Dame Professor Elizabeth Rata: New Zealand's Public Culture

What is it to be a New Zealander? Who do we believe ourselves to be?

New Zealand has a public culture grounded in Enlightenment principles of universalism, secularism, freedom, and individualism. The exclusivity of ethnicity is rejected for this inclusive New Zealand identity.

Philip Crump: Elon Musk Filed a Prospectus. Every Journalist Should Read It.

It promises to save humanity from the fate of the dinosaurs. It may also eat your business model.

When companies decide to go public through an initial public offering, their prospectuses are, without exception, unreadable. They are designed to be impenetrable - dense wording with legal qualifications, risk factor boilerplate, and accounting disclosures that protect the issuer while revealing as little as possible to investors. They are written by corporate lawyers and analysts, and read by other corporate lawyers, analysts and institutional investors. The SpaceX prospectus filed on 20 May was prepared by Gibson Dunn, the US law firm where, many years ago, I was a partner, although thankfully I didn’t draft prospectuses.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 31.5.26

Monday June 1, 2026 

News:
Councillor makes an ‘open apology’ over Māori and fast food comment
A regional councillor withdrew comments in a council workshop over Māori preferring KFC over eel, and has since offered an “open apology”.

The comments were made at a Waikato Regional Council workshop by councillor for Waihou, Keith Holmes, earlier this month.

Graham Carter: Councils are Ceding Sovereignty to Iwi – This is Treason

There is a major power shift happening under our noses, as power moves from elected representatives to unelected and unaccountable iwi and hapū appointees.

We have been warned for some time now that Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements (MWRs) are undermining local democracy and would be sped up by captured councils and local iwi before the government passes its Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms.

Dr Eric Crampton: Open markets are still the best way to a fair economy

The strongest protection tenants can have is plenty of other potential places to rent, from different landlords eager to rent them a home.

When zoning rules make it very difficult to build new housing, existing landlords do not face much potential competition. If every landlord has dozens of tenants racing to submit applications as soon as a property becomes vacant, landlords will have a lot of power over their tenants. And rents will be high.

Dr Michael Johnston: Let’s trade the fees-free tertiary funding for something that works

The worst-kept secret of this afternoon’s budget is that the entitlement to a fees-free year of tertiary study will be scrapped. On 8 May, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters ‘leaked’ the policy change on Newstalk ZB. Finance Minister Nicola Willis subsequently confirmed Peters’ claim.

The fees-free policy was implemented in 2018. Incoming Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had announced to prospective tertiary students, “your first year is on me.” It wasn’t, of course. It was on New Zealand taxpayers, and it has cost them approximately $350 million per year ever since.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: A prescription that fits

This week’s Budget confirmed what most New Zealanders already suspected. The government’s finances are tight, the deficit persists, and there is no pot of money waiting to be spent on the country’s problems.

Just as well, because government spending never delivers growth or prosperity. The question is, what will?

Henry Olsen: Let Them Eat Slop!

In an age of unprecedented technological upheaval — an upheaval more consequential than even the advent of fire or settled agriculture — we find ourselves standing — quite literally — at a crossroads.

The question isn't whether AI will transform writing — it’s what we lose when we let it.

Dr Eric Crampton: Fingers crossed

If the country sees a few lucky breaks, Budget 2026 shows a return to surplus in 2029.

The period of structural deficits will have lasted almost a decade.

Without those lucky breaks, including at the Strait of Hormuz, deficits will extend for longer. And it beggars belief that a decade of structural deficits is consistent with the fiscal responsibility provisions of the Public Finance Act.

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 

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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.

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.