Bruce Cotterill: How New Zealand can protect itself in a fracturing world

We’ve only just finished the third week of January, and already we are seeing a level of global change that feels unprecedented.

According to the timeline of my holiday reading, it started in Iran, where the people are attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic’s leadership, which has been in place since 1979. Thousands are reported dead, but the regime appears to be hanging on to power, just.

Rod Kane: Tauranga’s avoidable disaster.

Before the trolls start I’m going to put my credentials up here. Apart from a lifetime interest in geology and landforms, and having an NZCE in civil engineering, neither of which counts for much, what does count in my opinion is the fact that I owned and operated a geotech contracting company specialising in slip remedial work for nearly 20 years. I have worked on and under more dangerous slips than I care to remember. More than once I had to make a run for it.

We have a human tragedy, that is horrific and the terrible drama will play out in the fullness of time. We all feel for the people involved. But something needs to be said right now to avoid all this in the future.

John McLean: Cozy Coffee With Coster

New Zealand’s Public Service Commissioner remains strangely loyal to a disgraced ex-Police Commissioner

On 15 January 2026, Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche met with former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster. They met in public, at Mojo Café near Parliament, six weeks after Coster had resigned as CEO of the Social Investment Agency.

Allow me to refresh your memories. Andrew Coster tried to anoint child and bestiality porn criminal Jevon McSkimming as Coster’s successor as Police Commissioner. Coster did so in full knowledge that McSkimming was, as Deputy Police Commissioner, sexually predating upon a young woman.

Sunday January 25, 2026 

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Steven Gaskell: Greens Push to Lock in Māori Seats Because Some Votes Need Extra Protection

Just when you thought New Zealand’s electoral system couldn’t get any more “future-proofed,” along come the Greens with a helpful new idea: entrench Māori seats so they can’t be removed without a super-majority of MPs.

That’s right. In the name of democracy, the Green Party wants to make it harder for future Parliaments to change how representation works provided the seats in question are the right ones.

Reynold Macpherson: Te Arawa 2050: Who Decides, Who Pays, and Who Is Accountable?

The launch of the Te Arawa 2050 Committee a year ago was framed as a gesture of goodwill and partnership within Rotorua Lakes Council. Many welcomed its stated aim: to give Te Arawa fair and proportionate influence in council policymaking. That objective was legitimate and long overdue. A year on, however, it is clear that goodwill cannot substitute for clarity—especially when households face sustained rates pressure and councils are being urged to live within tighter fiscal limits.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 25.1.26

Sunday January 25, 2026 

News:
Finance Minister praises Māori Queen’s economic vision as election year puts spotlight on Māori-Govt relationship
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has praised the Māori Queen’s vision for the Māori economy after the launch of a multimillion-dollar business investment fund.

Politicians followed tradition and gathered at Rātana today, a small settlement near Whanganui, for what is widely considered the first political event of the year.

Ian Bradford: These unusual weather events may be due to the Gulf Stream slowing down

Those who believe that humans are causing global warming sometimes agree, that warming has occurred in the past without the influence of humans but argue that it is the speed of the present warming that convinces them humans are responsible. They either don’t know about, or simply ignore the Younger Dryas. In fact, the Younger Dryas is one important example of an abrupt change. Throughout the Earth’s history there have been serious ice ages. About 14,500 years ago, Earth’s climate began to shift from one of those cold glacial worlds to a warmer interglacial state. However, part of the way through this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere SUDDENLY returned to near glacial conditions. This near glacial period is known as the Younger Dryas, named after the flower Dryas Octopetala, that grows in cold conditions and that became common in Europe during this time. The end of the Younger Dryas about 11,500 years ago was particularly abrupt. IN GREENLAND, TEMPERATURES ROSE 10 DEG C IN JUST 10 YEARS! (Alley, 2000). Proxy records including lake sediments in Europe, display these abrupt shifts. (Brauer et al, 2008).

Ani O'Brien: Organ donation reform was agreed but never delivered

Millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent with nothing to show for it

Michael Papesch does not fit the stereotype of an activist. He is methodical, careful, and appears not to be a man who enters easily into confrontation. He had a long career in the public service and has served on various boards related to renal health. His interest in organ donation is personal as he was first diagnosed with renal disease in 1996, was on dialysis in 2005-2006, and received a transplant in August 2006. Dr Paula Martin is equally more comfortable getting stuck in to policy work than tackling the world of politics. Her PhD thesis was on Increasing the rate of living donor kidney transplantation in New Zealand: developing an evidence base and it was she who donated her kidney to her husband Michael in 2006.

