Rodney Hide: One job ad

The Department of Conservation is hiring a Principal Iwi Strategy and Partnerships Advisor.

https://nz.seek.com/job/94787886?type=standard&ref=search-standalone#sol=5dd0cb1365ceb02fd37ba1f0b885ce8dc67fed3c

Wellington. Permanent. $110,033 to $145,000.

The ad does not whisper. It shouts.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Let's hope the Government hasn't lost its nerve on amalgamations

It has been revealed the Government has pumped the brakes on the council reform it was rushing to get done. I think the councils and mayors who are angry about this have every reason to be really, really cross.

Dion Swiggs of ECan says he's 'disgusted'. Timaru's mayor says this is 'disappointing'. Mackenzie District's mayor says he's 'utterly disappointed'. Porirua's mayor says she's 'fuming' and has called the Government 'cowards'.

Ryan Bridge: Looks like the LNG deal's dead in the water, for now

Energy is everything, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

The LNG terminal is on ice 'till after the election. Shane Jones told Ryan Bridge Today as much last week.

The Taranaki project hasn't been green lit by Cabinet and there's no way it will be pre-election. There's also no way a contract of that sort would be signed by what is basically a caretaker government.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 20.9.26

Friday September 25, 2026 

News:
University students push back against calls to scrap Māori and Pacific admissions scheme
A university admissions scheme aimed at building the Māori and Pacific medical workforce has found itself at the centre of a political debate.

While some politicians are pushing to scrap the Māori and Pacific Admissions Scheme, or MAPAS, university students themselves have shared more nuanced views about the programme, pointing out its value in promoting equity.

Guest Post: An open letter to Prime Minister Luxon

Guest Post on No Minister by Hugh Perrett

Rt Hon Prime Minister Luxon,

Retailer-owned Co-operatives ( such as Foodstuffs ) with the ‘owner-operator members’ stores trading in ‘Groups’ under brand/banner names owned by the Co-operative (in Foodstuffs case New World , Pak’NSave and Four Square) are COMMON THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. In Foodstuffs case they also have ‘non-advertising’ members who trade independently outside of the Group banner system.

John McLean: The Do-Nothing Nats

How do we not love them? Let us count three ways…

At core, New Zealand Governments should be about orchestrating Parliament to pass new legislation.

Heated debates, hot air and empty promises change nothing. Enacted legislation is the only way Parliament can change New Zealand’s legal landscape. Enactments can comprise entirely new Acts of Parliament, or repeal or amend existing legislation.

Colinxy: How DEI Became the West’s New State Ideology

The Soviet playbook didn’t disappear — it migrated

Modern DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) is marketed as a moral breakthrough, a humane framework for justice, representation, and social harmony. But strip away the branding, and you find something older, darker, and unmistakably familiar.

DEI is not a new ideology. DEI is the Soviet nationalities policy reborn: Raznoobrazsiya and Korenizatsiia with corporate logos and HR departments.

The West did not invent DEI. It inherited it.

Yvonne Van Dongen: Butter Chicken Tsunami

Flood a nation with different cultures at warp speed and watch what happens

Twelve years ago I had an Indian flatmate on contract to an IT company. He’d already worked in the United Kingdom and the United States and found New Zealand to be the most welcoming country he had lived in. I doubt he would say that now.

Now we have reports of anti-Indian racist grafitti outside an Auckland primary school where over 60 percent of the pupils are Indian, police data shows South Asians are the group most experiencing racial abuse and, on rare occasions, this abuse has led to violence.

What’s changed?

David Farrar: Prebble and ChatGPT score the last two Governments

Richard Prebble asked ChatGPT to score the last two Governments on how they had performed in key areas. The summary is:

David Farrar: The Hager story implodes even more

I wasn’t going to blog again on the Hager book as it was already clear he had so many things absolutely wrong. But three more things today are too noteworthy to pass by.

