Breaking Views Update: Week of 20.9.26

Monday September 21, 2026 

News:
Te Kawerau ā Maki history brought to life through tomokanga at new childcare centre
A significant milestone was marked at BestStart Childcare Centre in Te Oneroa o Kahu (Long Bay) this week with the official unveiling of a new tomokanga.

Designed to permanently embed local Māori history into the facility, the structure addresses long-standing gaps in early childhood education regarding the North Shore’s distinct tribal heritage.

Dame Elizabeth Rata: Episode 2 - Early Schools, Intermarriage, Nation-building 1815-1877

In the video below Episode Two explains how English became accepted as the language of national unity. The Māori language remained in constant use. There were 42 Māori language newspapers, Māori travelled the country with books and slates, and attended the Māori instruction missionary schools. Literacy, in either or both languages, provided individuals with a new status. Waaka Te Huia's work as a paid scribe, writing in Māori, illustrates the modern man for the new world.

Dr Eric Crampton: Citizenship can cost more than a passport

Over the past fortnight, both ACT and New Zealand First announced policies targeted at those who live in New Zealand as permanent residents rather than as citizens.

In both cases, the announcements aimed to push permanent residents to take up citizenship, to accept a sharply degraded experience living here, or to leave.

Nick Clark: Who is really in charge at your council

Picture a councillor about to vote on whether her council should sell its shares in the local airport. Management tells her that voting one way could expose the council to legal risk.

She asks to see the legal advice behind that warning, which her council commissioned and ratepayers paid for. She is refused.

According to MP Stuart Smith, this actually happened at Wellington City Council. He opened the first-reading debate on his Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill with the example.

Dr Michael Johnston: Not achieved

One of the most important things teachers can do to help their students improve is to give them feedback on their work. To be effective, feedback must be timely and specific.

As the election campaign gathers pace, it is timely to give the political parties some feedback on their policies. They certainly need improvement.

Dr Eric Crampton: Migration policies wander into the fraught area of ‘citizens-only’ super

There was a line that made the rounds when Trump first campaigned to be President: his promises should be taken seriously but not literally.

Last week, New Zealand First promised that, from 2029, only citizens would be able to collect superannuation. Taken literally, that would not just affect migrants who have lived here for a long time. It could also have serious consequences for Kiwis living abroad.

David Harvey: Bending the Knee

The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill Resurrected

Elections are always the time for extravagant promises. Sometimes these promises can go further and could be interpreted as bribes – a reward given to pervert the judgment or corrupt the conduct – so says the Oxford English Dictionary.

That term may be a little strong for something that came across my desk this morning, but who knows.

Before I get the meat of the problem let’s have a little history.

Joe Schaeffer: Australia Establishment Buckling Under Rising Populist Threat

The progressive ruling establishment’s global playbook to stifle popular discontent with massive unchecked immigration in Western nations is being rolled out to full effect in Australia. The One Nation Party is the Down Under populist party now enduring an operation already meted out to global migration opponents in Germany, England and the US, to name but just a few examples.

Guest Post: The Mayors Are Right About Fast-Track....

....Auckland Council Should Apply The Same Test To Nga Wairau.

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Nick Kearney:

Wayne Brown and John Glover are right, and it’s worth saying so plainly.

Rodney Hide: Parliamentary Licence with a halo

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer used the c-word in the House on Thursday. Willie Jackson played gallant. The Assistant Speaker called the Serjeant-at-Arms to walk him out.

Cue the usual sermon. Double standards. Mana wahine. Oppression.

Wrong sermon.

Sunday September 20, 2026 

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Dame Elizabeth Rata: The History Of New Zealand Education, Building A Democratic Nation.

In the video below Episode One describes how 19th century Māori and European alike wanted the peace and prosperity only possible in a modern nation – New Zealand. This desire had produced the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and the 1852 Constitution Act. In the 1870s a standardised school system provided the knowledge, skills and aptitudes needed for citizens to fulfil the promise of those two founding documents – the creation of a democratic unified nation.

John Robertson: Unlegislated Theological Mumbo-jumbo

When government ministers parade through military graduation ceremonies to applaud our service personnel, they conveniently ignore the elephant standing right on the parade ground: a defense force quietly being converted into an ideological branch office for traditional tribal cosmology.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 19 September 2026

Parliament’s final weeks descend into farce

My goodness gracious. This term of Parliament has been one marred by poor behaviour in the House unfortunately, and in this second to last week the people we elected to represent us have outdone themselves.

On Tuesday, Labour’s Ginny Andersen and ACT leader David Seymour were both booted out by Speaker Gerry Brownlee. Andersen went first and was somewhat hard done by given she was just one heckler among many who were raucously interjecting (after having been warned to pipe down) during an answer from Revenue Minister Simon Watts. Her seat in the front row in the Speaker’s line of sight was probably to blame for her being the scapegoat of her party.

Mike's Minute: Leadership and proportionality speak to credibility

It turns out fanciful and quite possibly nutty and dangerous thinking isn't limited to the Greens and Government-run supermarkets.

Dame Angela Eagle, who is Environment Secretary in the UK, has announced the need for people to take the burgeoning El Niño so seriously that we need to start stocking up on food.

Mohadeseh Salari Sardari: “Woman, Life, Freedom”—and Undying Resistance

This article is part of Liberty Amplified, a series produced in partnership with the Hoover Institution’s Human Security Project and the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, featuring voices that challenge authoritarianism in pursuit of freedom. Today marks four years since Jina Mahsa Amini died in Iranian custody after she was arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. The “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, which followed Amini’s death, speaks to the Iranian desire for freedom from a terrorist regime.—General H. R. McMaster

Ryan Bridge: Important things happening in the world and our pollies are fussing over the C-word

AI's going to kill us all – unless Putin gets there first. More drones and flare-ups from him, allegedly, in the skies above Europe.

Trump's pushing Carney into the arms of another lover in Ursula von der Leyen. It was all hugs and kisses in Strasbourg.

Lipton Matthews: Slavery Was Not the Difference.....

....How Legal Innovations Made America a Superpower While Brazil Stagnated

On the American Left, a familiar idea has taken root: that slavery was not just one feature of the young republic’s economy but its actual engine, the true source of the wealth that later carried the United States into industrial preeminence. This argument, once confined to specialist debate, has since moved into the mainstream, most visibly through the New York Times’ 1619 Project, and it draws further support from a cluster of historians writing under the banner of the New History of Capitalism. These scholars argue that the productivity of enslaved labor and the credit markets built on slave-backed collateral were foundational to American growth rather than incidental to it.

Melanie Phillips: The malignancy of the left

An astonishing ovation revealed the importance of anti-Zionist Israelis to the global campaign to destroy the Jewish state

Sometimes, a curtain draped across a mirror is torn aside, and a horrified public suddenly glimpses what it has become.

Two things happened this week which briefly interrupted the smooth acceleration of pathological Jew-hate in the West.

Kerre Woodham: This report is vindication for firefighters

Now for some time, I'd say this would be over a number of years, I've been receiving texts from firefighters who are extremely unhappy with the way their organisation is being run. It hasn't just been over this latest pay dispute and the strikes. This has been ongoing for a couple of years now.

There haven't been outright accusations per se, but a deep-seated uneasiness, and in some cases anger, about the way FENZ is running the organisation and the way they're treating firefighters. Now a scathing report has confirmed what they have been saying.