Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.9.25

Thursday September 18, 2025 

News:
We are committed to te reo Māori - Whangarei District Council
Māori Relationships Manager Mark Scott has reported that funding for this exciting initiative, which has been led by the Department of Internal Affairs with support from Te Puni Kōkiri, Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori and Te Mātāwai, has sadly been discontinued.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Rawiri Waititi's entitled to answer questions in Māori if he wants to

So, Shanan Halbert from the Māori Party doesn't like the fact that Rawiri Waititi answered all his media questions about Takuta Ferris in te reo Māori.

Now, if you haven't caught up on this, this is what happened yesterday when the Māori Party came face to face with the press gallery. It was the first time since Tākuta Ferris has doubled down and then tripled down for his anti-immigrant comments and then ignored his leader's orders to delete the video.

Ryan Bridge: My prediction for the 2026 election

Like it or not, next year's big dance in politics will ultimately be decided by the few, not the many.

Most MMP elections have been. Minnows hold the keys to the kingdom.

Be it Winston with his best result ever or Te Pati Māori with an overhang - 2026 won’t be a 2020 landslide.

Gerry Eckhoff: Be Careful What You Wish For

“The hand of vengeance found the bed where the purple tyrant fled
The iron hand crushed the tyrant’s head and became a tyrant in his stead”

The warnings of English poet William Blake (1757-1827) were right. A tyrant often wears the color purple to signify supreme authority yet there is no point in replacing one imperfect (political) system with another. What is it that radical Maori want of this country besides an overt influence that masks full control? It’s a fair question and long overdue in the asking. Simply replacing a perceived oppressive system with one approved by Maori reflects the poet’s prophecy.

Clive Bibby: Guilty Beyond Doubt

They say that TRUTH will always out.

It may take a while and cause unnecessary grief and heartache for those who have been wronged in the Courts but politically motivated lies are usually exposed within hours or days of their public delivery.

JC: This Hatred From the Left

Charlie Kirk’s assassination has the fingerprints of the left all over it. The hate speech they have peddled for years contributes to, and brings about, tragedies like this. The radical left use words like fascists and Nazis the way we say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It is the bread and butter of their vocabulary. They live by them. They despise people like Charlie Kirk and they despise America and the America First movement.

Mike's Minute: NZ's response on the war changes nothing

If it's any help to those chained to Nicola Willis' office, there is a decent piece I read yesterday asking whether Israel was heading towards a South Africa moment.

In an interview this week, Netanyahu seemed to accept some sort of isolation was a price his country was, and is, paying for as a result of the war.

Barrie Davis: How to Save Democracy

Writ large on the back cover of Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s 2025 book How to Save Democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand, is the claim “New Zealand is a democracy: the people should be in charge”.

I doubt that New Zealand is a democracy in anything but name – which is not ‘Aotearoa’, by the way – and I question whether Sir Geoffrey is participating to make it one.

Peter Williams: The slow creep of subsidies

Around 6pm on Saturday night one of the Sky Sport channels was showing a feature on the young Black Ferns star Jorja Miller. We had visitors so the TV was on mute while this programme played. As an old TV hack I’m often intrigued to see who’s done the work like operated the camera or edited the pictures or directed the story so I often hang around to see names on the credits.

As it turned out I didn’t recognise the names of any of the obviously skilful new generation of television practitioners. But that’s an aside.

What did catch my eye was that this particular feature had been commissioned originally for NZR+, the new on-line outlet which New Zealand Rugby hopes will evolve into a commercial cash cow.

Matua Kahurangi: Colonisation was liberation

The truth the activists won’t admit

It is striking how often the loudest voices in New Zealand’s race debate come from those who have the faintest connection to being Māori. The same individuals who enjoy cushy jobs and generous salaries often exploit a sliver of Māori ancestry to advance themselves, however they spend their days decrying colonisation as if it were the worst thing ever to happen to this country.

Kerre Woodham: The right to free speech and its consequences

When US conservative activist and media personality Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on Wednesday, a lot of people had an awful lot to say.

Those on the right of the spectrum mourned the senseless violence and deplored the actions of the left. Many of those on the left rejoiced, were gleeful. And there's no other word for it when you look at some of the posts on social media.

Michael P Cameron: NZ First wants a compulsory KiwiSaver - Boosting the Super Fund is a better bet

An ageing population not saving fast enough for its retirement has been called a “timebomb” and a looming crisis, with many New Zealanders facing the prospect of hard times when they stop earning.

So, NZ First leader Winston Peters was on the money at his party’s recent annual conference when he pitched a major KiwiSaver overhaul. Under the plan, membership would become compulsory and minimum contributions from both employees and employers would increase to 8% of income, rising to 10% later.

David Farrar: A blueprint for better Government

The NZ Initiative has put out a great report proposing a much more efficient structure for both Cabinet and the wider Executive.

NZ currently has 81 ministerial portfolios, 28 ministers and 43 executive agencies. By comparison Ireland has 15 Ministers and 18 departments.

The Initiative propose a Cabinet of 15 Ministers, being:

Wednesday September 17, 2025 

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Michael Laws On The Latest RNZ Poll And The Danger To Democracy

Michael Laws talks about the latest RNZ poll and the danger to democracy and Christopher Luxon's failure to connect with the voting public on The Platform


Click to view

Ryan Bridge: New Zealand needs a growth spurt

I’ve had it with people whinging about state of this county and people fleeing to Australia who then refuse to stop and ask why we got here and how we get out of it.

Chucking up a post up on TikTok or waving a banner at a protest won't cut it.

Productivity (that’s how much we get out for what we put in) is crap. It's been getting worse or flat-lining for decades.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does buying NZ-made ever work?

First of all, can I start by offering an apology to TVNZ? I gave them a bit of grief last night for starting the news bulletin with the peaches, but it turns out I was wrong and they were right.

This has sparked a flurry of debate over whether we prefer our Wattie's peaches from Hawke's Bay or whether we don't really care if it comes from China or not.

David Farrar: Tamihere backs Ferris

Stuff reports:

Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere says MP Tākuta Ferris was, in essence, correct when he hit out at non-Māori supporting Labour’s Māori electorate campaign.

Tamihere said Ferris could have worded his comments better, but added that he generally agreed with what the MP had said. That is despite Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer telling the Labour and Green leaders that his comments didn’t reflect her party’s views.

Bruce Cotterill: NZ roads vs Australia - Why better highways could boost tourism

I’ve spent the last week travelling. A good old-fashioned road trip, to be exact. We’ve been driving from Queensland’s Noosa to Port Douglas, along the aptly named Bruce Highway. About 1900km over five days. It got me thinking about our roads.

Our roads fell apart on the last Government’s watch. Most of us will remember how the lockdown-enforced neglect turned our favourite roads into potholes quicker than many of us could imagine. Wheels and even axles fell victim to the highway damage.

Matua Kahurangi: A tale of two deaths

Yesterday, still reeling from the All Blacks’ embarrassing loss in Wellington, I scrolled through X and came across a video shared by
Bob McCoskrie. It exposed the raw truth about human behaviour in the face of death. The video compared the aftermath of two very different deaths. One was George Floyd, the other Charlie Kirk.

The difference could not be more stark…