Breaking Views Update: Week of 1.3.26

Friday March 6, 2026 

News:
Govt funding to help Māori-led tech company go global
A Tauranga-based Māori health technology company is expanding into major international markets with support from the Government’s Māori Development Fund, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka today announced.

Carepatron, a Māori-led company, has developed an AI-powered clinical support tool integrated into practice management platforms to improve efficiency, accessibility, and scalability for health providers.

Gary Judd KC: Maori seats foster self-ghettoisation

Dr Muriel Newman’s feature article for 24 February, The Future of the Maori Seats, summarises why they should have been abolished long ago. There is another reason which I don’t recall having seen: the Maori seats encourage self-ghettoisation.

I came across the terms “ghettoise” and “ghettoisation” a few days ago, in THE END OF WOKE: How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter-Revolution where Andrew Doyle writes:

Steven Gaskell: The Drone War No One Can Afford to Ignore

Shahed 136 drones streaking across the sky may look primitive compared to ballistic missiles, but they are quietly reshaping modern warfare.

Originally supplied by Iran to Russia and now mass-produced in Russia under the name Geran-2 for use in Ukraine, the Shahed-136 represents a brutal shift in battlefield economics. It is cheap, expendable, and designed not necessarily to win spectacular victories but to exhaust an opponent.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does the Government have the political courage to scrap the Clean Car Standard?

So the latest climate drama involving this Government is that they’re being accused of lining up to scrap the Clean Car Standards altogether.

And I would say to the EV lobby group pushing this line that they may want to just settle down. Even those of us -and I’m looking straight at myself here - who want to see the standards dropped altogether do not think it’s going to happen. That would take political courage and I do not think this Government has that on a subject like this in an election year.

Ani O'Brien: The Nursing & Medical Councils make political views compulsory

Inside the ideological capture of New Zealand’s health sector

If you are a nurse in New Zealand in 2026, the Nursing Council has decided that your clinical competence is no longer enough. It wants to control your character, politics, beliefs, and how you behave when you are off the clock. In its draft Code of Conduct, the Council states that because nurses must have the trust of the public to undertake their professional role, “they must also have an appropriate standard of behaviour in their personal lives.”

Olivia Pierson: And I Ran, Iran So Faraway

From here in New Zealand, where most of the sensible ones amongst us still cherish the literal freedoms of a liberal democracy too many take for granted, including our oft-absurd leaders, wannabe leaders and ex-leaders, the news of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death fills me with a straightforward joy.

The supreme leader who presided over Iran's brutal theocratic regime for 37 years was killed on February 28 in joint US-Israeli strikes on Tehran. Iranian state media confirmed the hit, declared 40 days of mourning, and rushed in an interim council to stop the whole thing from collapsing. This is a moment to celebrate without hesitation, pearl-clutching, or hand-wringing. A tyrant who spent decades exporting death and crushing his own people through outright murder is finally gone. Excellent riddance!

Lindsay Mitchell: Get rid of the sole parent benefit

Here's a policy for National. Or ACT.

Get rid of the sole parent benefit.

Known for decades as the DPB, the Sole Parent Support (SPS) benefit, in today's world, is an anachronism. It has lost context in modern society. Why?

Gary Judd KC: Karakia and judicial neutrality.....

Karakia and judicial neutrality: A principled examination of the demands of judicial office

I am pleased that, with limited exceptions, the practice of court‑initiated karakia appears to have been discontinued. I previously raised this issue in correspondence with the Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann, describing the proposal as a serious departure from judicial neutrality, inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the rule of law.

Kerre Woodham: Is it the Government's responsibility to get you home?

I just want to get your opinion. This follows a, shall we say, spirited discussion in the office around people who are trapped overseas and how they get home. I'd love to hear from people who might have been in this position before, trapped overseas because of acts of war or closed borders or forces of nature. What did you do and what was your expectation? Did you think it was the responsibility of the government taxpayer to get you home? And if you had chosen to live overseas and then the world turned mad, again, is it the responsibility of the government taxpayer to get you home?

Bob Edlin: If numbers of homeless rose, it would be great to think Luxon changed tack.....

