Ryan Bridge: Governments should control spending and stability

There are basically two big things governments control that affect the economy and therefore all of us; spending and stability.

They're not to be taken for granted but too often they are.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 3.5.26

Wednesday May 6, 2026 

News:
Apology for 'immense harm' as Whanganui iwi sign landmark deal
Whanganui iwi leaders delivered a clear message to the Crown as they signed an historic Treaty settlement on Saturday: the relationship must change.

The $45.5 million settlement covers a redress area from Whanganui city and the river mouth, extending inland along the Whanganui River to Pīpīriki and reaching toward Taihape, the Whangaehu River and Whanganui National Park.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: ACT's proposal for pharmacists isn't radical, it's common sense

So at lunchtime today, I was catching up with one of our advertisers just across the road, having a cup of tea. He owns a health-adjacent business and we got chatting about community pharmacies - like the one I go to - and what they can do to survive at a time when the big players, like Chemist Warehouse, are taking over.

Rodney Hide: Standover Tactics - $180 Million for a Gold Mine

An iwi group allegedly demanded $180 million from Santana Minerals to approve the Bendigo Santana gold mine in Central Otago. This is not consultation. It is standover tactics enabled by our planning laws.

ACT Resources spokesman Simon Court has called it exactly what it is. Documents and meetings show iwi representatives pointed to a previous seven-figure payout for a hydro project as the benchmark. Pay up or face opposition. The company calculated the lifetime “contribution” at around $180 million. Kā Rūnaka say $180 million has not been their “focus,” but they have not denied the report.

Ani O'Brien: Who is right about the India Free Trade Agreement ?

Not a disaster. Not a breakthrough. Just a trade deal.

The public debate over New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreement with India has been waging since New Zealand First announced they would not be supporting it. Depending on who you listen to, it is either a significant breakthrough that opens New Zealand up to one of the world’s most important emerging markets, or a rushed, low-quality deal that gives away too much while delivering too little in return. Both sides are telling a version of the truth. But neither, on its own, is sufficient to understand what has actually been agreed.

Rodney Hide: What is the New Zealand government's Debt Limit?

Sir Niall Ferguson’s “Ferguson limit” is the point at which a nation spends more on debt interest than on defence. Cross it and the fiscal arithmetic begins to erode the ability to project power or even maintain basic sovereignty. The United States crossed it for the first time in nearly a century in 2024. New Zealand beat them to it.

Our latest numbers are damning. Core Crown interest payments are running at around $8.9 billion a year. Defence spending sits at roughly $3.3 billion. We are not close. We are already deep into Ferguson territory. Interest alone now dwarfs law and order spending as well. The debt service bill is larger than entire departments.

Lindsay Mitchell: How MSD treats covid fraudsters is revealing

For the last four years, the Ministry of Social Development, the main agency for the Wage Subsidy Scheme, has relentlessly reported on people who committed fraud during the Covid period. For example:

Dr Don Brash: Separatism in the fine print

The following is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge trustee

Hobson’s Pledge does not normally involve itself in the politics of free trade agreements. But one detail within the recently signed New Zealand–India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has us very concerned. The Government has affirmed its commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and, in doing so, continues to embolden the very separatist agenda that we fight against every day.

The signing of UNDRIP back in 2010 was the catalyst for moves like He Puapua and more.

Dave Patterson: North Korea Quietly Menacing as the World Watches Iran

Though headlines around the world are focusing on Iran’s conflicts in the Middle East, North Korea has been quietly up to mischief in the Indo-Pacific. North Korea has taken the opportunity to carry out multiple missile tests while the attention of most of the world is on the Middle East and Ukraine. Additionally, North Korea is strengthening its military and diplomatic ties to Russia and China in order to portray itself as a world power with which to be reckoned.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - Luxon wanted in on Trump’s war

The most useful thing the release of the Luxon-Peters emails on Iran has done is end an argument. For two months the question of where Christopher Luxon’s foreign policy instincts actually sat had been a guessing game. Stumbled press conferences. A curiously elastic distinction between “supporting” and “acknowledging” the US-Israeli strikes. It has felt like a PM and Government that would not say what it actually thought.

Last week’s emails settled it. They show that in the days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, the Prime Minister wanted New Zealand standing publicly with Washington. He was talked out of it, on the documentary record, by his Foreign Minister, by senior MFAT officials, and by his own department.

Dr Rachel Nicoll: The World Health Organisation Got it Wrong Again.....

The World Health Organisation Got it Wrong Again: We Did Have Pre-Existing Immunity to COVID-19

At his media briefing on March 3rd 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General said: “COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity”.

The WHO managed to get quite a lot wrong in its pronouncements about COVID-19. I am just focusing on the “to which no one has immunity” for now. But put this together with all the other inaccuracies in the WHO statements and guidance about COVID-19 and it does raise concerns about our Government’s recent outsourcing of health decisions to the WHO in the next pandemic.

Tuesday May 5, 2026 

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Dr Mike Schmidt: NZ Water Reform EXPOSED - Who Really Controls NZ’s Water Now?

John Kenel chats to Mike Schmidt about the setup and pitfalls of new water entities.

Click to view

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Is being a 'strong woman' really such a problem?

Judith Collins has two weeks left as an MP and she’s given an exit interview to Audrey Young at the New Zealand Herald in which she says people don’t like strong women - obviously referring to herself.

Now, I don’t disagree with Judith that she is a strong woman. She’s formidable.

David Farrar: Pay us off or we’ll oppose it

ACT released last week:

“An iwi group’s alleged demand for $180 million in order to approve the Bendigo Santana gold mine exposes how New Zealand’s resource management system has been warped by standover tactics and backroom dealing,” says ACT Resources spokesman Simon Court. 

Olivia Pierson: The Renewal of the West and a Reckoning for New Zealand

We in the West are not merely stumbling through the malady of culture wars. We are decaying in our very core. We have ceased to bring forth children in numbers required for our future, shattering the bonds of strong family - especially after Covid insanity saw family members pitted against each other - and we’ve saddled our young with mountains of debt along with a gnawing sense of futility, offering them neither purpose nor the prospect of showing them how to build lives worth inheriting.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - National and NZ First are now feasting on each other

For two and a half years it has been just about possible to argue that the National–NZ First–Act coalition was outperforming the predictions of its critics. Stable, if not exactly harmonious. As Winston Peters likes to put it, the coalition is as stable as a “three-legged stool”. That argument is over.

John McLean: UNDRIP On The Sly

National, Labour & ACT are sneaking the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into New Zealand law

The signed Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and India will come into force in New Zealand when approved by New Zealand’s Parliament. The National, Labour and ACT political parties have each committed themselves to voting in favour of legislation adopting the FTA. It’s therefore virtually certain that Parliament will entrench the FTA in New Zealand’s indigenous law before the next general election scheduled for 7 November 2026.

David Farrar: A Good Idea

Radio NZ reports:

The ACT Party leader David Seymour has floated dishing out $500 to every year 11 student for an investment account, to promote investing at a younger age. 

It was not an ACT policy “yet”, he said.

Mike's Minute: Do we have any choice but to help out the US?

Well the war seems live now, doesn’t it.

The Americans officially want our help.

Which brings us back to the original question - if this encounter ends up ridding Iran of the ability to produce nuclear weaponry, has it been worth it?