Professor John Raine: Concerned Citizens, Not Haters and Liars

Public voices have been loud and but not entirely clear over particular sections in the Education and Training Act Amendment Bill (No.2). Apart from submissions to the Select Committee, Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, has received many personal messages.

The pressure on our Cabinet Ministers is understandable, but on Mike Hosking Breakfast 27th June, Erica Stanford referred to those who had sent her emails as, “whipped up with hatred, frothing at the mouth and spouting complete and utter garbage, lies” - extreme words that fell back on lazy social media slurs. Misinformed or intemperate remarks would have been a small proportion of the messages sent to the Minister. The large majority would have been stating real concerns that the Bill as it stands appears to leave the door open for undue Treaty dominance and continued decolonisation activism in our education system.

Wayne Ryburn: Reframing New Zealand’s History

New Zealand's mainstream media continues to propagate the one-sided history espoused by the Waitangi Tribunal, activist Maori academics and their pakeha acolytes, as our official history. History is complex and comes with many perspectives. Several articles published in the NZ Herald during 2024 and more recently, by authors Simon Wilson, Julia Gabel, and Audrey Young, clearly indicate their support for viewpoints propagated by the Waitangi Tribunal and contemporary iwi.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Rachel Reeves incident will be used against women in significant roles

This is gonna sound harsh and I know it - but I think women like Rachel Reeves need to stop crying in public.

This is the biggest news that is in the UK at the moment. The Chancellor, who's basically the equivalent of our Nicola Willis, started crying in Parliament.

Now I feel really sorry for her, cause it looks like she is going to probably end up taking the fall for a man's incompetence because Keir Starmer, her Prime Minister, is weak and is giving into a rebellion and has forced a U-turn on her, thereby undermining her fiscal plans.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 29.6.25

Friday July 4, 2025 

News:
Waitangi Tribunal registers claim calling for urgent hearing into fast tracked plans to mine seabed off Pātea
The Waitangi Tribunal is considering a claim filed by south Taranaki iwi Ngāti Ruanui concerning a Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) shallow-seabed mining project approved under the Fast Track Approvals Act 2024.

John Robertson: Scrap “Tangata Whenua” — It’s Spiritual Garbage in Legal Disguise

Let’s stop pretending: tangata whenua has no place in modern law. It’s a spiritual phrase, built on myth, used to justify race-based privilege. And it needs to go — now.

The term means “people of the land,” but it's really code for “special rights through ancestry.” That’s not law — that’s theology. It turns public policy into tribal religion. It hands out legal perks based on who your ancestors slept with. That’s insane.

Chris Lynch: NZ First introduces Bill to ban ‘woke flags’ from government buildings

New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that would ban the display of all flags except the official New Zealand flag on government buildings, a move party leader Winston Peters says is aimed at protecting national identity and preventing the politicisation of public spaces.

Centrist: Critics argue National blinked as ACT pushed to scrap Treaty clause in schools bill

The ACT Party pushed to remove the Treaty of Waitangi clause from the Education and Training Amendment Bill, but was blocked by coalition partners.

The clause, which requires school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, will now be reviewed as part of a broader government workstream.

Matua Kahurangi: Tamatha Paul thinks criminals are victims and Police are the problem

Why the Greens' soft-on-crime ideology is dangerous, deluded, and downright insulting to ordinary New Zealanders

Tamatha Paul, the Green MP and self-appointed spokesperson for the “defund the police” generation, has once again gone viral for all the wrong reasons. In a rambling monologue uploaded by the ACT Party to X, she attacked efforts to clamp down on violent crime, defended shoplifters, and dismissed public safety concerns as if they were a minor inconvenience in her activist utopia

JC: Basking in the Sun and Howling at the Moon

There are two sides to the current prime minister. There’s the Christopher Luxon at home and the Christopher Luxon abroad and they are two different persona. The overseas version is a relaxed figure in complete control, in his element if you like. His trips abroad are successful ventures and he impresses other people of note with whom he has dialogue. He is representing New Zealand well on the world stage. It is his moment in the sun. He exudes a sunny temperament basking in the importance of it all.

Ele Ludemann: Is shoplifting ever okay?

