Breaking Views Update: Week of 15.11.26

Monday November 16, 2026 

News:
Valentina Trustees charge over Far North pā site damage dismissed
The archaeological damage was obvious. The culprit was not.

In a stinging ruling, an Environment Court judge has dismissed a prosecution over earthworks at an ancient Far North pā site, finding that critical gaps left a fundamental question unanswered.

John Denton: Post Election Prattle

There’s a great deal of blather being skited across the media in the aftermath of the election.

From Hipkins’ claim that “National was only holding on to the prospect of power because they’ve manipulated the electoral system” (When Labour’s co-conspirators, TPM, apparently did not). To claims that “National had been pulled too far right” (Excuse me whilst I laugh. Hysterically).

Roger Partridge: The global centre-right’s self-inflicted collapse - A lesson from New Zealand

This essay is based on my comments as a panellist on “The plight of the global centre-right” at the Centre for Independent Studies’ Consilium conference in Australia in October. I wrote about New Zealand’s 7 November election-night result for the Australian Financial Review here.

In the decade after the 2008 global financial crisis, leaders of the centre-right parties that had dominated Western politics since 1945 began to lose their hold on their own voters, in country after country. In the space of fifteen months, Britain voted to leave Europe against the advice of its Conservative prime minister, and Donald Trump, an outsider who had never held public office, beat sixteen rivals on his way to the White House. Marine Le Pen then reached the run-off for the French presidency, while the centre-right’s candidate, for the first time, did not. And the Alternative für Deutschland entered the Bundestag as Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats fell to their worst result since 1949.

David Harvey: The Chair Is Still Empty

Chris Hipkins’ Inability to Recall

On 24 March I published a piece on this Substack about Chris Hipkins. It was entitled “The Empty Chair”

It was about Hipkins’ response to the Iran crisis.

Nick Clark: The rates-cap trap is set, but we can avoid it

This year’s election was full of ideas that were considered good politics, but poor policy. One of these was rates capping.

Whichever parties form the next government, the Rates Capping Bill will sit near the top of its local government pile. It was introduced just before the old Parliament dissolved, and the new Parliament will need to decide what to do with it.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Helen Clark is right

On Saturday, 706,680 New Zealanders gave National their party vote. Collectively, all of those votes amounted to nothing. Not a single National MP will enter Parliament from the list.

National won 42 electorates, but its party vote entitled it to only 35 seats. Since it keeps all 42, no National list candidate gets in. That is why the Finance Minister, the Attorney-General, the Defence Minister and the Speaker are out of Parliament.

Tony Sayers: Looking at Electoral Solutions

In the aftermath of the NZ Election, some wise heads suggested that it might be time for a review of the MMP voting system. I refer to:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/361059223/some-say-mmp-stuffed-and-support-change-growing

Many of us would agree that we need to put on our ‘thinking caps’ to offer solutions.

Dr Eric Crampton: Planning hinges on new housing minister

The policies that work best under ideal conditions may yield terrible outcomes when conditions differ. Policies that fare better across lots of conditions may be preferable, even if they aren’t the very best under idealised circumstances.

Professor David Levy taught History of Economic Thought when I was a grad student at George Mason University. For much of that history, economics was political economy. A combination of the study of markets, policy, politics, and institutions. Professor Levy had a particular interest in what he called robust political economy: policies and political institutions that might not be best when the world works like a whiteboard model, but that do not fail too badly when the whiteboard is wrong.

Dr Nathan Peres: Walking the tightrope

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) dates its origins to 1 August 1927, when Communist troops rose against Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in the city of Nanchang. The uprising failed, but the Communists went on to win the civil war on the mainland, a war that never formally ended. In 1949, Chiang's government retreated to Taiwan, taking the Republic of China with it.

Kerre Woodham: I still don't know what went wrong with the Level 2 English exam

We're all running around like Kermit, arms waving with the Microsoft Outlook down. And if we're finding it a bit disconcerting with Outlook crashing, I can't even imagine what it would have been like for the kids sitting their year 12 English exam yesterday. Exams are fairly stressful and this is, for some of them, the end of the year and the end of their school lives and so every post is a winning post and they're putting their all into it, and all of a sudden the system crashes. All that work you've done just disappears, vanishes into the ether.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Burnham's Net Zero leadership pitch meets an empty room at COP31

This week, Andy Burnham championed Britain's climate leadership to a near-empty COP31 summit, while his Government rejected Britain's biggest solar farm over its impact on the countryside. Meanwhile, Germany's automotive industry faces further turmoil and Norway is prioritising domestic energy security. Is the Prime Minister's vision of global Net Zero leadership increasingly at odds with the realities at home?

David Farrar: Why the tobacco black market must be stopped

The Post reports:

Meanwhile, CCTV footage supplied by a local business appears to show a young boy on a bicycle selling illicit cigarettes from a bumbag.

A man who interacted with the boy estimated he was just nine or 10 years old.

He said it had become increasingly common to see young people selling tobacco and drugs in Papakura. On a previous occasion, he had seen another school-aged child selling bulk cartons of Double Happiness.

Rodney Hide: One table, one agreement

David Seymour wants "one game plan, one coalition agreement." He argued for the same in 2023. He is right.

In 2023 National signed one deal with ACT and another with New Zealand First. Each partner had to agree to the other's, with an agree-to-disagree clause. It was a halfway house. National sat in the middle, the only party that could see the whole picture.

Sunday November 15, 2026 

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Bob Edlin: Why the Waitangi Tribunal should find what drives the school achievements of Asian students

Newsroom has delved into a Waitangi Tribunal report for details of the policy-shaping process which resulted in school boards being relieved of their statutory obligation to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi.

As Newsroom tells it, the Ministry of Education warned the decision to remove the obligation would lead to a Waitangi Tribunal claim.

Dame Elizabeth Rata: Episode 11: Geography 1877 - 1899

In the video below Episode 11 is about Geography's importance to the school syllabus and contains plenty of interesting examples to show exactly what 19th century school children were taught. There were accounts of the earth and its inhabitants with an emphasis on the local environment as well as New Zealand and global physical and climatic features.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 14 November 2026

Election 2026: Labour has the most votes. Luxon has the numbers. For now.

Here we are on the other side of the election and things are just as mad, if not madder. As expected we have a kind-of-result, but nothing set in stone. We await the final result on the 27th of November while some are tentatively beginning negotiations, others are indulging in election denialism, and the smartest of them all told the media that he had nothing to say until the votes are officially in and has allegedly gone fishing.

Bob Edin: The columnist who is bothered by bickering.....

.....and blind to the breadth of beliefs among Maori politicians

Stuff columnist Joel Maxwell has bemused us again in a post-election article headed

A movement was happening, but Māori leaders chose to bicker instead

Which Maori leaders – you might wonder – is he talking about?

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Can we please stop talking about this grand coalition idea?

Now, listen, just indulge me for a minute or two, because I'd love to address the worst idea of the week.

No disrespect at all to Guy Haddleton, who I have a lot of respect for and credit with some very good ideas.

JC: What a Mouth They’ve Got

Since the election, politicians and other political commentators have given their verdicts. These come from both the left and the right. Those from the right, bar a few exceptions, show they have a very good understanding of how MMP is supposed to work. Those from the left are dripping in irony. Had they won, the comments we are currently hearing would never have been made. We might have had a bit of noise about beating a ‘rigged election’ but mostly they would have been congratulating themselves on a great win. If they win on special votes, will they say, ‘We don’t accept the result because the election was rigged’? No chance.