Breaking Views Update: Week of 18.10.26

Monday October 19, 2026 

News:
Māori legal expertise recognised with two King’s Counsel appointments
Māori legal expertise is being recognised with two Māori lawyers among 12 new King’s Counsel appointed by Attorney-General Chris Bishop.

Graeme Spencer: Election 2026 - What Sort Of Country Do We Want?

Remember the Treaty Principles Bill?

More than 300,000 submissions were made. Whatever your opinion of the bill, the campaign demonstrated something that every New Zealander should recognise: organised political movements can mobilise significant numbers of people - it was defeated by the volume of submissions, not the content and the quality.

Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori have supporters who are highly committed to their political causes. They organise, campaign, protest and make their voices heard.

Colinxy: The Left and Their Lust for Power

One of the great myths of modern politics is that the Left opposes power. They oppose your power. There is a difference.

For more than two centuries, Left-wing movements have presented themselves as enemies of hierarchy, privilege, wealth, authority, and oppression. Their rhetoric is full of liberation, equality, justice, democracy, and empowerment.

Yet whenever one examines their history, a strange pattern emerges: the problem is never power itself. The problem is who currently possesses it.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: The false economy of aged care

Last week, we co-hosted a dinner with the Selwyn Foundation. Its chair, former Labour health minister David Cunliffe, led the Government's aged care advisory group and presented their report, A place to grow old.

The report describes an underfunded, fragmented system facing more than twice as many over-85s by 2047. It recommends paying providers enough to build beds, more home care, an independent pricing authority and higher contributions from people with assets.

Roger Partridge: The bank of the children

We hear a great deal about the Bank of Mum and Dad. The Bank of the children gets rather less attention, although we have been drawing on it for years.

The Bank's terms are simple. Voters choose what they want, politicians arrange delivery and Treasury does the paperwork. Anything the adults would rather not pay for goes on the kids' account.

Nick Clark: Deals without the devolution

Greater Manchester's 2014 devolution agreement included powers over transport, housing and skills, with matching funding.

That was my model for New Zealand two years ago, in a research note for The New Zealand Initiative. I urged the Government to strike City and Regional Deals that live up to the name.

New Zealand's centralisation leaves councils with weak incentives for growth. Wellington takes much of the tax revenue, while councils and ratepayers bear infrastructure costs. Devolving powers and sharing revenue would help.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: NZ’s mixed-up electoral system threatens to blow results out of proportion

Here is a paradox that ought to trouble ministers more than any single threat named in the NZSIS’s 2026 Security Threat Environment report, released in August.

The New Zealand Government has never had more useful intelligence available to it than it does today. Yet it is not digesting that intelligence quickly enough to matter.

The problem is not what we know. It is how we decide.

Dr Eric Crampton: Importing youth to offset an ageing population

Virtuous and vicious cycles in policy are both entirely possible. Sometimes at the same time.

Voting has long been heavily age-skewed, with greater proportions of older people voting. Combine that with an ageing population across the developed world and a very bad vicious cycle can easily take hold.

As the median voter gets older, politics shifts to provide more of the kinds of things that older people like and fewer of the kinds of things that younger people like.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat - Labour’s energy price ‘doom loop’: the Net Zero legacy

Household energy debts are heading towards £7bn, with paying customers facing a £100 annual charge to cover unpaid bills. Ministers, meanwhile, are weighing Rosebank and Jackdaw as researchers warn that blocking them could forgo almost £11bn in tax revenue. Overseas, the IEA is accelerating emergency diesel releases as supplies tighten.

Kerre Woodham: Government gang rehab programmes need to show us their value

The Greens are under fire with Marama Davidson doubling down on her desire to work with the mob to get positive health outcomes. First there was the photo in the mob headquarters, cha ching, look at us, woo hoo! That was the Greens and Te Pāti Māori MPs popping along to a health hui.

And when asked about that in faintly judgy tones by the media, Greens co leader Marama Davidson said, "We are open to funding the Mongrel Mob to deliver drug prevention programs. We're open to funding what works. We're an evidence-based party." And that instead of pushing problems under the carpet, they want to bring problems out into the light, get to the people who are hard to reach, and if that means working with the mob, well, all well and good.

