Breaking Views Update: Week of 26.7.26

Tuesday July 28, 2026 

News:
Ownership of 11 temporary Government homes transferred to Ōmāhu Marae
Ownership of 11 temporary homes at Ōmāhu Marae in Hawke’s Bay has been transferred from the Government to the marae’s trustees to support Māori-led housing.

The homes were transferred to Ōmāhu 2R Māori Reservation and Ngāti Hinemanu, Ngāi Te Upokoiri me ōna Piringa Hapū Authority Trust for a nominal amount.

Mike's Minute: We need to recognise the legacy of Bill Birch

I was a bit deflated a couple of Fridays ago when the news of the passing of Bill Birch came through.

His life contribution and story barely got a mention.

But I felt better this last Friday when at least his funeral got much better coverage.

Pee Kay: Social and Economic Survival or Managed Social and Economic Decline?

The 2026 election not as a choice between left and right, it is not a choice about who you have traditionally voted for and it is definitely not a choice of voting for who your parents and grandparents voted for.

This November it is actually a choice between social and economic survival, or managed social and economic decline!

Geoff Parker: Culture Is Not Democracy - Equal Citizenship Is

Professor Dominic O'Sullivan argues that abolishing Mana Whakahono ā Rohe Agreements "undermines democracy". In reality, the opposite is true.

No one is arguing that Māori culture should be excluded from public life. Every New Zealander is free to express their culture, advocate for their interests, and participate in democratic processes.

The issue is whether one ethnic group should enjoy statutory rights that no other citizens possess.

Rodney Hide: The Private Text That Triggered the Outrage Machine

Is it too soon to declare the brouhaha over Mr Stuart Nash’s text theatre? And a political hit job?

I don’t know. Let’s test the water.

Elizabeth Lawrence: Are Teachers Unions Sneaking DEI Into Classroom AI?

Left-wing activists have found a new way to indoctrinate kids.

Powerful teachers unions and education groups across the US are allegedly working to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion – also known as DEI – into artificial intelligence (AI) before the technology is fully integrated into American classrooms, according to a new investigative report by Defending Education, a watchdog group.

Andrew Dickens: Food security should be an election priority

As if the world hasn’t already got enough to worry about what with war, and fuel crisis and inflation, there comes another concern.

This weekend The Independent published a piece on UK Farmers warning that food shortages are just 10 days away for the UK and there are signs that suggest they’ve already arrived.

Chris Lynch: South Island mayors divided over Government’s council reforms

South Island mayors have given chrislynchmedia.com sharply differing views on the Government’s local reforms, with some backing mergers, others still weighing their options, and several warning the process was moving too quickly.

Nelson and Waitaki have settled on preferred options, Canterbury and Otago councils are still testing theirs, while some West Coast leaders say communities have not had enough time to properly consider the changes.

David Harvey: Controlling the Internet

Disclosure of interest. I write this as a member of InternetNZ, although I do not agree with its direction of travel or the way in which it has drifted from its original role. I am also a member of the Free Speech Union.

I formerly taught Law and Information Technology at the University of Auckland Law School, where the domain name system and the issues surrounding Internet governance and control featured strongly, and those issues have been discussed fully in the various editions of my text Internet.law.nz – selected issues. Much of this article draws on matters that were the subject of that course, and which have sharpened as the years and the technology have progressed.

David Farrar: National promised 30 weeks paid parental leave

RNZ reports:

National has pledged to extend paid parental leave from 26 weeks to 30, if re-elected.

The party is also proposing to revive a policy that allows parents to take some or all of their leave at the same time.

Monday July 27, 2026 

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Damien Grant: New Zealand First is important, but it is not, yet, serious

Dear reader. Last weekend I went to the New Zealand First conference and election launch at the Due Drop Events Centre in Manukau. You know the one. It is meant to resemble a Polynesian fale. Reminds me of two praying mantises engaged in a death match.

Moving on.

