Breaking Views Update: Week of 30.8.26

Friday September 4, 2026 

News:
Crown settles with Ngā Hapū o Te Iwi o Whanganui
The Crown has concluded nine years of negotiations with Ngā Hapū o Te Iwi o Whanganui as legislation passes its final reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says.

JC: We Do Not Want This

And we did not vote for this.

It’s now official: Christopher Luxon has the political nous of a bedbug. Making membership of the Paris Accord non-negotiable in post-election talks can only be regarded by those on the right as traitorous behaviour of the worst kind. What leader of the right, in their right mind, goes trampling all over their party base and those of their coalition partners? This is nothing short of mindless stupidity.

Chris Lynch: EXCLUSIVE - 89 staff assault incidents recorded at Rolleston youth justice facility in 12 months

Staff at the Rolleston youth justice facility were assaulted 57 times in the past 12 months, with 19 of those assaults causing injury, official information released to chrislynchmedia.com shows.

There were a further 32 attempted assaults on staff at Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo over the same period, taking the total number of recorded incidents to 89.

Clive Bibby: An insensitive response and a lost opportunity

A classic example of why PM Christopher Luxon is losing support amongst what should have been his most traditional supporters is his treatment of the current Air New Zealand CEO's performance in charge of the Nation's airline during the last turbulent trading year.

Ryan Bridge: It's not the mistakes that kills trust, it's the accountability dodgers

There's an air of arrogance and butt-covering to the stench that is Moa point.

In a nutshell, the council, its water management company and the contractor were all a bit shit at their jobs.

And Wellington's South Coast has been shat on.

Peter Dunne: Hipkin's dilemma

Has Te Pāti Māori just ruled itself out of government, or will Labour’s Chris Hipkins cave in, in the pursuit of power?

Te Pāti Māori's "bottom line" policies of subordinating the sovereignty of Parliament to the Treaty of Waitangi and a separate Treaty of Waitangi Commission, together with a contestable $200 million fund to promote Māori sovereignty issues raise that question. If ever implemented these changes would be the country’s most profound constitutional changes since the establishment of Parliamentary government in 1852.

Simon O'Connor: Accountability lost

With apologies to John Milton for misusing his title, but does New Zealand have an accountability issue? Recent events suggest the answer is yes, and our democracy is the poorer for this.

Accountability is a cornerstone of a successful democracy. Yet it is rarely discussed, particularly when public debate is increasingly dominated by topics such as artificial intelligence, social media, and the causes of political division.

Bob Edlin: Child porn - Brierley went to jail and lost his knighthood.....

.....but former Maori fishing CEO gets to serve time at home

At first blush, it seemed the former chief executive of Te Ohu Kaimoana was treated leniently when he was spared jail after police found 136 files “of the worst kind of child exploitation material on his devices.

At second blush, that impression was not dispelled.

Graeme Hastilow was sentenced to 12 months’ home detention in July after pleading guilty to five charges of copying child exploitation material and five charges of possessing it.

Home detention? Really?

David Farrar: Thanks Labour

The Post reports:

The country’s largest gas user Methanex will close its Taranaki methanol production facilities next year saying New Zealand’s declining natural gas supply made continued operations unsustainable.

Labour’s decision to ban gas and oil exploration has not just cost 150 jobs, but is one of the stupidest decision of recent decades.

Andrew Sibley: ‘Supercharged’ Global Greening in African Savannah....

....CO2 Brings Huge Boost to Grass Growth

More evidence of global greening from carbon dioxide fertilisation has been published in the prestigious publication Nature. The research involved 70 experiments and three decades of field data from many locations in the savannah of South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The international scientific team was led by Dr Kimberley Simpson of the University of Sheffield, the paper entitled ‘Increasing CO2 levels fertilise C4 grass production‘. Phys.org reported the study as follows: ‘Rising carbon dioxide is supercharging grass growth in African savannas, study finds.’ The latest study challenges the previously held view that the dominant grasses in the savannah (known as ‘C4’) benefit little from rising levels of carbon dioxide.

Mike's Minute: Chris Hipkins might not be very numerate

I think Nicola Willis may be right when she suggested to us the other day Chris Hipkins might not be very numerate.

He is undoing himself in front of us. As he does, he reminds us why he has basically done as little as possible these past few years, because when he does he is either in office blowing the place up, or putting out policy in Opposition that makes literally no sense.

He has blocked petrol excise increases for three years.

Thursday September 3, 2026 

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Ani O'Brien: Breaking Down Te Pāti Māori's Constitutional Policy

Te Pāti Māori has proposed a far-reaching constitutional policy that seeks to entrench Te Tiriti in legislation and establish a Te Tiriti Commission with powers to review executive decisions. This video breaks down the details of the Matike Mai report, exploring its implications for governance, political authority, and the broader debate surrounding New Zealand's constitutional future.

Click to View

Judy Gill: English is now an Official Language. The Ministry of Education must review its language policies.

The mixed te reo-English register now routine across New Zealand education did not appear overnight. Its policy roots stretch back decades — and one father’s refusal to accept it exposes a national question.

English is now, in statute, an official language of New Zealand.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm really tired of councils stuffing up and no-one getting in trouble for it

Tell you what, if you don't already have much confidence in councils, the report out on what went wrong with sewage spilling into the water at Moa Point in Wellington isn't going to help.

It turns out the Moa Point wastewater treatment plant is only half built. There's another half that was supposed to be built and never was. If it had been built, that spill probably wouldn't have happened because there would have been enough capacity at the treatment plant to cope with the extra rainwater that fell that evening.

John MacDonald: It's like getting a bank loan to pay the pocket money

Nine billion dollars a year. $750 million a month. Or $24 million a day.

That’s how much interest we are currently paying on government debt. Just the interest.

But, despite that, the Government thinks it’s a good idea to borrow more money to cover the cost of the revenue it’s not going to get because of the fuel tax freeze.

JC: Opt for TOP

This should have been the front page headline in the Herald. They were keen to let their readers know they were on TOP of things last weekend, at least when they came to the Opportunity Party. I picked up the paper and there staring me in the face was another face, that of the by now all too familiar Qiulae Wong. At the bottom of the A1 half-page spread readers were invited to go to A10 to continue the fascinating read. They didn’t mention the furthering of the epic on A11. Suspect bias is one thing but blatant bias is quite another. This was completely ‘over the top’.

Ryan Bridge: Is this really AI theft?

IP lawyers will be licking their lips with all these AI cases landing on their desks.

The latest, we spoke about yesterday, was Sony and Warner going after Anthropic.

Their argument is basically that Anthropic's AI models, the ones we use to get answers to questions, scrape and bottom trawl the internet for information.

David Farrar: The TPM overhang strategy could result in permament left wing government

Te Pati Maori are trying to use the Māori seats to engineer overhang seats, to try and lock the centre right out of power – even if they win more votes. But recent law changes means the potential impact of this strategy could be huge.

At present there are seven Māori seats. If TPM won all seven, and got fewer than 0.4% PV that would be a seven seat overhang. It means that you would need 64 seats to form a Government instead of 61.

Pee Kay: Forget co-governance – the Centre Left will entrench Te Tiriti and co-governance will only be the start.

Michael Laws on Willie Jackson and how Labour will be introducing co-governance under a new guise because the term co-governance has negative connotations.