Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.2.26

Wednesday February 11, 2026 

News:
Government backs energy resilience in Far North
Reliable, affordable electricity is on the way for a kura (school) and five marae north of Kaitaia with a grant of up to $1.26 million from the Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF), Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced today.

Geoff Parker: Colonisation Is Not What’s on the Dinner Plate

A new university-backed study claims Māori food insecurity is “not the result of individual choice or lifestyle” but a “direct and ongoing consequence of colonisation”. It is a claim that sounds humane and progressive — and one that creatively explains everything while proving very little.

No fairminded person denies that history matters. The problem is that colonisation is treated not as one factor among many, but as the decisive and permanent cause of present-day outcomes. It becomes an all-purpose explanation that absolves individuals of responsibility, shields current policy from scrutiny, and discourages honest discussion about what actually drives food insecurity today.

Barrie Saunders: Cutting losses – governments too slow to learn

Business generally works out when to cut losses because the risks of failure are too high for shareholders and workers.

Government on the other hand are very slow, regardless of stripe. Grant Robertson got very grumpy with KiwiRail re the ship and ferry land side infrastructure and should have stopped or changed it, one way or the other. Nicola Willis probably acted prematurely without fully thinking through the alternative options which could have included rescoping the land side aspect. Probably still made the right call.

Pee Kay: Wellington citizens are in the sh-t!

Surely this article epitomises the inadequacies and ineptitude of local government in New Zealand!

It perfectly underscores how ratepayers around the country are abused and exploited by Mayors and councillors as they squander ratepayers money by giving preference to projects that reflect and align with their political leanings.

Roger Partridge: The Historian Who Forgot His History

Economic historian and Hoover Institution senior fellow Niall Ferguson declares that Donald Trump “won Davos, hands down.”

Writing in The Free Press, Ferguson’s argument runs as follows. European leaders genuinely feared Trump might use military force to annex Greenland. They invoked international law and the rules-based order. Then Trump arrived, delivered his usual improvisational performance, and called the whole thing off. No new tariffs. No military action.

Kerre Woodham: Our jury system has an efficiency problem

Today, we thought we'd have a look at jury duty, given a story in the New Zealand Herald this morning. I've only been called for jury service once, a couple of years ago, before Covid, which isn't really a couple of years, is it? It's like six years ago. I was keen as mustard. Couldn't wait.

JD: Bias at the New Zealand Herald

Guest post on The Good Oil by JD

All of this analysis led me to the question: Maybe the pro-government, anti-climate catastrophe people just don’t write letters? But if my own experience is anything to go by, that’s not true.

As an avid reader of and writer of (usually unpublished) letters to the New Zealand Herald opinions page, I have long had the feeling there is little balance when it comes to what gets printed and what doesn’t.

David Farrar: Hipkins biggest failure?

The Herald reports:

The number of disadvantaged students using the fees-free scheme for university in 2024 slumped to the lowest figure in the scheme’s short history. …

But only 1.3% of the fees-free students at university in 2024 came from EQI 7 schools. In actual numbers, this translated to 230 fees-free university students in 2024 from EQI 7 schools, while there were 775 students from EQI 6 schools. Both of these are the lowest numbers on record for the scheme’s six-year history.

Colinxy: A Unified Typology of Socialisms - Class, State, and Race

For more than a century, the word socialism has been stretched, twisted, weaponised, and diluted until it has lost almost all analytical value. In modern discourse, “socialist” can mean anything from Scandinavian welfare policies to Stalinist purges. “Fascist” and “Nazi” are used interchangeably, despite representing fundamentally different worldviews. Marxists deny the lineage of Critical Theory. Fascists deny their socialism. National Socialists deny their collectivism. And the result is predictable: conceptual chaos.

Tuesday February 10, 2026 

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NZCPR Newsletter: Waitangi Day 2026

As New Zealand commemorates 186 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi it is important to remember exactly what the Treaty signifies.

It was an agreement between the British Crown and Maori chiefs, that was presented and signed on behalf of Queen Victoria on February 6th 1840 by Captain William Hobson, acting as her Consul. The venue was the Waitangi farm of the first official British Resident, James Busby – on the lawn in front of the residence.