Richard Prebble: Those about to be defeated

“The average length of time served in Parliament has dropped since MMP was introduced”, says the Association of Former Members of Parliament. For list MPs it is “about four years”.

The Association ran at a loss this year of $2,806, but the treasurer “expects the situation to improve next year as more MPs leave Parliament following the 2026 General Election.”

The Association reports that many former MPs struggle to find employment.

Rodney Hide: Henry Cooke wants a do-over if you vote wrong

The Post's political editor, Henry Cooke, has a plan if the MSM’s relentless campaign for the Opportunity Party fails. It’s a simple plan: if you vote the wrong way, you vote again.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361099333/dirty-deal-chris-hipkins-and-christopher-luxon-should-actually-strike

He says so plainly. He wants Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins to promise that "if an overhang is the only path to government, then we'll ask the Governor-General to call another election instead." He says it "would be called a 'dirty deal' between the big two almost immediately."

 Sunday October 18, 2026 

                   ⇩

NZCPR POLITICAL PARTY TREATY POLICY 2026

 

Executive Summary 

The 2026 election presents New Zealanders with a stark constitutional choice. For the first time in our history, voters must decide whether the country remains a Parliamentary democracy based on equal citizenship — or whether it will begin a transition towards a Treaty-based constitution that would replace democratic authority with tribal control. 

Peter Williams: The Minor Parties Hold The Keys To Power

 

The political week has been dominated by debates, with three of them generating numerous headlines and reactions – the televised leaders' encounter on Wednesday, the so-called Kingmaker show on Tuesday and the Queenstown finance spokespersons' debate also on Wednesday, which drew an audience reported to be 800 strong, possibly the biggest turnout of the campaign so far.

Geoff Parker: The Real Constitutional Instability Is The Attempt To Rewrite New Zealand By Stealth

Writing for the University of Auckland, political theorist Stephen Winter warns of “short-sighted constitutional instability”, pointing to changes involving Treaty principles, Māori wards, electoral law and the Bill of Rights. He proposes stronger institutional safeguards, including a permanent constitutional select committee.

But this puts the cart before the horse. The far more fundamental question Winter does not adequately confront is:

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 17 October 2026

Election 2026: Polls, plans, and unexpected begrudging support

The latest polling hasn’t made life any better for either of the two Chrises. An Anacta poll (conducted by Labour’s former pollster Talbot Mills for corporate clients) has Labour on 29%, National on 28%, the Greens on 15%, New Zealand First on 10%, ACT on 9%, and Opportunity on 5.4%. Te Pāti Māori is languishing at 1.9%, but that is part of the strategy. The poll was conducted before the Mongrel Mob visit became controversial, however. The 1News Verian poll earlier in the week also placed Opportunity in the position of potential kingmaker. There continues to be little enthusiasm for either of the Chrises with both on 22% as preferred prime minister in the Anacta polling.

Claire Deeks: You Don't Even Have To Like Them

With the election just a few weeks away, there's something I want to talk about.

I've heard from people who have decided they won't be voting this year. Others are still trying to work out who, if anyone, deserves their vote.

And I understand why.

Bob Edlin: Champions of Maori flag raise questions about their grasp of sovereignty and history

RNZ’s audience might have been left wondering about the nature of the curriculum at St Stephen’s School, when they heard the reasons that students were giving for championing the Tino Rangatiratanga flag.

The students’ thinking about identity, history and culture is recorded in a report about a campaign to have the flag flown permanently alongside the New Zealand flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Campaign supporters are reported as saying this would recognise Māori identity, history and “the dual heritage of Aotearoa”.

Campaign organisers aim to gather 80,000 signatures in support of permanently raising the flag from Waitangi Day next year.

The flag now flies on the bridge each Waitangi Day before being removed the following day.

Graham Noble: The Rise of Socialism in America....

.....Not Popular, but Not Shunned

In a sane world, there would be no need for anybody to conduct a poll asking voters whether they are concerned about socialist candidates running for public office because, in such a world, the percentage of people who say they are concerned would be 100. Still, the most recent poll published on this issue holds both good news and bad.