learning maths to chance

For family reasons, my wife and I are raising our 11-year-old grandson.

He has been a pupil under both Chris Hipkins and Erica Stanford.

Under Hipkins, I became so concerned about his maths that I bought an online programme and taught him myself.

Mike's Minute: Paddock to Pantry shows competitive settings are working

Has Paddock to Pantry just confirmed what most of us who think the whole “blow up the super market” game is stupid …were in fact right?

The most open display of pandering to the lowest common denominator I have seen in years is virtually every party promising to take you to the promised isle of cheap food, and the only one left with common sense and an adult approach is ACT, who see this for what it is.

Tuesday October 13, 2026 

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1News VerianPoll: Hipkins and Luxon now neck and neck, Opportunity on track for 10 Mps

In the party vote, National slipped 1 point to 28%, while Labour remained steady at 28%.

That would give each party 34 seats if repeated at the election on November 7 – now less than four weeks away – with both needing support partners to form a government.

 
Click to view

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Surely the campaign will get better than this?

I don't want to bring you down but do you realise we have almost four full weeks of this crap ahead of us? Unbelievable.

Four weeks of small-beer politics about the price of airline tickets and school uniform logos. Honestly, is that what the contest for control of our central government has come down to? How many logos you're allowed to have on your school uniform?

Clive Bibby: The facts that should matter to voters

As a farmer whose survival has been for the last 46 years, dependant on prices received for the goods we produce, it frustrates me watching debates about which group of politicians can best manage the income we receive from the international markets on which those goods are sold.

And it matters not a tad if the Party leaders on show at the debate appear to be close relatives of either Genghis Khan or Darth Vader.

Kerry Butler: Why Maori Stand to Gain a Controlling Role in The Leadership of NZ

Remember the Public Interest Journalist Fund introduced by Labour during Jacinda Ardern’s term ... which involved the media organisations and newspapers being given millions of taxpayer dollars.

The first tranche of payments was $18 million (out of a total of $55 million) which all media accepted except for The Platform and the Westport News. The latter is privately owned and the owner said: "We prefer to paddle our own canoe", but all other papers and media grabbed the money.

Yvonne Van Dongen: The Boomer Bashing Vote

Young overseas voters urged to counter Old New Zealand

Ageism is alive and voting in this election.

Some of it is implicit as in the Opportunity Party’s annual land tax policy that includes the family home and the Greens’ policy of a capital acquisitions tax on large gifts and inheritances. Meanwhile Labour proposes a capital gains tax on investment property and ACT would like to raise the retirement age to 67 plus limit the winter hardship payment to beneficiaries and people over 65 with Community Services Cards.

Pee Kay: The Ice That Wouldn’t Melt!

Predictions of an Ice-Free Arctic Have Defied Expectations

In his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the oscar-winning documentary about former vice president Al Gore’s campaign to educate people about climate change, Gore predicted that “Global Warming” would cause severe and accelerated climate disruptions, including rising global temperatures, melting glaciers, stronger hurricanes, and an ice-free Arctic summer within decades.

Olivia Pierson: After the Fourth Listen to Rubio's Soaring Rhetoric...

After the 4th listen to Rubio's soaring rhetoric...

It's still like dying and going to heaven to hear a Secretary of State raise the bar in political discourse.. politics being 'downstream from culture' and all.