Barrie Davis: Copilot - Breaking the Spell of Political Frames

A practical guide to spotting distortions, tricks, and linguistic sleights of hand in New Zealand politics and media that is simple, easy and quick.

 Do you ever have the sense that a piece of text just isn’t right? Much of what passes for “news” is actually advocacy wrapped in journalistic packaging. We sense the spin, we feel the manipulation, but we often lack the language to say what’s happening.

John Robertson: Bullying A Nation

Walk through any New Zealand city now and you can feel it before you consciously register it. The signs. The buildings. The announcements. The slow, steady replacement of the familiar with something ideological, imposed, and untouchable. English shrinking, Māori rising, not through organic use or necessity, but through instruction. Through policy. Through pressure. Through an unspoken threat: accept this, or be branded.

This isn’t a celebration of language. It’s a declaration of power.

Melanie Phillips: A Caesar in the White House

The old world order is dead because Western universalists destroyed it

This was the week when much of the West woke up to the realisation that the old world order was dead. A new one was being born, and they didn’t like it at all. And it’s far from clear that Israel can rest easy either.

The Trump administration came to the World Economic Forum in Davos — the very belly of the liberal universalist beast — to tell the rest of the West that globalisation was dead. It had failed Europe and the United States, harmed their prosperity and growth, and made them dependent upon and even subservient to others, including their enemies.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Britain reaches “break glass” point for energy and industry

UK

John Bew: we are almost at “break glass moment” for energy and industrial policy

The respected historian, John Bew, has warned that Britain is nearing a “break glass moment” across domestic policy, including energy. A former adviser to four successive UK prime ministers, including Keir Starmer, Bew argues we must urgently rebuild the foundations of national hard power. He has said the world order is changing and Britain must abandon the Davos consensus. 

Dr Oliver Hartwich: The warmth of the herd

Across the democratic world, voters are losing patience with the machinery that stands between a vote and its result – the courts, parliamentary procedures and constitutional limits that do not care who won.

The usual explanations – economic anxiety, cultural backlash, social media – capture something real, but they miss a deeper problem. We are losing the mental wiring for abstract thought itself.

Roger Partridge: We need to be realistic about the cost of our ‘luxury beliefs’....

From protecting heritage homes to banning oil and gas exploration, we need to be realistic about the cost of our ‘luxury beliefs’

Some ideas cost nothing to believe but a great deal to implement. Political commentator Rob Henderson calls them “luxury beliefs” – convictions that signal virtue among the comfortable while imposing very real costs on those with much less room to manoeuvre.

New Zealand, for reasons cultural as much as political, has become fertile ground for them. We are a small, highly educated country that prizes good intentions. Yet too often, the people who congratulate themselves for their ideals are not the ones who bear their consequences.

David Farrar: The Manage my Health fiasco

As almost everyone knows, Manage my Health was hacked by someone seeking a $60,000 ransom in return for not releasing the hacked files, which appear to be uploaded health documents.

I don’t criticise MMH for being hacked. It is hard to be hack proof. There may be legitimate criticism for them not encrypting uploaded documents and/or not having multi-factor authentication.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Paying for growth

The domestic political year has started with housing density back on the agenda. Is Christopher Luxon walking away from the bipartisan housing accord? Is he undermining his housing minister?

The speculation is a gift for newspaper columnists. But it misses the point.

Dr Benno Blaschke: Auckland housing intensification row - Why reform needs durable rules

Headlines this week suggest a retreat. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has signalled a softening of Auckland's housing intensification. It looks like Housing Minister Chris Bishop has been undercut.

That perception matters. Housing markets run on expectations. But the deeper lesson is not about one Prime Minister. Jacinda Ardern championed housing reform in her first term, then retreated in her second. Now Luxon is pulling back too. Same pattern, different party. Housing reform cannot depend on political resolve alone, least of all on the rare ministers willing to push further than their leaders.

Bob Edlin: Greens set out to change the electoral laws....

Greens set out to change the electoral laws to improve the privileges (or “enhance” the voting choices) of Māori

Perhaps because she is not too flash at winning elections by attracting sufficient votes, the Green Party’s Hūhana Lyndon is aiming to stack the deck in favour of Māori politicians and voters.

The Green Party today announced a member’s bill, in her name, to entrench Māori seats in law.

 Saturday January 24, 2026 

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