For three decades the Odysseus of New Zealand politics has navigated the turbulent seas of electoral fortune. He fell to Helen Clark’s sirens touting the baubles of office, only to wrench himself free. He was caught under Ardern’s spell to spend three years trapped by his own Calypso before being tossed into the lotus island of obscurity.

Penn Raine: UNexpected

Last week, much to my surprise, a senior UN official accused Hamas of interfering with humanitarian deliveries in Gaza. The report claimed that Hamas operatives forcibly entered World Food Program sites, assaulted aid workers and took supplies which were to have been distributed to Gazans who face serious shortages.

David Lillis: Employment in University Academic Roles by Gender and Ethnicity: 2016 - 2025

Preamble and Disclaimer 

I offer this report as a contribution to ongoing debates on the future of our universities. In fact I undertook the study that led to this report, both out of curiosity and from a desire to provide information to the general public and to officials and policy-makers. I confirm that I was not funded by any external organization and that the work described here is exclusively my own.

Ani O'Brien: No to Blasphemy Laws - people have rights, religions do not

The long campaign to criminalise criticism of Islam continues to demand blasphemy laws

The Law Commission Hara ngākau kino | Review of hate crime law has surprised me. In an area crowded with panic, symbolism, and bad drafting, it has refused to solve the wrong problem. In Hara ngākau kino, it concluded that New Zealand should keep the current sentencing model, under which hostile motivation aggravates an existing offence, rather than create standalone hate-crime offences. It recommended practical reforms instead, including a hate-crime flag at charging stage, formal recording in court records, express judicial statements when hostility is proved, broader coverage for associated victims and bystanders, the addition of sex to the statutory list, better guidance and training, and annual publication of police and court data.

John McLean: Bayly's Bonza Bill

A laudable legislative project

A Members’ Bill initiated National Party Member of Parliament Andrew Bayly has been randomly drawn from Parliament’s (actual) biscuit tin and will now progress through Parliament’s legislative process. Members’ Bills are pieces of proposed legislation initiated by individual MPs, rather than political parties.

Bayly’s Bill is the Crimes (Offence of Failing to Report Child Harm) Amendment Bill. The Bill, if enacted, will make it a criminal offence to fail, without a “reasonable excuse”, to report an assault on a child to the Police. Reasonable excuses include where someone fears for their, or another person’s, safety, or believes the information has already been reported by someone else.

Dr Eric Crampton: The Americans are on the march! Will Wellington welcome them again?

Wellington has its share of urban legends, most of them false.

One of the more popular ones, and a recurring social media trope, claims that America’s Army Corps of Engineers was prepared to build a proper motorway between Wellington and Auckland after the Second World War. And that the New Zealand government turned them down.

A more restrained version claimed that the Americans would have built Transmission Gully to facilitate movement from their base at Paekākāriki through to the port at Wellington.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Australia’s economic future is on display in NZ’s present

As an economics student in Germany in the 1990s, I kept encountering two countries at the other end of the world. Whenever a professor wanted to prove that reform was possible, the examples were Australia and New Zealand.

Germany, under Helmut Kohl, never attempted anything like it. Kohl had reunification to manage, a fair alibi for half his sixteen years in office. But labour and product markets stayed as fenced in as ever. Shops could not legally sell a litre of milk after half past six in the evening, and unemployment climbed past four million.

The German language even coined a word for the condition: Reformstau, reform gridlock.

Dr Eric Crampton: Better urban planning

Oliver asked me to make the case for the government’s resource management legislation. It should be read in conjunction with Nick Clark’s critique below. I share his concerns, and I expect he’d share some of my hopes.

Under a supportive Minister like Hon Bishop or Hon Twyford, the legislation would enable a more liberal approach to housing and development.

John Ogilvie: Protecting Children or Controlling the Narrative?

It’s been six months since the Albanese Government introduced the social media ban for people under the age of 16. This law was sold to the public as a necessary measure to keep children safe from the dangers of social media. They told us that it would usher in a golden age where kids would go no longer be stuck on their devices and would go outside and socialise just like they did in the pre-Internet days. And of course, we were assured that this had nothing to do with protecting the legacy media or controlling the narrative online.