Ryan Bridge: Don't hold your breath for a new Harbour crossing, Auckland

We've been waiting for decades for somebody to build a new bridge, or a tunnel, or anything across Auckland's harbour.

The consultant bill is now $100 million across the current National and former Labour Governments.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 16.8.26

Wednesday August 19, 2026 

News:
Kaikōura pā site returned to Ngāti Kurī after more than a century in private hands
For many uri o Kaikōura, the return of Matariki Pā was a dream. That dream has now become reality, as hapū from across Ngāi Tahu come together to mark a new chapter for the historic site.

JD: On the Qiulae Wong Interview

Guest post on The Good Oil by JD

Having watched Qiulae Wong, the Opportunity Party leader, being interviewed by Jack Tame, it is clear that she, and presumably those who advise her, have no idea when it comes to the two key planks of their manifesto. What will be the effect of their increased tax and land tax impositions and the Universal Basic Income, with all of the costs thereto attached?

Ashley Church: Could an MMP loophole return a centre-right government?

If you’re a centre-right voter, there’s a fair chance that a sense of dread has started to descend as you watch the National Party consume itself from within. The latest episode was the second leadership challenge of the year, this time involving Chris Penk, who has now lost his portfolios and announced that he won’t be standing at the November election.

But as dramatic as these latest events are – none of this should really surprise anyone. The events unfolding are the direct and entirely predictable consequence of a National party that came into government in 2023 with an enormous mandate for change, then inexplicably chose to deliver almost none of it.

Guest Post: An Urgent Matter of National Significance

Guest post by William Chambers on No Minister

Maori favouritism (racial division) has reached the point of being a form of apartheid in New Zealand. The fact being, there are hundreds of preferential “provisions” along with 96 Acts of Parliament exclusively benefitting those of Maori heritage.

This racist situation has eventuated through what could be described as deceitful manipulation of pertinent information. Which only an insignificant percentage of us are fully aware of. So, we are vainly trying to get the truth out there through Forums, Blog Sites and emails to each other.

Peter Williams: Should Nats follow the TPM Method?

Their best chance is to get a swag of electorate MPs

The lead story on Sunday night’s 1News was about Te Pati Māori and its plan to chase just the electorate vote.

For them, it makes sense. The party is hovering around three percent and dropping. They currently hold six electorate seats but two of their MPs have left the party after the internal squabbling.

Labour seem favourites to win Te Tai Tonga (all of the South Island and some of the lower North) and Te Tai Tokerau – parts of West Auckland and all of Northland.

DTNZ: Vance warns of ‘rising interest in socialism’ in US

Republicans risk losing younger voters unless living standards improve, the vice president has said.

The US Republican Party must address the economic pressures facing Americans or risk driving more young people toward socialism, Vice President J.D. Vance has said.

Vance made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, pointing to the cost of housing a

David Wojick: UN Green Climate Fund emission reduction claims are fraudulent

A database of Green Climate Fund (GFD) “projects” reveals that almost none are actual projects. Most are just specialized junior funds. Each has a supposed emission reduction number, but these are just fantasy guesses since no actual projects are involved. Thus, the GCF emission reduction claims are fraudulent.

The database is here.

(I might never have found it since it is in the voluminous UNFCCC site not the GCF site, but AI found it immediately when I simply asked for “GCF projects.” This is a good example of how AI can improve research.)

Melanie Phillips: Gaslighting on steroids

Jews must fight back against verbal ethnic cleansing

One of the most pernicious effects of the Soviet system of mind control was what’s called today “gaslighting,” the belief that you are guilty of the insanely preposterous things of which you are being accused but of which you are in fact innocent.

In the Soviet-style war of defamation that’s been waged against Israel ever since the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, the Jewish people have been relentlessly gaslighted.

Bob Edlin: IRD apologises for the boors among its bureaucrats....

