Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Could we pass a transport rule that reflects some common sense?

The Government announced today it wants to shake up the road rules a little - allowing kids under the age of 12 to ride their bikes on the footpath, and letting e-scooters use cycleways.

Now, it might surprise you to learn that both of those things are against the rules. Kids aren’t allowed on footpaths on their bikes unless the wheel diameter is roughly the length of a ruler or smaller, and e-scooters are not allowed in cycle lanes.

Ryan Bridge: Who do we believe on vaping?

There's a big puffy cloud of smoke hanging over the vaping versus cigarettes debate this week.

It's all kicked off because the government's handing out free vapes to smokers to stop them getting what we know could be a death sentence.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 22.2.26

Thursday February 26, 2026 

News:
Work starts on first Ngāmotu marae for two centuries
Building the first marae in Ngāmotu New Plymouth for 194 years has begun with a dawn turning-of-whenua by Ngāti Te Whiti.

Since colonisation Ngāti Te Whiti has had no place to stand in their rohe, which closely matches the city of New Plymouth.

David Farrar: Woke Wellington strikes again

The Herald reports:

A bicultural overhaul of Army doctrine that features Māori cosmology at its core has led to a Government revolt, with the NZ Defence Force putting on hold part of the controversial programme.

The NZ Army’s new “general orders” to soldiers uses a pantheon of te ao Māori gods as guiding influences for its strategy “to achieve a bicultural status by enabling the recognition of Māori cultural interests as they are guaranteed within Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.

Colinxy: Magna Carta - What Relevance Does It Have Today?

The Magna Carta, the Great Charter, is often invoked with a kind of reverence, as though it were a timeless constitutional talisman. It undeniably marked a turning point in English history. But what, if anything, does it mean for a modern constitutional democracy on the far side of the world? What relevance does it have in New Zealand today?

Professor John Raine: Climate And Energy Policy Realism Not Virtue Signalling, Please

Saving the Planet with Formula 1 Design Regulations

The 2026 Formula 1 (F1) motor racing season gets under way in Melbourne 6 - 8 March. During pre-season testing in Barcelona and Bahrain, leading drivers such as Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso weren’t holding back with their criticism of the new FIA design regulations.

The sustainable non-fossil fuel is not really an issue, although “sustainable” needs close scrutiny as too often some environmental and emissions costs are externalised. The key change is that the FIA has specified an increase from 120kW to 350kW (close to 50%) electric power, and a reduction from ~550kW to ~400kW from the 1.6 litre turbocharged internal combustion engine. Notably, the battery energy storage capacity of 4 megajoules for 2026 remains unchanged, with this energy to be recovered twice over in braking each lap. Drivers now have become electrical energy managers rather than being 100% focused on driving flat out.

Kerre Woodham: Privacy - can we have our cake and eat it too?

There's been a second major medical platform hack, leaving live patients labelled as dead and people's names changed to Charlie Kirk, the American activist who was shot dead last year – assassinated really. MediMap is widely used across New Zealand. It's often used by the aged care, disability, hospice and community health sectors. It's the second major cyber-attack on medical files and records in recent weeks after Manage My Health was hit at the end of last year, start of this year. Manage My Health's portal systems were compromised over the New Year holiday, putting the data of more than 120,000 users at risk. But it seems the two breaches are vastly different.

Romina Boccia: America Can’t Tariff Its Way Out of This Debt Crisis

"Without tariffs,” the President said on his affordability tour in Georgia, “everybody would be bankrupt, the whole country would be bankrupt.” In court, the Trump administration has made similar sweeping claims, arguing that revoking certain tariff authorities would have “catastrophic consequences” and “lead to financial ruin.”

The Supreme Court has now struck down the administration’s “reciprocal tariffs” imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). This is a major victory for American consumers and businesses who suffered from higher taxes and higher prices that the tariffs imposed.

Mike's Minute: What's not being said about pay equity

Marilyn Waring. Remember her?

Once an activist always an activist.

Marilyn took it upon herself to form her own select committee and she and a bunch of other MPs and interested parties opened their doors for submissions on pay equity and the changes the Government made that they didn’t like.

Bonner R Cohen, Trump reopens vast swath of waters off northeastern coast to commercial fishing

One of the nation’s richest fishing grounds — put off-limits to commercial use by the Obama and Biden administrations — is once again open for business, courtesy of a proclamation issued by the Trump White House.