Ryan Bridge: The Taranaki LNG terminal is a good idea, depending on who you ask

This government's running into similar problems Jacinda's one did on energy - they're getting too much 'official' advice and reports.

The problem when you ask 'the experts' for advice on every thought that pops into your head is that they tend to agree with it. And if they don't. you tend to ignore them.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will the Super Bowl weather the MAGA outrage cycle?

Is it possible that some sporting events are just so big that they can more or less do whatever they want politically without suffering any real consequences?

I’m asking this because of what happened during the Super Bowl halftime performance. Bad Bunny was everything the MAGA crowd expected - and perhaps feared - he would be.

Ryan Bridge: A debate on interest rates

I was having a good old debate with a mate at the weekend about interest rates.

We're of the age where, mortgages are a thing.

In Auckland, quote a big and annoying thing.

JC: Waitangi Day – A Day of Pride

Waitangi Day will never bring unity. New Zealand Day just might.

In keeping with good left-wing journalistic practices, I have purposely given you a misleading headline. Well, at least partly misleading, because when I was growing up (I’m about to enter my eighth decade) it was a day of pride. New Zealand in the 1950s, soon after the end of WWII, was pretty settled, with people living in peaceful communities and one could say, to all intents and purposes, unified. I remember when two races came together on the day at Waitangi in the cause of a celebration. Can the same be said today? No. Why?

David Farrar: The actual impact of India FTA on immigration will be tiny

The India – NZ FTA allows 1,667 three-year temporary employment entry (TEE) visas per annum (capped at a maximum of 5,000 at any point in time).

However 1,466 of those visas are for skilled occupations already on the green list. We already issue 28,000 or so of these a year, including 4,500 a year to Indian nationals. So those 1,466 a year will be zero increase on what we are already doing. It is a floor, but a floor at one third of the level we are already at.

Pee Kay: A mirror can only reflect what is standing in front of it!

New Zealand society is as divided on the issue of race as never before. From the 23rd of September 2017 until the 14th of October 2023 we were encumbered with a Labour government that for 6 years, set about dividing the country along lines based on ancestry.

To criticise was to be labelled racist. Critical analysis of the government by the MSM became a long forgotten process. Academics, they who rode extremely high horses, were free to revel in perpetrating the Treaty partnership myth and condemning anyone who questions the magnificence of Te Ao Maori.

Dr Bryce Edwards: The Quiet War at Waitangi 2026

Many expected fireworks at Waitangi this year. In an election year, with the Government’s record on Treaty issues still fresh and raw, the annual commemorations looked set to be a battleground. Instead, the week turned out to be remarkably calm on the surface. And deeply fractured underneath.

The real story of Waitangi 2026 wasn’t about Māori versus the Crown. It was about Māori versus Māori, and an opposition that seems incapable of getting its act together nine months out from polling day.

Bob Edlin: Two bodies blessed by kaumatua at crash scene (presumably in partnership with Police) were tourists

Another day has passed without an explanation from the Police Media Centre about the assistance provided by iwi at the site of a helicopter crash near Battle Hill.

A press release last Thursday, issued in the name of the Kāpiti-Mana Area Commander, Inspector Renée Perkins, said “a significant recovery operation” had taken place the previous day to recover both the pilot and passenger from the crash site.

It said:

David Harvey: Contending Approaches to the Treaty

Chris Hipkins’ Waitangi Day — or perhaps Waitangi Week — article in the Herald on 3 February 2026 is a short piece, mercifully so at 562 words, and one suspects it was written by Hipkins himself rather than a speechwriter. Brevity, however, should not be mistaken for simplicity. In an election year, the article deserves to be read carefully, not only for what it says about the Treaty, but for what it signals about Labour’s wider philosophical direction.

At first glance, the article presents as a familiar reflection on national values framed through Te Tiriti o Waitangi. But early on, Hipkins reveals more than perhaps he intends. In his opening substantive paragraph, he declares: “The Aotearoa I know today is a proud collective of believers.”