Ani O'Brien: The media lawyers up - the chilling effect is coming from inside the house

I received a legal letter this week too

In the days since I published my piece on Maiki Sherman and the “faggot” incident, the story has moved on. The incident itself is no longer really the point and in this second part I am focused on the lengths media went to in order to prevent the incident being reported on and how legal threats appear to be creating a state of paralysis in the industry.

We now have the extraordinary situation where media outlets are reporting on each other for using legal threats to suppress stories.

Peter Williams: Is this the age of Substack?

If mainstream media won’t report on their own then others will have to

The most significant aspect of the Maiki Sherman affair is that it became public because a Substack writer made it so.

David Seymour made his distaste for the year-long media silence on the matter very obvious by calling April 28th “Ani O’Brien Day.” This was in honour of the woman who wrote an online expose about how the TVNZ Political Editor had homophobically insulted another political reporter, her one time TV3 colleague Lloyd Burr, now at Stuff, at a function in the Finance Minister’s office in May last year.

Ani O'Brien: Unreported for nearly a year - media misconduct in Parliament

Inside the Press Gallery: power, silence, and the accountability gap in New Zealand media

On the evening of 13 May 2025, Finance Minister Nicola Willis hosted a pre-Budget drinks event in her parliamentary office. The event appears, in official records, as “EVENT: Press Gallery… Parliament… Invited Guests” at 6pm in her ministerial diary. It was intended to be a fairly standard engagement. These gatherings are a familiar ritual; relatively informal, off-camera, and populated by the country’s most senior political journalists alongside ministers and staff. They exist in the grey space between professional obligation and social familiarity and are a mechanism through which relationships are built and managed.

Ani O'Brien: Luxon wins confidence vote, what now?

Media fails to roll the Prime Minister

Today must end it. After a weeks and months of constant cycles of breathless speculation, anonymous briefings, and increasingly hysterical headlines, Christopher Luxon walked into caucus, forced the issue, and called a vote of confidence on his own leadership. It passed.

That has to be it. Line drawn in the sand.

Ani O'Brien: I changed my mind on Luxon

How Liam Hehir convinced me I was wrong

Yesterday in my weekly political wrap up I wrote:

Again we find ourselves with another lot of coup rumours. Yesterday, Luxon insisted repeatedly that he has the full support of his caucus. Sadly, the only time a leader has to say that is when he does not.

My assessment of things is that the end of the road is nigh for the Prime Minister. He can not continue fending off these attacks. And I no longer think he should. Leadership coups are messy and difficult to get right, but the polls are heading nowhere good and Luxon seems unwilling to do anything to correct his course. He chases votes he will never get while New Zealand First robs the nest where neglected and increasingly frustrated National voters languish.

We are finally at the point where virtually any combination of senior National MPs would present a more palatable option to the people of New Zealand than Christopher Luxon. He has the choice to continue to fight or put party and country first and fall on his sword. With Labour ahead in the polls on the back of doing absolutely nothing, it is clear that the electorate has rejected him. Time to resign, Prime Minister. And if he won’t, National needs to get brave and take him out.

Today I read this piece by Liam Hehir. I highly recommend reading it. [below]

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 18 April 2026

Election 2026: Defections, debuts, and the latest leadership drama

Former All Blacks captain Taine Randell has thrown his hat in the ring to contest the Tukituki electorate for New Zealand First. He brings a wealth of business and fisheries knowledge, coming in hot on energy, immigration, and regional economic issues, all of which sit squarely in NZ First’s wheelhouse. What a fish for the party to land!

Ani O'Brien: Useful idiots? The vegan astroturf organisation that has tricked Kiwi farmers

How “Fair for Farmers” risks turning Kiwi farmers into foot soldiers for anti-farming activists

Note: I was a vegetarian for 10 years and previously worked at the SPCA. I am a believer in high animal welfare standards and think that many animal welfare groups do a great deal of good work. Many of them are a bit nuts though.

There I was, scrolling the apps, when a familiar Kiwi farmer’s face appeared with a message that sounded quite good. I halted in my tracks and bestowed a view on the video’s tally. The gist was that our imported farming products should live up to our national animal welfare standards. Fair enough, right?

Ani O'Brien: The Strait of Hormuz, Trump, and the end of Pretend Peace

The world held its breath today. The Leader of the “Free World” had threatened that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” and everyone seemed to take this very literally. And understandably so! This kind of rhetoric is not something we are used to from Western leaders. In the West we do diplomacy and handshakes and express disapproval. Well, we have in the years since the World Wars (with a few notable exceptions).

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 4 April 2026

BREAKING! Stop the press! Biggest news of the week!

Duncan Garner drove on a suspended license. Our media were on top of the story from the moment news broke. Push alerts. Banners. So serious was the reporting that Garner’s dear mum got into a state because she thought he had been hauled off to prison. But these journalists missed the real scoop. No, I’m not talking about the Leader of the Opposition being caught in another lie (although that happened). You heard it here first on Thought Crimes… back in the day Duncan Garner was banned from the annual media golf tournament aged just 22. How has he got away with it for so long? Why is he able to roam the streets freely without at least an ankle bracelet? He must be cancelled immediately! Tear up his goddamn passport!!

Ani O'Brien: More advice ignored, Hipkins prioritised vaccine targets over safety

What the documents reveal about dose spacing, myocarditis risk, and political priorities

You can read my first dive into the Official Information Act requests here.

In this article, I focus on the tension between what evolving evidence and medical experts were advising about the spacing between first and second doses of the vaccine and the decisions regarding spacing made by the New Zealand Government, plus the way promotion of the vaccine may have breached law.1

Ani O'Brien: He knew - The paper trail Chris Hipkins can’t explain

Either there was a massive conspiracy to deceive the Minister in charge or that Minister is lying

I genuinely didn’t know what I was looking for when I went searching through FYI.org on Friday night. I was confused by timelines that weren’t making sense and increasingly implausible deniability.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 28 March 2026

NCEA is dead, Stanford pulls the plug on a broken system

Education Minister Erica Stanford has confirmed the beginning of the end for NCEA. A system she says had become “fragmented, difficult to understand, and too easy to game”. And that diagnosis will resonate with a lot of parents, teachers, and students who have watched the credibility of the qualification steadily erode. The replacement is set to be more structured with a foundational literacy and numeracy award at Year 11, followed by two subject-based qualifications in Years 12 and 13. It is a shift back toward a system where what you achieve actually signals what you know, rather than how effectively you’ve navigated the credit-collecting maze that NCEA became.

Ani O'Brien: Slashing taxes won’t fix the Fuel Shock, targeted measures the right move

The Fuel Shock explained: what’s actually going on
The Government has announced a $50 per week support package for working families in response to the fuel price surge that has resulted from the Iran conflict. Around 143,000 households will receive the payment through a boost to the in-work tax credit, with eligibility expanded to a further 14,000 families. It will cost up to $373 million if it runs for the full year. It will run for up to a year or until the price of petrol goes below $3/litre for four consecutive weeks.

Ani O'Brien: The truth about TOP

TOP isn’t above Left and Right. It’s just the Left in better packaging.

Every election cycle, like clockwork, Opportunity (TOP) reappears. It refreshes its branding, gets a new leader, rolls out a new slate of candidates, and the media, just as predictably, froths over them. Since Gareth Morgan founded the party in 2016, this has become a familiar ritual in New Zealand politics.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 21 March 2026

“Things could get worse”: The Government braces for a fuel shock

The fuel shock triggered by the Iran conflict is already biting in New Zealand, and the Government is openly preparing for a worst-case scenario. Ministers have warned that “things could get worse before they get better,” with contingency planning underway. While officials insist there is no immediate supply crisis, it is important for Kiwis to understand the impact will be far more broad than just the prices at the pump.

Ani O'Brien: The sudden discovery of restraint and empathy in journalism

But is social media really the root of the evil of political scandals?

Disclosure: It has been an awful week of being tied to people, actions, and narratives that I have absolutely nothing to do with. I am feeling pretty beat up to be honest.

Media, bloggers, and the social media mob have decided I am somehow “pulling strings” behind the scenes in relation to Jade Paul’s Facebook post. I am not.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 14 March 2026

The Royal Commission the media pretended didn’t happen

The report from the second phase of the Royal Commission into New Zealand’s COVID-19 response was released this week and much of the media treated it as little more than a historical tidy-up. The dominant narrative has been the ol’ New Zealand did well early, ministers were under pressure, mistakes were inevitable but no big deal. But the report contains findings that deserve far more scrutiny. It raises serious questions about the extended Auckland lockdown, the legality of the Christmas boundary, and the roughly $60 billion spent during the pandemic of which around $30 billion of which was not directly related to COVID response measures.

Ani O'Brien: We don't hate the media enough

We need a People's Commission into the Media during Covid-19

The Royal Commission into COVID-19 should have triggered a national reckoning. Instead it revealed how completely the media failed to scrutinise power.

There’s a phrase often repeated online: you don’t hate the media enough. Most people read it as a joke or a bit of internet cynicism. But the New Zealand media’s response to the release of the report from Phase Two of the Royal Commission into COVID-19 is proof that the New Zealand media has forgotten its most basic functions.

Ani O'Brien: COVID Inquiry should raise serious questions about Chris Hipkins’ leadership

We were told “Trust the Experts.” The Report shows ministers didn’t.

It is easy in hindsight to forget the atmosphere of early 2020. It felt like COVID-19, Corona Virus as we initially called it, came out of nowhere. China was lying to everyone. No one knew if we were under or overreacting. Whatever Trump said the media said the opposite. Governments across the world were facing a virus that appeared highly contagious, poorly understood, and potentially catastrophic. “Experts” were issuing advice based on incomplete data and information which politicians were then making decisions with.

Ani O'Brien: The Big Lie - Delayed Motherhood and the Demographic Crisis

Social scientist Professor Paul Spoonley recently appeared on Newstalk ZB to discuss the latest Statistics NZ birth data. He reassured listeners that there is nothing to worry about in the fact that the median age of first time mothers is rising, also arguing that multi-generational households and adult children staying at home longer help offset demographic change.

Spoonley’s relaxed take echoes a broader argument you increasingly hear from progressive commentators and policymakers who insist that declining birth rates represent a triumph of women’s empowerment rather than a looming social problem.