What happened to law makers being on the side of the law? A Green Party MP thinks it’s okay to shoplift:

Green MP Tamatha Paul is giving shoplifting the green light as she opposes the Government’s plan to strengthen penalties, National Party Spokesperson for Justice Paul Goldsmith says.

“The Greens are singing from the same old song sheet, making excuses for anyone who attacks or steals from hard working New Zealanders.”

David Farrar: Hysterical Hipkins

Chris Bishop notes:

Wow. Hipkins asked on radio why we don’t hear about ram raids any more and if they’ve stopped happening:

Direct quote – “Nah it’s cause your Tory owners at NZME have just decided not to put it on the front page any more. It’s still happening, it’s just NZME have decided that it’s not in the Government’s best interests and they do the National Party’s singing for them and so they’re not covering it as much any more.”

Kerre Woodham: Have we not learned from slash damage and flooding?

In the wake of the Motueka valley flooding with warnings that Australia's bomb cyclone is set to bring severe weather conditions to New Zealand, we're on weather watch. Not just the media, although looking at the television screens in my studio —one on BBC talking about the heat waves in Europe and another on Sky News from Australia talking about severe wind, rain and surf in eastern New South Wales— globally we appear to be on weather alert.

Thursday July 3, 2025 

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Matua Kahurangi: Ardern’s legacy in ruins

Today, Stuff published an emotional opinion piece by Sir Ian Taylor, dramatically titled “Dear Jacinda, this is the most difficult letter I have written to you.” While the content of Taylor’s letter may tug on a few heartstrings, the real story was found further down the page, in the poll quietly embedded beneath the article.

The question was simple and direct:

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Let's not get weird about helicopters and rich-listers

This debate about Anna Mowbray and Ali Williams' helicopter has just got really, really silly in the last day.

There is now a push for Auckland Council to ban private choppers in residential areas altogether when they next review the unitary plan for Auckland city, and at least 2 councillors now back that. And one of the councillors backing it is the councillor whose ward covers the Mowbray property.

Anglo Saxon: Erica Stanford gaslighting and blame gaming - Where have we heard this before?

Erica Stanford, New Zealand's Minister of Education has tried to downplay her new amendment that defines a successful learning outcome as indoctrination into maori ideology.

Anglo Saxon dissects Erica Stanford's defence of the Education and Training Amendment Bill No 2.

Click to view

Professor Jerry Coyne: Why Mātauranga Māori Isn’t Science

A interview with a “heterodox” New Zealand scientist - “Why Mātauranga Māori Isn’t Science:”

I’ve written a lot about the controversy in New Zealand involving whether the indigenous “way of knowing,” Mātauranga Māori (MM), is equivalent to modern science (often called “Western science”) and, as many maintain, should be taught alongside modern in science classes (see all my posts here).

As I’ve noted, because MM does have elements of empirical truth in it, like information (established by trial and error) about how to catch eels, when berries are ripe, and so on, it is characterized as a “way of knowing”.

Graham Adams: Stanford’s sly Treaty move backfires

National on back foot over Education bill.

Among the welter of commentary surrounding the recent publication of Jacinda Ardern’s memoir, it was very noticeable that journalists avoided mentioning co-governance and race-based policy as a significant factor in her political demise. It’s a topic they mostly prefer to skirt if they can.

This is perhaps not surprising given she paid legacy media companies $55 million to promote co-governance by insisting the Treaty be treated as a “partnership” as a condition for receiving taxpayer money.

Matua Kahurangi: Youth Parliament or Green Party dress rehearsal?

Lowering the voting age would kill the right

This week, the annual Youth Parliament returned to Wellington, and with it came a renewed push to lower the voting age to 16. It’s no surprise this idea is being floated again, and it's almost guaranteed that Labour and the Greens will back it. Why wouldn’t they? Sixteen-year-olds are still firmly under the influence of New Zealand’s highly politicised schooling system, where left-wing ideology is not only common but embedded into everyday teaching and forced down our kids throats.

Dr Eric Crampton: Intelligence built on a library’s ashes

It is legal to buy books. Obviously.

If you buy a book, it is legal to read it. If you have read it, it is legal to answer questions about it, whether for free or for payment.

Copyright does not prevent you from doing any of this. If it did, academics would have a tough time. Imagine having to get pre-clearance from any author whose works you mentioned in seminar. It would not be workable.