The Feb. 6 proclamation — “Unleashing American Commercial Fishing in the Atlantic” —revokes an Obama- and Biden-era policy that prohibited commercial fishing within the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Created in 2016 by the Obama administration, the marine national monument covers nearly 5,000 square miles on the edge of the continental shelf about 150 miles east of Cape Cod. The monument designation included a ban on commercial fishing, which Trump lifted in his first term. The Biden administration reimposed the ban in 2021, a step Trump 2.0 is now reversing.

David Farrar: Crazy nanny state in NZ

Newsroom reports:

Polymarket, Kalshi and similar prediction markets are illegal under New Zealand’s gambling laws, the nation’s gambling regulator has decided.

Polymarket and Kalshi are online markets where users can place bets on future outcomes, ranging from New Zealand provincial cricket results to what phrases Donald Trump will use next month.

Wednesday February 25, 2026 

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Can we find the money for the pay equity scheme?

So, the People’s Select Committee of former MPs has reported back today and, completely unsurprisingly, has slammed the Government for scrapping the pay equity law last year.

Which is fair enough in some ways, it was a shoddy process. The MPs say it offends the rule of law and they’re probably right.

Ryan Bridge: Businesses should be scared to take our data

This government has made fast-track a buzzword.

After yet another massive hack of private information on Sunday, it needs to put that buzzword into action sharpen up our privacy laws. Like, yesterday.

Especially if we're talking about your health information getting stolen and potentially posted online by hackers for a ransom.

Ani O'Brien: Labour’s State of the Nation: Softer, smaller, safer

I went to the Labour Party State of the Nation

Today I found myself somewhere I have not been for sometime… A Labour Party event. I used to be a Labour Party member and in fact they still send me auto-emails asking me to renew. Before that even, I was a Greens member, but we were all naive and high once. In 2020, for the first time I cast my vote for the centre-right after being effectively excommunicated from polite progressive society over my insistence that humans cannot change sex and gender ideology activism was becoming a problem.

That political journey left me politically homeless for a while until I learned that politics is about tradeoffs. I needed to pick a side to work with and the centre-right was willing to at least talk about women’s rights, the left were not.

Graham Adams: Luxon Finds Merit In Treaty Principles After All

Ever since David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill was defeated in Parliament last April he has promised his campaign for “equal rights for all citizens” would be back on the political agenda for this year’s election.

He is certainly doggedly keeping the memory of the bill alive. He mentioned it in his State of the Nation speech on February 15; in his address at Waitangi on February 5; and on the same day in a column in Wellington’s The Post, in which he restated the proposed articles with a reminder that each had received significantly more support than opposition in polls at the time.

Harry Phibbs: The European Tiger Roars

How Poland forged its economic freedom.

Poland was pivotal to the fall of Communism in Europe. The Solidarity protests in the 1980s gave hope that political change was possible, even among those who feared that totalitarian states might prove permanent with their grim monolithic structures. Poland’s subsequent success as a free nation serves as an exemplar to others. What a contrast with Russia, which has also overthrown Communism and remains beset by poverty, tyranny, and an aggressive foreign policy.

Kerre Woodham: Chris Hipkins' underwhelming State of the Nation speech

Credit to those 120 business people who went along to hear Chris Hipkins' State of the Nation address yesterday, hosted by the Auckland Business Chamber. Credit to those few people who watched it live, like my colleague Mike Hosking. My word, it was dull. And that is not me being a lickspittle mouthpiece for the Tory overlords. Have a listen to this:

Bob Edlin: Epstein files, duty and service to the public ......

Epstein files, duty and service to the public – a British monarch and an American president have very different approaches

Simon Louisson, a Wellington journalist who briefly was a political and media adviser to the Green Party, has been prompted by the arrest of Prince Andrew on suspicion of misconduct in public office to press for overhauling our constitutional arrangements.

In a letter to the editor of The Post today, he has expressed an opinion that will be shared by many:

Karl du Fresne: Stuff's operating model: cheap and lazy

Last Tuesday’s edition of my local paper, the Wairarapa Times-Age, devoted an entire page to an Associated Press (i.e. American) feature story about affluent middle-class professionals taking extended career breaks.

The people mentioned in the story are representatives of an elite US metropolitan class who can afford to put their careers on hold while they spend months enjoying a “reset” in exotic locations such as Egypt and Brazil. It’s hard to imagine a story less relevant to readers of a paper in a New Zealand provincial town where many people are struggling.