Ryan Bridge: Nicola's supermarket bust up isn't serious

Nicola's supermarket smash-up is not serious.

She's playing a very risky political game and she knows it.

Cost of living is the only game in town this election – win on the cost-of-living battle and you win the war.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 13.9.26

Friday September 18, 2026 

News:
School curriculum rewrite 'ideological', Crown breached multiple treaty principles - Waitangi Tribunal
The Waitangi Tribunal says the government's rewrite of the school curriculum was ideological, aided by people hostile to Māori knowledge, and breached multiple Treaty principles.

This report follows the Tribunal's stage one interim report concerning proposed changes to treaty provisions in the Education and Training Act and precedes another report into the removal of school boards' treaty obligations.

Richard Prebble Slams The Waitangi Tribunal

On The Platform in his chat with Michael Laws, Richard Prebble slams the Waitangi Tribunal and recounts his brief experience as a member. 

 

Click to view

Geoff Parker: One Law For All Is Not An Attack On Maori

A response to Sir Douglas Graham

Sir Douglas Graham warns that ACT’s “one law for all” agenda is foolish and likely to provoke protest.

But there is a rather revealing assumption behind his argument: that seeking equality before the law is somehow an attack on Māori.

It isn't.

The real question is whether New Zealand should continue developing a legal and political framework in which some rights, powers and forms of political participation depend on ancestry — or whether citizenship should ultimately mean equal rights and responsibilities under one law.

Roger Partridge: Who makes the law? The Crown answers

Two speeches from the Crown’s most senior lawyers over the past month have answered a question that should never have been in doubt: Who makes the law?

Attorney-General Chris Bishop spoke to the Law Association on 6 August. Solicitor-General Anna Adams KC spoke to the Legal Research Foundation last Thursday. Both answered emphatically: making the law is Parliament’s job.

Michael Reddell: Make believe

Yesterday the Prime Minister and leader of the National Party made some rather preposterous claims in his post-Cabinet press conference (as reported here by The Post)

Kerre Woodham: The report shows us just how badly the Phillips kids were failed

It's hard to know really where to start when it comes to listing the failings of all those who damn near destroyed the lives of the Phillips children. In the first instance, they were failed by their father and by their immediate family. Then, when those relationships broke down, they were failed by the very agencies that are supposed to be there to protect them, Oranga Tamariki and the Police.

Bob Edlin: Hikoi by horseback (or pony express)....

....how 52,000 names were delivered to Parliament after a five-day journey

PoO was somewhat surprised to learn that a hikoi involving 40 horses had arrived at Parliament with 52,000 names on a petition against proposed amendments to Treaty references in legislation.

We had supposed hikoi involved walking, marching or some similar activity that would require sturdy footwear.

Rodney Hide: Empty fridge, full press conference

Chris Hipkins wants to outlaw "price gouging."

He has no idea what it is.

Mike's Minute: AI isn't going to wipe us out

I'm pretty sure AI isn't going to wipe us out.

AI is another of those technologies or gains we make that has the capability to do a lot if left unchecked.

But the key to all of this, as it has been with so many things before from the musket to the nuclear weapon, is self-interest.

Dr Will Jones: Reform Council Hires Private Security Guards to Counter Male Migrants....

....Who Make Town Centre a ‘No-Go’ Zone for Women

A Reform council has hired private security guards in three town centres to ward off “gatherings of male migrants” after reports they were intimidating locals and “wolf-whistling at schoolgirls”, making the town centre a ‘no-go’ zone for women. The Mail has the story.

Thursday September 17, 2026 

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Anglo Saxon: New Zealand v Karl Marx

In this episode Anglo Saxon explains the everyday things we see from Marxism and evidence of the long march through our institutions.


Click to view

Robin Grieve: The Impossible Treaty and Its Illogical Principles

Another day, another urgent inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal, and invariably another breach by the hapless Crown. TV One’s Maori affairs reporter enthusiastically reports the “damning” Tribunal finding. The Government responds that it is considering the report and then proceeds to do nothing.

I don’t know whether the Government ever really considers these reports. If it did, it would conclude that they are complete nonsense and a waste of taxpayer money.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The National Party should know better when it comes to business

If my reaction to the National Party's supermarket policy was an emoji, it would be the one with the brains blowing out the top of its head. It would be WTF. It would be: Was the Greens' policy not nutty enough for you? Did you have to find something even more cooked and release it?

Because that's what's just happened.

Ryan Bridge: I wouldn't hold your breath for tax cuts

Tax cuts are back on the campaign agenda.

Nicola Willis dropped a wee hint to the BusinessNZ election conference yesterday.

Bracket creep is hurting workers – as wages increase and you creep into a higher tax bracket, you pay more marginal tax. That's not fair.

John Robertson: What We Are Witnessing Is A First-World Democracy Sliding Into Tribal Barbarism

When Paul Henry stepped into the studio on Q&A with Jack Tame to dissect the state of the nation, he touched a raw nerve that the political establishment spends millions trying to numb: the absolute absurdity of a country running its legal system on racial tribalism. What we are witnessing is a first-world democracy sliding into tribal barbarism, narcotized by an intellectual cowardice that refuses to name the rot eating our civic foundations.

Ani O'Brien: What will Hipkins have to give away to become Prime Minister?

Kiwipower, KiwiMart, Wealth Taxes, and Te Tiriti: What survives negotiations?

Every election campaign we, the voters, are treated to a pantomime in which parties make promise after promise about what they would do if given the power to rule these small isles. Most of us have been around long enough to recognise that a great deal of these plans are poorly thought out fiction but we will attempt to discern the realistic from the outlandish. The others will vote Green until they become a parent, own property, or simply fully develop their frontal lobe.

Peter Williams: Remembering Entebbe

How an extraordinary rescue raid humiliated a dictator

Fifty years ago, 1976, was quite the year of significant happenings.

New Zealand upset the Montreal Olympics by having the All Blacks tour apartheid South Africa. Nearly thirty black African nations boycotted the games in protest.

The USA celebrated its bicentennial in 1976.

Guest Post: Immigration

A complex challenge for New Zealand’s future

Guest Post by ML Kearney on No Minister

• Introduction

Pre- the 2026 election , discussion has already begun on Superannuation reform and its links to Welfare overhaul ( both thorny subjects where action is overdue ) .

Both areas link to immigration which is affected by broader – including global – trends and factors.