Karl du Fresne: Camp Freedom revisited

Where should the balance be struck between public safety and individual freedom? At what point should the latter be curtailed to protect the former? More than four years after the anti-vaccination encampment that ended in mayhem outside Parliament, the answer isn’t clear.

New Zealand in 2020 was threatened by a global pandemic. No one knew how serious it might be.

Clive Bibby: Politicians and Your Money

As the general election draws nearer, politicians of all persuasions are hitting the streets in an effort to bribe us with our own money.

For the rest of the year, we might as well not exist.

I accept that this appearance on street corners is part of the ritual we must endure in order to get a handle on who is promising value for money but it would be so much easier and a less debilitating process if they all actually did what they promised when in charge of the Treasury Benches.

Gerry Eckhoff: Santana Gold Mining

I recently came across the following verse of the American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) which is a perfect analogy for the Santana gold mining debate, here in Central Otago.

“It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined 

Who went to see an elephant (though all of them were blind)

That each by observation might satisfy his mind “

Andrew Dickens: Reality lost in conservation bill rhetoric

The hub bub yesterday over the Conservation Amendment Bill brought to light 3 issues for me

Firstly, how bad much of our law is and that stems back to how it’s written and processed. Secondly that many concerned organisations are not afraid to scaremonger and exaggerate to win their way. And thirdly how many New Zealanders rely on social media to keep informed on the issues of the day.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 21.6.26

Thursday June 25, 2026 

News:

Concerns grow over Conservation Bill and weakened land protections
As debate over the Conservation Amendment Bill intensifies, iwi and environmental advocates in Hauraki say a central issue is being overlooked: much of the conservation estate sits on ancestral Māori land, and proposed changes could place future decisions over that whenua further beyond the reach of mana whenua.

The Conservation Amendment Bill proposes changes to how public conservation land is managed, which makes up about a third of New Zealand’s land area. Some changes are framed as streamlining and modernising decision-making processes.

Geoff Parker: Marine Reserves Or Co-Governance By Stealth?

This week we were told to celebrate the launch of five new marine reserves along the Otago and South Canterbury coastline.

Protecting marine environments is a worthwhile goal. Most New Zealanders support conservation, sustainable fisheries, and preserving unique ecosystems for future generations.

But buried beneath the environmental language is something else entirely: another example of race-based governance quietly becoming embedded in New Zealand's public institutions.

Matua Kahurangi: NZ Media - Celebrating brown success, airbrushing brown atrocities

In the nightmare which unfolded in a quiet Swedish village, a father allegedly pumped bullets into his two young daughters before blowing his own brains out. One girl clings to life in hospital. The other is critically wounded.

In the nightmare which unfolded in a quiet Swedish village, a father allegedly pumped bullets into his two young daughters before blowing his own brains out. One girl clings to life in hospital. The other is critically wounded.

Colinxy: Is There a “Cost of Greed” Crisis?

Chlöe Swarbrick recently declared that New Zealand is facing a “Cost of Greed Crisis.” It’s a catchy line; the sort of slogan that fits neatly into a press release and even more neatly into a worldview where every social problem is caused by someone else having too much.

But let’s take the claim seriously for a moment. Is there a “Cost of Greed Crisis”?

Surprisingly, yes. But not in the way Swarbrick imagines.

JC: Labour Is in Free Fall

Labour is in ‘free’ fall. Any hope of them being parachuted into power on the basis of the nonsense we’ve heard so far is about as good as discovering fairies at the bottom of the garden. Maybe they did. They are certainly ‘away with the fairies’. Every policy they have released so far is FREE. Can you believe it? Three FREE GP visits, FREE maternity scans, public transport fares capped then FREE rides, FREE prescriptions. I have no doubt this is just the start and there will be plenty more from where these moments of brilliance emanated.

