Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.11.26

Thursday November 12, 2026 

News:
Mana whenua voting members proposed for Northland’s new $3.5m spatial plan
A new Northland planning body aimed at helping to shape the region’s future could cost ratepayers about $3.55 million over three years.

The committee could include four representatives appointed by mana whenua with full voting rights and count towards meeting quorums.

Clive Bibby: We need to get real!

What should we take from the election night results that remain too close to call?

Those of us on the Right should use the next couple of weeks to reflect on "what might have been" so that - whatever the final result - we are in better shape to avoid the mistakes we made, when we get the next chance in three years’ time.

Andrew Dickens: Is MMP broken? Is there a way to fix it?

As we wait for bated breath for the results of special votes to finally determine the result of the election, I think there is a big question that is just sitting there waiting to be asked and waiting to be answered: what's wrong with MMP? And is there any way we can fix it?

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Harry Mowbray's not wrong about women voters

Jeez, Harry Mowbray's clearly not afraid of poking a bear, eh? Fresh from publicly arguing with the National Party over vote-splitting, he's now complaining publicly that elections are decided by women who vote emotionally and pull politics to the left.

Now, I'm 100 percent sure he's going to cop it for this, but I actually don't disagree with him. I think he's almost, almost entirely right.

Geoff Parker: Co-governance Is Not The Same As Democracy.....

......The Distinction Claire Charters Overlooks

Dr Claire Charters argues in her Newsroom article, Co-governance seen as undemocratic when Māori are involved, that power-sharing is common in Western democracies and that arrangements involving Māori should therefore not be treated as unusual or undemocratic.

She points to coalition governments, judicial checks and balances, and Treaty-settlement arrangements involving iwi and the Crown. But this overlooks a fundamental distinction: not every form of shared authority carries the same democratic mandate.

Ani O'Brien: Grand Coalition - Stabiliser or Suicide?

Cautionary tales from overseas

Businessman Guy Haddleton would like Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins to sit down together before either of them starts negotiating with any of the smaller parties. While I have no objections to the two major parties hashing out some of the gnarlier long term challenges we face, like infrastructure, our ageing population, and housing, the suggestion of any kind of Grand Coalition gives me the heebie jeebies. I know that many political tragics of either side feel similarly. We did not just endure a brutal election campaign in order to shack up with the guy we have desperately been hoping will be kept out of office.

Pee Kay: Doesn’t it make you want to scream ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?

Farmer questions iwi conditions on effluent consent

Is this type of ridiculous situation only going to get worse under any new Luxon-led government or a Hipkins created, road to ruin?

When you read about a North Island farmer stalled for ten months over an effluent consent; a consent process hijacked by bizarre iwi demands to ban palm kernel feed and host mandatory karakia, doesn’t it make you want to scream ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?

Kerre Woodham: The RNZ blowout epitomises the public service's problems

Well, isn't the taxpayer funded radio station the absolute epitome of all that is wrong with the public service? I'm not talking about their journos or producers. There are some excellent journos down the road trying to do some excellent work in extremely trying times. But boy, have they been let down by their masters, their paymasters in particular.

JC: Give Thanks Where It Is Due

The leadership of the National Party is acting like ostriches with their heads in the sand. Maybe they think they are flying high and have their heads in the clouds. Either way they managed to almost deliver a loss to the centre-right on Saturday night. The annoying thing is they don’t even appear to recognise the fact. It’s an ‘anyone but me’ fault they have seemingly come to. If they do realise it they are certainly not letting on. They refuse to admit split voting had an effect, when it was the very mechanism by which the centre right snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat. This is not the National Party I once knew and supported.

David Farrar: Terrible mismanagement at Radio NZ

Radio NZ reports:

RNZ has revealed a near $12 million budget blowout after a litany of financial blunders, setting the stage for sweeping job cuts.

In its just-published annual report, the public broadcaster set out plans to axe the equivalent of 58 full-time jobs – about one in six staff – by the end of March and cutting running costs by at least 5 percent.

Rodney Hide: Nine seats? Try four

Rawiri Waititi was in fine form arriving at Parliament this morning. "If you look at our five seats plus the four overhangs, that's nine seats we've delivered to making sure this is a one-term government," he said.

Nine seats. It's a neat trick. The Māori Party won five electorates. Four of those five are overhang seats. The four overhangs are four of the five. Count them twice and you get nine.

Rodney Hide: Chris Bishop - MMP is bad for democracy

On Saturday night Chris Bishop lost Hutt South. Within days he had decided MMP is bad for democracy.

He told RNZ's Morning Report the country must review its electoral system. The vote-splitting campaign was "horribly" confusing, he said, and the 11-seat overhang, seven to National and four to the Māori Party, is not what MMP's founders had in mind.

(Well, it wasn’t confusing to us. And we don’t know what the founders had in mind. Punish Germany? What they had in mind is not the point; the point is this is the system that we have.)

Mike's Minute: It could be interesting times for Labour

I risk getting slightly ahead of myself, but my anticipation of the Government being returned means some very interesting times for the Labour Party.

Obviously Hipkins would go and in that is the exposure of one of those things we see increasingly often in the workplace – a lack of talent.

 Wednesday November 11, 2026 

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I actually don't think National's gone far enough to the right

Yeah, well what about those truth torpedoes that Vanessa Weenink has been firing, eh?

The outgoing National MP lost her Banks Peninsula seat in this election. She says people in her electorate told her they hated, that's her word, hated National in the lead-up to the election.

Geoff Parker: National's Treaty Retreat - Vanessa Weenink Has It Backwards

Outgoing National MP Vanessa Weenink says ACT and its coalition partners pushed National too far to the right on Treaty issues, damaging the party and hurting the country.

With respect, she has the argument backwards.

Richard Prebble: Is bottom trawling worth another election?

“Wong not budging on bottom lines even if it risks another election.”

That is the Herald headline.

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong says her five demands are “very reasonable”. It is up to the other parties to agree.

Are we to have another election unless the other parties agree to phase out bottom trawling?

Rodney Hide: Specials

The specials could sink Luxon's majority. They probably won't.

On election night the centre-right won. National took 42 seats, ACT 13 and NZ First 12. That's 67. Labour, the Greens, Opportunity and Te Pāti Māori have 64 between them.

The House is 131 seats, so a majority is 66. The centre-right has one seat to spare.

One seat is not much. And there are still 399,365 votes to count.

David Harvey: Election Commentary

Television can play a vital public service role in reporting the outcome of an election. As a means of informing the public and analysing the data, election commentators play a vital role.

But it is a serious business. And should be taken seriously. And in the US the major networks do just that. Watching election night results on US TV – say CNN, ABC or NBC – is a joy. Excellent reporting. Deep and well articulated analysis. Informative and eye-catching graphics to illustrate what is going on and finally that very important element essential to a broadcast about an electoral outcome – gravitas.

Roger Partridge: Knife-edge Kiwi election shows National forgetting John Key’s lessons

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s centre-right coalition leads on Saturday’s election-night count, though special votes could yet unseat it. In a bruising night for Luxon’s National Party, the finance minister, Nicola Willis, is out, along with Paul Goldsmith, the justice and defence minister; Chris Bishop, the attorney-general and housing and transport minister; and the Speaker, Gerry Brownlee.

On the night, Labour won 3,650 more party votes than National but six fewer seats. Preliminary results give National and its coalition partners – ACT, a classical liberal party, and New Zealand First, a populist one – 67 seats, one more than they need in a Parliament of 131 MPs.