If numbers of homeless rose, it would be great to think Luxon changed tack – but he shows no sign of a flair for flexibility

Hoping to keep sweet with Donald Trump probably explains why the PM wriggles, writhes and squirms when asked about the legality of the American attack on Iran.

His failure to answer questions about domestic issues is not so understandable.

For example, the Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick yesterday asked in Parliament:

Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere: Dog attacks keep happening in NZ. Why hasn’t the law kept up?

In February of this year, the media in New Zealand both captivated and horrified the public with sensational stories of dog attacks.

That line could have been written last week. It wasn’t. It appeared in an article in the New Zealand Law Journal more than two decades ago.

The recent attacks that led to the death of a woman in Northland and left a father and son critically injured in Christchurch have once again forced dog control into the national conversation. But the sense of déjà vu is hard to ignore.

JC: Time Was Now – Lawful or Not

Politicians on the left are so predictable with their timing and their utterances – popping up to mouth self-righteous platitudes and arrant nonsense. For past politicians, it is a desperate attempt to try and stay relevant. In reality, it is a stark reminder of just how awful they were and a reminder not to vote for their ilk. Think of Blair, Hillary Clinton, Obama and our own Helen Clark, the Eden Park entertainment denier. These people are sanctimonious hypocrites who don’t live in the real world.

David Farrar: Hipkins desperately trying to deny fiscal reality

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has doubled down on his criticism that the Treasury engaged in guesswork in calculating the savings produced as a result of the Government’s controversial pay equity changes.

Last week, he said the pay equity figures appeared to be “made up” – a charge that led to an accusation by Act that he was in “fiscal denialism” – and today he told the Herald the Treasury was “putting a figure in the air and trying to find a number”.

Thursday March 5, 2026 

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Geoff Parker: Matthew Tukaki is wrong - water is not sovereignty

Matthew Tukaki’s recent article “Wai Is Life” argues that because water is spiritually and culturally central to Māori identity, Māori must therefore exercise authority over water governance in New Zealand.

It is a seductive argument. It is also wrong.

Ryan Bridge: The oil price danger zone for inflation

If this is still going on in two or three weeks, lots of countries, including ours, will start to feel the pinch.

Brent Crude Futures topped out at $85 a barrel overnight, the highest price since 2024.

JP Morgan says it could hit, worst-case, $120.

Mike's Minute: This is where Labour and Hipkins have got it wrong

If you ever want an example of why Chris Hipkins is not going to be the next Prime Minister, watch Question Time yesterday.

He has made a twofold mistake.

Mistake number one is being a Labour MP obsessed with esoteric, wonky subjects like United Nations treaties and charters.

Bonner Cohen: Waste from “clean energy” piles up across the U.S.

Long known as the nation’s leading producer of oil, Texas in recent years has also surged to the top of the heap in wind energy, with over 19,000 wind turbines operating in the state.

West Texas and the Panhandle have emerged as the gusty go-to places for putting the Lone Star State at the forefront of what was said to be America’s transition to clean energy. Ground zero for this enterprise is Sweetwater in Nolan County. Located 40 miles west of Abelene, Sweetwater is sometimes called the “Wind Turbine Capital of Texas.” But now the small city and its environs are experiencing the downsides of that distinction. It turns out that clean can be very dirty indeed.

Roy Morgan: Support for National drops to lowest in six months, just ahead of Labour

Roy Morgan’s New Zealand Poll for February 2026 shows the National-led Government (National, ACT & NZ First) on 48.5%, down 3.5% points from a month earlier, now just 1.5% points in front of the Labour-Greens-Maori Party Parliamentary Opposition on 47%, up 3% points, the latest Roy Morgan New Zealand Poll finds.

Stephen Weese: The Water Crisis Is Real

But AI is not to blame.

Recently there have been a lot of memes and social media posts going around that claim that AI (because of its cooling requirements) is using up all of our water. Suggesting that, in fact, the crisis is so bad that we will soon be unable to take showers. Since I work in this field, I can tell from the surface that this is likely exaggerated, and I decided to take a deep look at the numbers, new AI cooling technologies, and what is causing the real global water crisis.