Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.3.26

Tuesday March 10, 2026 

News:
Wai Manawa Whenua Appeals High Court Decision On Crown Treaty Assurances
Wai Manawa Whenua says the decision leaves unresolved serious questions about the legal status of assurances the Crown provides to the courts when addressing Treaty obligations.

Wai Manawa Whenua has lodged an appeal to the Court of Appeal following the recent High Court decision in its freshwater case against the Crown, saying the ruling raises significant constitutional questions about whether assurances given by the Crown to Māori can be legally enforced.

John McLean: Would The Real National Party Please Stand Up, Please Stand Up

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe…which way will The Nats Go?

In October 2017, Rapper Marshall Mathers got wildly worked up about US President Donald Trump. The artist know as Eminem, clearly afflicted by a virulent early strain of Trump Derangement Syndrome, produced a freestyle rap called “The Storm”. It wasn’t his finest work. But The Storm did contain a cornel of eternal truth. Sometimes there’s a line and you have to choose which side you’re on.

Mike's Minute: Luxon quitting would be an epic mistake

Staying the course when things are tough is a skill. I think you either have it or you don’t.

Chris Luxon will not get rolled, but he may quit. That would be a mistake of epic proportions.

What would drive me, if I was him, would be rational thought.

Ani O'Brien: The Big Lie - Delayed Motherhood and the Demographic Crisis

Social scientist Professor Paul Spoonley recently appeared on Newstalk ZB to discuss the latest Statistics NZ birth data. He reassured listeners that there is nothing to worry about in the fact that the median age of first time mothers is rising, also arguing that multi-generational households and adult children staying at home longer help offset demographic change.

Spoonley’s relaxed take echoes a broader argument you increasingly hear from progressive commentators and policymakers who insist that declining birth rates represent a triumph of women’s empowerment rather than a looming social problem.

Nils Hesse: Milei’s Argentina - Between Liberation and the Institutional Trap

What is President Javier Milei, really: a savior, or a bankruptcy trustee? An anarchist, a populist, or a classical-liberal reformer? Is he dismantling the casta — the entrenched political establishment — or is the casta undermining his reform agenda? In the end, will freedom prevail, or will the corrupt system reassert itself and absorb the would-be reformer?

David Farrar: A 46% quit rate is pretty good

The Herald reports:

Health NZ has distributed over 7000 vaping devices and 67,000 refills in just two months as it ramps up its free vape programme for smokers.

It comes after health officials signed a contract with a New Zealand-owned vape company to provide the devices, which come in flavours including tobacco and peach mint.

David Farrar: $156k of science funding for a Kumara patch!

The Taxpayers Union released:

Remember last year when we blew the whistle on the $4 million of taxpayer money being spent on recording, remixing, and playing whale music to kauri trees to (apparently) ‘soothe and cure’ kauri dieback? …

Guest Post: Two Years In, the Government Is Out of Excuses

A guest post by Chris Scott on Kiwiblog

We’re now well past the point where the coalition can blame everything on the mess they inherited. That line worked in 2024. It even worked — just — in 2025. But with an election looming in November, voters are no longer interested in origin stories. They want outcomes.

Cláudia Ascensão Nunes: Free Nation by Choice

Switzerland’s case for decentralization.

Switzerland is the freest country in the world, according to the Human Freedom Index. Small in territory but giant in institutional autonomy, it has built a decentralized, monetarily stable, and deeply participatory democracy, all outside the European Union.

Monday March 9, 2026 

                    ⇩

Damien Grant: To Helen Clark - Sorry, but international law won't stop an Iranian nuke

How hard is international law? I see that Helen Clark has joined a growing phalanx of freshly graduated experts in the field so I thought I’d give it a go.


The basis of international law is the UN Charter which stipulates that one sovereign nation cannot attack another. Seems fair. However, Article 51 has an exception.

Pee Kay: They Need Saving From Themselves

Two venerable and time honoured social service providers of New Zealand seem to have decided that the way forward for their organisations is to raise their banner firmly behind those of the belief that Maori are a down trodden class, that Maori in New Zealand have been so terribly disadvantaged by colonisation they now must be dispensed with advantages no other race can access!

I have to wonder if these organisations have stopped to consider that their stance may be at odds with their founding principles and, more importantly, detrimental to their ability to “tap the public purse” as public donations for a significant percentage of their respective incomes?

Ryan Bridge: This country's fines make no sense

This country's fines make no sense.

You can get $70 for parking a few minutes over in the wrong spot, $150 for driving in a bus lane at the wrong time, which is the same texting while driving, an act that could, in theory, distract you enough to kill somebody on the road.

Judy Gill: How does Diocesan School for Girls give effect to the Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

Observations from an Open Day visit to one of New Zealand’s highest-performing schools

A visit to the Open Day at Diocesan School for Girls in Epsom — widely regarded as the top-performing girls’ school in New Zealand.

I attended the Open Day at Diocesan School for Girls in Epsom.

Clive Bibby: The terrible price of freedom

History records the high price of freedom paid by those who opposed evil in all its forms since the beginning of time - almost always that price being in the form of the most precious commodity - losses of innocent human life.

Due to my current age related circumstances I have been able to watch most of the current consequential events in the Middle East as they unfold.

Dr Eric Crampton: Timid thinking behind the ban on prediction markets

From 2007 until about two weeks ago, New Zealand’s regulators considered prediction markets as a kind of futures market.

Then the Department of Internal Affairs decided they are gambling.

That decision makes little sense.

Roger Partridge: Renovating the nation

Anyone who has visited Sydney recently will have seen what asset recycling built. New metro lines that transformed commuter rail. Motorways that reshaped how the city moves. Modern hospitals in suburbs that had waited generations.

None of it was funded by raising taxes. None of it was funded by taking on more debt.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Miliband’s Epic Failure

UK

Miliband risks energy bills crisis

Ed Miliband has rejected calls to “open up the North Sea” as war rages in Iran, claiming that the biggest “long-term threat multiplier” to UK security is the climate crisis.

Dr Michael Johnston: Agreeing to disagree

Democracy is easy to take for granted. For most of the last century, it has been advancing around the world.

Older Kiwis witnessed the defeat of fascism and the advent of democracy in Germany, Italy and Japan. Middle-aged New Zealanders remember the fall of the Soviet Union and the spread of democracy across Eastern Europe.

Melanie Phillips: An alliance of light against darkness

The war against Iran may put America and Israel at the head of a new world order

The war against Iran, in which America and Israel are rapidly degrading Tehran’s powers, doesn’t merely offer the hope of relief for the whole world by eradicating one of its most evil, murderous and far-reaching regimes.

We are also witnessing an even more momentous development — the likely birth of a new world order pivoted around that alliance between America and Israel.