Bob Edlin: Budget Day surprise – Upston’s Bill to modernise social security systems is rushed through three readings

Fresh from telling us she is comfortable about collecting $1000 a week to live in her own Wellington apartment because she has “followed the rules”, Social Development Minister Louise Upston popped up yesterday to announce the Government is making changes “to improve and update the efficiency of the welfare system by modernising its processes”.

Alwyn Poole: Education … everyone knows change is needed but …

… there are so many signals that the current government is going about most things education related in the wrong way.

1. It is highly predictable that the teacher unions and most of the teaching sector will oppose most changes proposed by a center right government. However the Minister has neither reduced their power – or engaged well if she is not willing to do that.

2. The curriculum changes have been driven by a very narrow group of people with very slim engagement, understanding of our system, and endorsement from the wide sector. The qualifications and experience of the education sector has been significantly ignored by a “do what you are told to do” attitude from the Minister.

 Sunday May 31, 2026 

                   ⇩

Dr Don Brash: The Total Annihilation of Te Tiriti in the Health System

"The Total Annihilation of Te Tiriti in the Health System..."

This is the heading on a press statement issued by Lady Tureiti Moxon referring to the Government’s decision to change the wording in the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act from “give effect to” Te Tiriti principles to merely “take into account” those principles.

She claims this “weakens Treaty obligations in health legislation” and represents “the total annihilation of te Tiriti in the health system”.

What on Earth is she talking about?

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Tony Blair brings centrism back to energy reality

UK

Blair: we cannot afford Net Zero

Tony Blair has warned Britain cannot afford Net Zero and urged the government to change course and prioritise cheaper energy. “We must prioritise cheaper energy and electrification over net zero and use what is left of our North Sea oil and gas resources,” he says.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 31.5.26

Sunday May 31, 2026 

News:
$10m funding boost for Te Māori Tū
A $10 million Government investment into Te Māori Tū is being positioned as the next chapter of one of Aotearoa’s most significant cultural movements, with plans to take Māori culture, taonga and creative industries further onto the international stage.

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka visited the Te Māori Centre in Lower Hutt on Friday alongside trustees of Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust following the Budget 2026 announcement.

Geoff Parker: English Isn't Endangered—but Its Place In Public Life Is

According to critics of the English Language Bill, English doesn't need legal recognition because it isn't endangered. The argument goes that since almost every New Zealander speaks English, there is nothing to protect.

That completely misses the point.

Nobody is suggesting English is about to vanish. The question is whether the language that unites almost every New Zealander should remain the clear and undisputed language of government, public services, law, education and national communication.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 30 May 2026

BUDGET 2026: The Dead Rabbit Budget

While much of the political discussion has focused on who won and lost domestically, the Budget documents themselves are heavily framed around geopolitical instability, energy insecurity, ageing demographics, and economic shocks originating beyond New Zealand’s shores. Finance Minister Nicola Willis repeatedly referenced the fuel crisis, while Treasury’s forecasts assume a temporary but significant hit to growth and inflation over the coming year. Treasury now forecasts annual average GDP growth of 1.2% for the year to June 2026 before accelerating to 2.3% in 2027 and 3.2% in 2028. Employment is forecast to grow by 220,000 jobs over the next four years, while wages are expected to increase by an average of 3.1% annually.

William McGimpsey: Lessons from Fiji

I recently returned from a family holiday in Fiji, where I took the opportunity to learn a bit more about that county’s fraught history of mass migration, ethnic conflict, military coups, and demographic shifts.

Fiji’s experience serves as both a warning to countries like New Zealand about the consequences of mass migration and ethnic replacement, and a learning opportunity about the types of reforms that can reverse it.

Ashley Church: “They’re both as bad as each other”

Laundering the latest lie against Israel

Just when it seems that the moral inversion around Israel cannot get any worse, someone finds another shovel and starts digging.

In recent weeks, a major report documenting the sexual violence committed by Hamas on, and after, October 7, was released. The findings are grotesque, hideous and almost impossible to read without feeling physically sick. They describe sexual violence as terror, humiliation as strategy, and the destruction of bodies and families as part of the point.

Dr Eric Crampton: Send my regards to NZ’s regulators as they struggle to keep up

Last year, Cabinet papers promised that New Zealand’s agricultural-product regulator would be required to use assessments from trusted overseas regulators. The Bills now before Parliament instead say the regulator must merely “have regard to” them.

A duty to have regard to something is not a duty to use it. It can be satisfied by reading the overseas assessment, noting it, and then doing the local assessment much as before.

Bob Edlin: The name that shall not be spoken in Parliament....

The name that shall not be spoken in Parliament – you can find it in the third paragraph below

By the time MPs had taken their seats in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, The Post had named the official who (the newspaper contended) had received briefing notes from Z Energy and Fonterra which, curiously, have disappeared.

Guest Post: The media mess and how to fit it

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Fish Across Face:

My name is a pseudonym, as I’m identifiable with a high profile local television show. For what it’s worth, publishing the following is an acknowledgement from our host that I have decades of experience in most areas of TV, radio, commercial production and so on. My name wouldn’t be familiar, but to kiwis, my content is.

This post addresses today’s failing media ecosystem, its relationship with the Left of politics, and how to fix it – from someone inside the tent.

Rodney Hide: Christchurch City Council Has Lost Its Mind

The elected councillors and staff at Christchurch City Council have officially taken leave of their senses.

I was alerted to this particular madness by the wonderful Katrina Biggs on X, who posted the flyer for the council’s “Women’s Swimming Sessions.” I didn’t believe it at first. Surely this was satire. So I went to the official Christchurch City Council website to check. It gets worse.

Here is what they actually say:

Saturday May 30, 2026 

                   ⇩

Geoff Parker: The Culturalisation of Healthcare

"A new study on eating disorders raises a familiar question: why are universal health problems increasingly being repackaged as ethnicity-specific challenges?"

New Zealand's taxpayer-funded research industry has once again discovered the answer to a problem that nobody was asking.

This week's breakthrough revelation? Eating disorders apparently require a "Kaupapa Māori-led" response.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Government was right to give billions to defence and forget arts

Geez, how sorry do you feel for Paul Goldsmith at the Music Awards, eh?

So, he's invited to the awards and he hasn't got his mate Chris Bishop with him this time. Bishop didn’t go after what happened with Don McGlashan last year.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 24.5.26

Saturday May 30, 2026 

News:
Iwi leaders furious about Budget 2026, call it ‘economic apartheid’
Representatives of the Iwi Leaders Forum arrived at Parliament furious about the Government’s Budget, accusing it of creating an “economic apartheid”.

On Thursday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis handed down her third Budget. It was delivered amid a backdrop of significant economic uncertainty, with clear issues at home and abroad.

Mike's Minute: My thoughts on the Budget

I asked for the surplus to arrive sooner than previously forecast and, as though she was listening this time yesterday, the first words out of Nicola Willis' mouth were it will be a year ahead of schedule.

You can't ask for more than that.

Ani O'Brien: The Dead Rabbits Budget

Perceptions, appearances, and feelings...

Note: my analysis is political and so relies much more on perception, sentiment, and what things appear to be. I include economic and fiscal commentary from those more qualified than myself, but if you are after the true nuts, bolts, forecasts, OBEGALs, and OBEGALxs you won’t find it here.

Nicola Willis spent months lowering expectations for Budget 2026. She made it abundantly clear that there would be no “lolly scramble” or “sugar hits”. She set the expectation that the usual election year ‘bribes’ would not be on the agenda. My personal favourite line of hers was from yesterday when she said: