Sean Plunket: James Christmas’ First Media Interview As New ACT Candidate

PLATFORM INTERVIEW:

Click to view

The Platform's Sean Plunket interviews barrister James Christmas - ACT's new candidate for the Tamaki electorate.

Former National Party candidate James Christmas, who was tipped as a potential minister and Attorney-General, will contest this year’s election as a candidate for the ACT Party. He is one of eight people vying to become ACT’s candidate in Auckland’s Tāmaki electorate.

Peter Hemmingson: ACT, Then and Now - Have We Seen This Movie Before?

As a long-time supporter of Richard Prebble’s original vision for ACT, I’m highly uneasy about what appears to be a familiar pattern re-emerging.

When Prebble brought Donna Awatere-Huata into the party, I questioned the decision at the time. Her background in radical Māori separatist group Ngā Tamatoa and openly expressed sympathy for Marxist economic ideas sat uneasily with ACT’s commitment to free markets, individual responsibility, and equal citizenship.

Steven Gaskell: Redefining “Veteran” in New Zealand - Fair Recognition or Fiscal Reality?

With ANZAC Day fast approaching, the debate over how New Zealand defines a “veteran” is once again gaining momentum. Advocacy groups such as the No Duff Charitable Trust are calling for a broader, more inclusive definition, arguing that the current system leaves many former service personnel without recognition or support. Under the Veterans' Support Act 2014, eligibility for most government assistance is largely restricted to those with “qualifying operational service” typically meaning deployment to recognised conflict or high-risk zones. For many, this creates a clear divide between those who served in such environments and those who did not, regardless of the wider impacts of military life.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does our news just have the wrong priorities?

Right, here’s a question I’d like to answer: Do we all have strange priorities in this country, or is it just the evening TV news that does?

Last night, I sat through 13 minutes of TV One telling me nothing had happened with the cyclone before we finally got to the Iran situation, where something actually had happened.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 12.4.26

Tuesday April 14, 2026 

News:
Proposed treaty settlement brings overlapping iwi interests to a head
A Crown decision to include the transferral of six Department of Conservation reserves in a major treaty settlement for one iwi is facing strong opposition from other iwi and hapū who say the deal will “obliterate” their overlapping customary interests to those land reserves.

Elizabeth Rata: Neotribal Capitalism and Co-Governance

In a Nutshell

Capitalism creates prosperity. But its relentless drive to accumulate must be controlled by democratic politics. Neotribal economic corporations (the 'neo' means they are different from the pre-modern tribal re-distributive economy) are like socialist ones. They merge the economy with politics. Dangerously, they institutionalise the merger in legislation, policy and practice. Because those combined interests are invisible, they are unchallengeable.

John McLean: Clark Foul Play

A play called Helen Clark in Six Outfits is currently being performed at Auckland’s Waterfront Theatre. The play is about ex-Prime Minister and current de facto Labour Party leader, Helen Clark. The real Helen Clark attended the official opening night on 9 April. Radio New Zealand host Jesse Mulligan interviewed Clark, at the venue, after the performance.

Lindsay Mitchell: Immigrants pull their weight

Just-released March 2026 ethnic data shows Maori form the largest group of dependent unemployed people.

At the end of March 2026, 48,261 Maori were receiving a Job Seeker-Work Ready benefit (Job Seeker-Health Condition/Disability is a separate category for those considered temporarily unemployed due to illness.) NZ Europeans followed at 43,626. Pacific people occupy third place at 19,005. Asians trail back at 6,840 with Middle Eastern/ Latin American/ African people numbering 2,178.

Mike's Minute: The Judge Aitken case is finally over

I'm pleased for Judge Emma Aitken. She lives to rule another day.

That dreadful night at the Northern Club that threatened to derail her career has not ended in the calamity it could have.

The adjudicators didn’t like what she did. But equally she isn't losing her job.

Pee Kay: “The most expensive electricity on Earth is in countries with “cheapest” sources of electricity”

Can that statement be true?

Renewables are politically appealing, they promise climate progress and will, eventually, lower costs.

Won’t they?

Well, we only have to look at Europe to discern the truth, or not, of that statement.

Robert Bridge: Wind power is not the harmless energy source liberals said it was

Illegal logging, huge decommissioning costs, and even ecological damage plague the supposedly ‘green’ generators.

They may appear to be innocuous – even elegant – on the landscape as they collect power from the currents, but wind turbines have their own set of problems that environmentalists wish to ignore due to their eco-virtue-signaling.

DTNZ: Trump orders blockade of Strait of Hormuz after failed Iran talks

The US president has said that he instructed the Navy to “interdict every vessel that has paid a toll to Iran,” accusing Tehran of extortion.

US President Donald Trump has declared that the US Navy will immediately begin a “blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz after talks with Iran in Islamabad ended without agreement. He accused Tehran of extortion, referring to the fees charged to vessels seeking to traverse the strategically vital waterway.

Colinxy: The Myth of Medieval Flat Earthers — And the Modern Politicians Who Repeat It

In 2012, the then–U.S. President Barack Obama mocked his Republican opponents as “Medieval Flat Earthers.” It was meant as a clever ad hominem — a way of dismissing dissenters as ignorant without engaging their arguments. Ironically, the phrase revealed a certain ignorance on his own part. He repeated a similar line in 2013, this time dropping the “medieval” but keeping the caricature.

The problem is simple: the idea that people in the Middle Ages believed in a flat Earth is a modern myth. It’s been a convenient rhetorical prop for decades, especially in popular culture. Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise famously portrays Christopher Columbus as a lone visionary trying to convince a benighted world that the Earth is round — a theme Obama echoed. It makes for good cinema, but terrible history.

Monday April 13, 2026 

                    ⇩

Ryan Bridge: Did we over hype Cyclone Vaianau?

The storm for the most of the North Island was a fizzer.

The TV news struggled to find pictures of anything actually happening other than a few trees down and reporters breathlessly doing pieces to camera in the wind.

Damien Grant: Hug your kids today. They may be drafted tomorrow

I don’t often cite Karl Marx but the gentleman wasn’t without insight. In a letter to his colleague Frederick Engles in 1863 he wrote about decades that passed without incident “… though these may again [be] succeeded by days into which 20 years are compressed.”

This is the genesis of the saying that nothing happens for decades and then decades happen in a week. This past week seems one of those.

Caleb Anderson: The Ethical Void - Why the West’s True Crisis is a Moral One

The Western world today is in the grip of a profound crisis, yet we remain blind to a significant contributing factor. We debate economic trends, political polarization, and social fragmentation, as if they are distinct (stand alone) issues, failing to realize they are mere symptoms of a deeper, more fundamental affliction: the collapse of ethical standards of inquiry, discourse, and conduct ... and the absence of generally accepted moral boundaries.

Clive Bibby: Special Needs vs Ideological or Race based Entitlement

It is interesting to note how Governments of different political persuasions respond to a crisis by rationing the availability of critical resources.

It doesn’t seem to matter who is in power when an international event forces a prioritising of scarce resources to the areas that are perceived to need it most - the results of the decisions are inevitably the same - for some, ideology or race  almost always takes preference over common sense special needs. 

Centrist: Co-governance comes roaring back to life

Speaking to Duncan Garner, Steve Gibson, the Hastings councillor described the region’s new water structure as “Three Waters in drag” and said the core problem is not Māori, but unelected influence.

“Nothing to do with Māori, it’s to do with the unelected officials running the show,” he said. His warning is that power is being shifted away from elected councillors and towards people the public cannot remove.

David Farrar: A fiscal reality check

The Taxpayer’s Union has found:

Total crown borrowing per household went from around $60k in 2017 to $120k in 2023