Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time - 11 April 2026

Poll Panic vs Political Reality

The latest Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll triggered media framing of a crisis for National, languishing below 30% with leadership under pressure. And being stuck under 30% is definitely not a good place for a governing party, but it is also only part of the story and the more interesting part was largely ignored.

Roger Partridge: What Freedom of Speech Is For - The case against silencing

In 1633, the Roman Inquisition condemned Galileo for heresy. His offence was to argue that the Earth moves around the Sun.

The Church was not acting out of malice. It was protecting a politically approved consensus against what was considered to be dangerous nonsense. The theologians and philosophers who condemned Galileo were not fools. They were defending what every educated person knew to be true.

They were also wrong. And being wrong with institutional authority behind you is far more dangerous than being wrong alone.

Nicholas Kerr: America broke up with New Zealand years ago....

America broke up with New Zealand years ago – we just seem not to have noticed

Bryce Edwards asks whether it is “time to break up with America”. Don Brash asks whether it is any longer safe to be an American ally. Both are fair questions. Both, however, miss a more awkward truth.

New Zealand is being invited to agonise over the condition of a relationship that, in any serious strategic sense, ended long ago.

John McLean: Pilots of the airwaves

“Pilot of the Airwaves” is a 1979 single by English singer-songwriter Charlie Dore. The song, which reached #13 on the US Billboard Hot 100, was written from the perspective of a woman who listens to a late-night DJ. The song conveys her emotional connection to the DJ and highlights the intimacy and connection that mainstream radio used to provide.

Professor Jerry Coyne: More touting of indigenous knowledge as coequal with modern science

Once again we have an article about how science could be improved if only it incorporated indigenous “ways of knowing”—the “braiding of knowledge” referred to in the Guardian article below (click to read). I often see another metaphor used to express the same thing: “two-eyed seeing”, with one eye seeing the way indigenous people do, and the other way modern science does. (I won’t use the term “Western science,” often used to denigrate it.) The implication is that modern science is half blind without indigenous knowledge.

Melanie Phillips: The West’s fifth column

Much of the media and political class is willing America and Israel to lose to Iran

At around 2 a.m. on the last day of Passover in Israel, weary Israelis once again hauled themselves from their beds into air-raid shelters and safe rooms as the sirens started to wail.

Iran had fired yet more barrages of missiles at Israel and the Gulf states. That was its reaction to the announcement that had just been made by US President Donald Trump that Tehran had agreed to a two-week ceasefire. The regime’s response was immediately to break it.

Mike's Minute: Is National a victim of success?

Here is an irony for you.

Could it be that the Prime Minister, the one so disliked by the media, is actually so good at his job that his numbers are a result of his excellence?

The pollster David Farrar has broken down the NZ First poll numbers this week.

Barrie Saunders: TVNZ – a reassessment

Apart from 7 years abroad, I have grown up with TVNZ’s channel one and was privileged to serve six years on its board – 2011 to 2017

Up until recently I retained a forlorn hope that it was possible to create a hybrid public service/commercial TV operation, that was positively New Zealand oriented, presenting objectively the reality of life here, and abroad.

Saturday April 11, 2026 

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Graham Adams: The Rosy Resurrection of Helen Clark

Just don’t mention the foreshore and seabed.

Helen Clark’s gift of $86.8 million to the arts sector in May 2000 turned out to be a canny investment. The opera aficionado’s benevolence early in her first term as Prime Minister seems to have guaranteed her the undying devotion of the luvvies who dominate the world of theatre, music and film.

They will forgive her anything — except perhaps 2004’s Foreshore and Seabed Act.

Bryan Leyland & John Raine: The Energy Storage Elephant

Christopher Luxon announced the LNG Storage Terminal plan on 9th February 2026. By 28th February, the USA and Israel had attacked Iran, and we were forcefully reminded that New Zealand’s is one of the most vulnerable advanced economies to oil supply disruption. We are geographically isolated, fully import‑dependent for refined fuels, and exposed to geopolitical upheaval and chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 5.4.26

Saturday April 11, 2026 

News:
Council staff ‘didn’t know’ red-zoned property was Māori cemetery before they proposed selling it
Redcliffs residents are pushing back against a council proposal to sell off a piece of red-zoned land that was once a Māori cemetery - something council staff say they didn’t know about.

David Harvey, A Framework For Media Regulation In The Digital Age

A standalone proposal for the reform of media and communications regulation in New Zealand

Preliminary Note
This article contains a standalone proposal for the reform of media and communications regulation in New Zealand. It sets out both the theoretical and analytical foundations for reform and a concrete institutional model for a unified regulator.

Insights From Social Media: We will all drown eventually?

Gravedodger writes: Not from the predictable if somewhat erratic tropical storms that today again threaten the North but from the torrent of inanity that surrounds Co Governance and Partnerships in current political thinking.

Maori are no more indigenous than my forbears who arrived by sea following the signing of the pacification document often referred to as “The Treaty” as if it is the one sole such document ever signed by a current authority here in New Zealand.

Colinxy: Tova O’Brien - A Case Study in Race‑Obsessed Critical Media Framing

Last year, I analysed the Jessica‑and‑Tova double act through the lens of Critical Media Theory. In that piece, I described Tova O’Brien as the Emotive Enforcer of the Ardern era — the journalist whose job was not to interrogate power but to emotionally validate it. She was the velvet‑gloved auxiliary to a velvet‑fisted government.

This week, she returned to form.

Mark Angelides: What Did You Think Victory in Iran Would Look Like?

Like the national debt, politicos of all stripes treated the despotic regime in Iran as a problem for future generations to worry about – until President Donald Trump decided to make it an issue for now. With the ceasefire currently holding, the world seems split regarding whether the ten-point plan presently on the table is a win for Washington or Tehran. But what did the pundits think a victory in Iran would really look like?

Dr Oliver Hartwich: I’m a liberal now but I still mourn the slow death of the Social Democrats in Germany

A few years ago, I found an old calendar from 1979 in a box of things from my childhood. It was filled with the scribblings of a four-year-old. Stick figures, misshapen houses, the usual doodling. And there, in red ballpoint pen, three letters: SPD.

I grew up in the Ruhrgebiet, Germany’s industrial heartland. In those coal-and-steel cities, the Social Democrats, the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, were not just a political party. They were the natural order. In my home region, the SPD regularly pulled more than 50 percent of the vote.

Simon O'Connor: A fragile President and ceasefire

Some reflections on Donald Trump's recent comments and the somewhat ceasefire in the Middle East


Please note, events are moving very fast in the Middle East and changing almost as fast as I can write a paragraph. The ceasefire, for example, has already been breached as Iran continues to fire ordinance at Gulf States and the Strait of Hormuz is once again blocked. To that end, be aware some aspects of this Substack may soon be out of date.

There’s a ceasefire in the Middle East, somewhat. The details are sketchy and only time will tell if it holds for two weeks or longer.

Bob Edlin: Northland council has replenished a trough to provide scholarships.....

Northland council has replenished a trough to provide scholarships – the rules favour Maori applicants

The Northland Regional Council has sounded the hog call that draws attention to a trough it has replenished.

According to the eligibility criteria, Māori who rush for a share of the swill have a much better chance of being nourished at the expense of ratepayers than non-Māori.

Bob Edlin: No, matauranga Māori has not been forgotten.....

No, matauranga Māori has not been forgotten as Govt focuses policy on advanced technology and redirects science funding

Shane Reti, in his last press statement as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology, last week said the Government is backing a shift in science spending to areas that will have the greatest national impact.

A stronger focus will be placed on advanced technology.