Damien Grant: The Estonia trip, the ‘Mean Girls’ parody and the fall of an FMA chair

There is an absurdity at the heart of our regulatory state. Civil servants, most of whom have never run a chicken coop, are given the state’s authority to regulate a sector that few have the competence to participate in. Imagine asking me to judge Japanese poetry. You get the idea.

Those that can, do. Those that cannot, regulate.

Peter Williams: The Sad Stobo Saga

How the wokerati got to a white male

In April 2024 the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) launched its Matangirua strategy – its formal Māori engagement and capability framework. The strategy was designed to help Māori “participate as Māori” in financial markets. That apparently means “not just as generic consumers or investors, but in ways that recognise Māori economic structures, values, and collective ownership models.”

All up that sounds like a separatist model. Are Maori , or those who call themselves Maori, really that different from the rest of us?

John McLean: Legal Elite Is Winning In The War For Constitutional Supremacy

Craig Stobo has been forced to resign as chair of the board of New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority.

On 4 May 2026, National Party MP and Commerce & Consumer Affairs Minister, Cameron Brewer, accepted Stobo’s offer to resign. Brewer’s acceptance was of course code for, “If he’d refused to resign, I’d’ve booted him”.

Peter Williams: Time for Nuclear?

Leading business identity says let's get serious about it

When the independent chairman of an NZX-listed windfarm company makes a public call for this country to think really seriously about building a nuclear power plant then maybe we should all start thinking seriously about the proposition too.

Craig Stobo, chairman of NZ Windfarms Limited, which operates turbines on the Manawatu hills with a tiny installed generating capacity of a 45.5 megawatts (MW), made the call during his weekly appearance on the internet radio station The Platform.