....but it does not explain discriminatory tax decisions

The Inland Revenue Department has ducked the key question about its dealings with an aggrieved taxpayer.

The Post reports the taxpayer’s plaint under the heading –

Tuesday August 18, 2026 

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John Raine: EV or Not EV, That is the Question - Let's Be Smart About Transport Energy

Energy as Society’s Economic Enabler

Oil prices escalated as a result of the US-Iran war and have boosted electric vehicle (EV) sales. Once prices at the fuel pump restabilise nearer pre-war levels, should more buyers still be going electric? 

Ryan Bridge: Hey Labour, NZ is not Australia

Hey Labour. NZ is not Australia.

To justify their capital gains tax, they point across the ditch.

"Australia introduced a capital gains tax in 1985, and its economy and incomes have kept growing."

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I wouldn't be surprised if TOP peaks at 8 percent

So, I think some of the shine might be coming off the Opportunity Party. Helen Clark has taken to social media and described the leader's interview on Q+A on TVNZ as a "train wreck".

She said: "Simplistic responses trying to defend land tax, higher income tax, job cuts in the public sector. Fantasy posing as policy."

Mike's Minute: Time to go back to the bigger picture for the election

This should be it for coup gate questioning of the Prime Minister.

Bruce Cotterill's piece over the weekend in the NZ Herald I hope, and more importantly actually I think, represents a growing feeling in this country among middle New Zealand that the superficiality of what the media obsess in is not really what counts. And what counts is the record and, as Bruce very clearly lays out, the record is not a bad one - from crime, to education, to exports there is a very good story to be told.

Pee Kay: “Show me a starving parent, and I will…”

“More than one in four children in South Auckland growing up in poverty”

This was the searing headline in a recent edition of the Herald, serving as a blunt reminder of a crisis we can neither ignore nor fully agree on how to fix.

The report calls the rise in children living in material hardship between 2023 and 2025 “statistically significant”.

Claudio Grass: Freedom of Speech Dying a Slow Death in Europe

For decades, Western democracies operated under a comfortable consensus: censorship was a blunt instrument reserved for authoritarian regimes, while the “free world” relied on open debate, robust dissent, and constitutional safeguards. This sentiment allowed Western leaders to feel superior over the rest of the world, to lecture other countries on democratic principles and, in some cases, to invade and bomb them too, to spread these ideas by force. In recent years, however, that narrative has collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

Brendan O'Neill: For the love of God, stop the boats

It is a crime against sovereignty that hundreds of men are permitted to intrude on British soil every week.

Nine hundred and eleven. That’s how many people have illegally intruded into our country since Sunday. Just shy of a thousand foreigners, mostly blokes, sailed on to our shores and met not so much as a cough of opposition from border guards. An unresisted tide of newcomers washing upon a sleeping nation. It is intolerable. It is a grotesque insult to the hard-won liberty of this kingdom that armadas of men from distant, regressive lands are permitted to come, week after week after week. For the love of God, stop these boats.

Simon O'Connor: Rinse, Repeat, Revolt

Why National's latest leadership drama is not an ending, but another chapter in an unresolved political struggle.

Back in April, I wrote a Substack titled Rinse and Repeat about National’s attempted leadership spill. Four months later, the same dynamics are playing out once again: another leadership challenge, another ‘victory’ for Chris Luxon, another distraction for National, and little sign that the underlying causes have been addressed.

Rinse and repeat  Simon O'Connor  22 Apr

JC: Lose Your Principles, Lose Your Way

National, whether its MPs realise it or not, has shown the voters what utter brilliance they possess: a brilliance to engineer a situation where they have brought themselves down and, by association, the party. They are now in a sad and sorry state. Those involved in the debacle might be competent in their portfolios but that is not what they will be remembered for. They have portrayed themselves as lying cowards with huge egos. When voters go to the ballot box in November, that will be the picture that they have in their minds. They will be asking themselves what exactly National stands for. That is a very pertinent question.