Kerre Woodham: Let's put the 'demos' back in democracy

Now I mentioned Thomas Coughlan's excellent piece in the Herald yesterday. He looked at the costings for Labour's policies so far. He got the Treasury costings for them, got Nicola Willis, the Finance Minister's accusations about lack of detail, crunched it right down to give us the best possible chance of getting a real world look at the numbers and whether Labour will be able to afford the policies. It is well worth a read if you haven't already. We'll talk to Thomas tomorrow about the importance of costing all of the parties' different promises. It's not just Labour's, it's just that they've released probably the most policy thus far, shockingly, given how late they were to the party.

Bob Edlin: How Chlöe is taxing our credibility when she says flawed figures flowed from a “typo”

The Green Party’s Chlöe Swarbrick was taxing public credibility when she blamed a “typo” for an error in her party’s tax policy costings.

RNZ reported that the mistake – around $800 million over four years – resulted from extra funding for Inland Revenue being calculated as a revenue measure, rather than a cost.

Mike's Minute: Electoral fantasy vs what will actually happen

So, how to handle the avalanche of ideas that are starting to tumble our way even though we are still five months away from the election?

The nuances of MMP mean the vast majority of what is promoted on the campaign trail will never see the light of day.

This is a great advantage to small parties and those in Opposition.

The simple thing to do is hear it all, debate it all, and work it out for ourselves. Trouble with that is you get fatigue and you get confusion.

David Farrar: Be careful what you ask for with IMSB

Radio NZ reports:

New Zealand First will campaign on scrapping the Independent Māori Statutory Board (IMSB), which they say has significant influence over Auckland Council’s decision making.

In a statement, the party said a member’s bill had been written and introduced, which would see the unelected body that has “exercised significant influence” over council decision making since the creation of the Auckland Supercity in 2010.

David Farrar: The Greens $800 million blunder

Radio NZ reports:

The Green Party has had to correct an error to its tax policy, which had put its costings out by $800 million.

The mistake involved extra funding for Inland Revenue being calculated as a revenue measure, rather than a cost.

The party then quietly re-uploaded the policy document with the correct figures after RNZ made enquiries.

Wednesday June 24, 2026 

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John Raine: Canary in a Climate World - When Political and Media Narratives Depart from Scientific Evidence

Richard Prebble commented (22^nd June in Brash and Mitchell) on the problematical operation of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The present article (updated from a Substack post https://jkr31350.substack.com/p/canary-in-a-climate-world) was intended primarily as a review of a new contrarian publication on climate change but again questions the politicisation of the current climate narrative and the very existence of the ETS. It calls again for a more realistic adaptation approach to climate change.

Francis Menton: Can You See The Climate Scare Slowly Fading Away?

I have often noted that the climate scam and the associated forced energy transition would of necessity go away at some point because the proposals being advocated to “save the planet” could never possibly work. But the open question has always been, when that happens, what will it look like? Would all the big enviro groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club all go on national TV one night and admit that the whole thing was a fake scare from the beginning? In the real world, that’s not how these things happen. People who have staked out absurd positions somehow need to save face. So there would have to be some sort of gradual process of backing down.

Ryan Bridge: Labour takes huge election gamble

So let's talk about that weird interview yesterday.

No not the one with Winston Peters, the one with Hipkins.

He has planted Labour in an almost impossible-to-justify position on NZ Super.

Geoff Parker: Who Really Governs New Zealand?

Voters between a rock and a hard place

As the 2026 election approaches, many politically engaged New Zealanders find themselves in an uncomfortable position.

The polls are neck and neck. The country appears deeply divided. Yet for a growing number of voters, the choice is not between two inspiring visions for New Zealand. It is a choice between two parties they believe have both failed to confront the same underlying issue.

Yvonne Van Dongen: What Happens if the Host Population Changes Forever?

Last week I went to a talk on demographic change in New Zealand given by Prof Paul Spoonley and hosted by ACT leader David Seymour in Auckland.

It was more of a data dump than anything, with Spoonley speaking to numerous graphs showing how much we had changed and would continue to change from a largely Anglo-Polynesian host population to an increasingly Asian nation. That change was kick-started by the Labour government in 1987 which swapped out the preference for migrants from the Anglosphere for the points system. Some of the graphs from the talk are shown below.