Richard Prebble: Nicky Hager’s new book reminds me of my shameful mistake

Whenever Hager publishes one of his hit jobs it reminds me that I once was a target. The memory makes me burn with shame.

Hager wrote that Roger Douglas and I were part of conspiracy to appoint Don Brash, Governor of the Reserve Bank.

Mike's Minute: The BSA legislation should have been delivered sooner

If I was generous, I would let him off, given he has got more portfolios than anyone.

But Paul Goldsmith has delivered to Parliament the bit of legislation that will finally finish off the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

He did it with a flourish of slightly embarrassing bonhomie.

Thursday September 24, 2026 

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NZCPR Newsletter: Strategic Voting to Win

In the lead up to the 1984 election, Bob Jones’s New Zealand Party stormed onto the political scene, winning one vote in eight, but gaining no seats in Parliament.

As a result, 256,000 votes were wasted. Our First Past the Post voting system left a quarter of a million voters completely unrepresented.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: You can't read Nicky Hager's new book without being struck by bias

I can't decide whether Nicky Hager is naïve or sheltered. Surely it must have been obvious to him while writing this book that the very thing he's accusing Jordan Williams and the Taxpayers' Union of doing is exactly what he is doing himself: acting as a proxy to help political parties.

Geoff Parker: One Law For All Does Not Ignore History — It Recognises Who Makes The Law

Deborah Coddington (NZ Herald 23/9/26) is right about one thing: New Zealand's common law has developed through judicial decisions for centuries. But that historical fact does not answer the constitutional question ACT's “One Law for All” policy is addressing.

Her Donoghue v Stevenson example illustrates the point. The courts developed the modern law of negligence because Parliament had not comprehensively legislated in that field. But that does not mean judges possess an unlimited licence to create new legal duties whenever they consider them desirable.[1]

There is a crucial distinction between developing established common-law principles and creating new obligations in areas where Parliament has legislated — or deliberately chosen not to legislate.

JC: They Are a Sorry Lot

I’m referring to the excessive number of overpaid and mostly not very bright MPs that we vote for every three years to supposedly, in Donald Trump’s language, “Make New Zealand Great Again”. If you used the word Aotearoa, which would be a total misnomer, we could create our own MAGA movement in this country. I think we need to but first you’ve got to find the person fit for the job to lead it. That leader is not currently in any party today. There are a few MPs who are trying to make a difference but, on the whole and most notably on the left, they are a sorry lot.

Bruce Cotterill: Election 2026 - New Zealand needs better spending, not big taxes

I’m sick of our politics.

Like many people, I’m deeply interested in it. But if you have even an average level of aspiration for what this country could be, you’d be right to be frustrated by the current campaign.

The politicking. The half-truths. The mistruths. The mealy mouthed words and phrases designed to mean one thing or something else. Members of a party making a comment, only for another member of the same party to say something different.

Peter Williams: What’s so wrong with Taxpayers Union?

The Taxpayers Union (TPU) always struck me as very good idea. After all, what’s not to like about a lobby group that calls out wasteful government spending and develops policy ideas about how to more efficiently allocate the money a government receives from taxpayers.

Calling itself a “union” was deliberately provocative, a piss-take if you like of the political left’s love affairs with trade unions. To this day there still some disaffected types who say that the TPU is not a real union because it’s not a trade union - as if trade unions were only types of unions.

As any half literate person will understand, a union is merely a grouping of two or more individuals for a common purpose. The etymology says it all. Many into one. A marriage is a union. Sports clubs are sometimes called unions. The lefty argument can easily be debunked.

David Farrar: Hager’s work of fiction

Nicky’s Hager’s last book had an enquiry led by a former Supreme Court Judge, and a former Attorney General and Prime Minister. They concluded that the “principal allegations” in Hager’s book “are not accurate”.

This book is even worse. I could spend most of the week detailing the untruths in it, but frankly there is no need. Just take a few.