Peter Williams: The FNDC debacle – Why democracy matters

The Local Government Act must be changed

Democracy, as Sir Winston Churchill once said in the House of Commons (quoting an unknown parliamentary predecessor) is the worst form of government, apart from all those other forms which have been tried from time to time.

Democracy, from the Greek words demos, meaning people, and kratos (rule, power or strength) in its purist form is government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Thousands of organisations, from the smallest membership based incorporated societies to local authorities and central government vote for the people they wish to govern them.

Elizabeth Rata: Neotribal Capitalism and Co-Governance

In a Nutshell

Capitalism creates prosperity. But its relentless drive to accumulate must be controlled by democratic politics. Neotribal economic corporations (the 'neo' means they are different from the pre-modern tribal re-distributive economy) are like socialist ones. They merge the economy with politics. Dangerously, they institutionalise the merger in legislation, policy and practice. Because those combined interests are invisible, they are unchallengeable.

Barrie Saunders: TVNZ – a reassessment

Apart from 7 years abroad, I have grown up with TVNZ’s channel one and was privileged to serve six years on its board – 2011 to 2017

Up until recently I retained a forlorn hope that it was possible to create a hybrid public service/commercial TV operation, that was positively New Zealand oriented, presenting objectively the reality of life here, and abroad.

Elliott Ikilei: It is worse than you think - Far North Council has been taken over

Things are going badly wrong in the Far North, and the Government is choosing to sit on its hands and let it happen. We have to take action now.

A sitting councillor, Davina Smolders has come forward in an interview with Duncan Garner on his podcast and described what is happening inside the Far North District Council. This is no petty disagreement over policy. It is a fundamental shift in who is exercising power and the complete overriding of democracy.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: The end of the golden bargain

Campaign slogans used to sell the future. In 1960, John F. Kennedy promised Americans a ‘New Frontier’. Bill Clinton chose Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Don’t Stop’ as his anthem. Tony Blair swept into Downing Street to D:Ream’s ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. Gerhard Schröder promised Germans he would not do everything differently but many things better.

These were statements of faith: the future would be an improvement on the present, and democratic politics was the vehicle that would take you there.

Pee Kay: Are these two......

the biggest threats to the continuance of democracy in New Zealand?

Gary Judd KC: National could signal its support for democracy

It could join ACT and NZ First to abolish the Maori electoral seats

This is a companion piece to my just-published Ghettoizing the mind. Both were stimulated by Dr Muriel Newman’s feature article, The Future of the Maori Seats in which she carefully marshalled nearly all the reasons why they should be gone. She also introduced as a guest commentary an address given by Hon Bill English in 2003: Address to the National Press Club Breakfast 24 July 2003.

Dr Michael Johnston: Agreeing to disagree

Democracy is easy to take for granted. For most of the last century, it has been advancing around the world.

Older Kiwis witnessed the defeat of fascism and the advent of democracy in Germany, Italy and Japan. Middle-aged New Zealanders remember the fall of the Soviet Union and the spread of democracy across Eastern Europe.

Geoff Parker: Margaret Mutu and the Case Against Equal Citizenship

Why ancestry-based governance undermines democracy

In a recent appearance on Q+A, Margaret Mutu advanced arguments implying that Māori never ceded sovereignty, that New Zealand is fundamentally a Māori country, and that democratic structures should be reshaped to reflect Māori authority.

It is a powerful narrative. It is also one that collapses under constitutional scrutiny.

Insights From Social Media: Seems a bit undemocratic to me?

Politicians of most stripes go on and on about “CO GOVERNANCE”

Now I do understand how MPs duly elected, although my concept of democracy does not actually embrace List MPs selected by a Party then becoming MPs through the proportional votes cast for that Party as a valid expression of Democracy, largely due to the simple fact I as a citizen have no part in establishing that “List” for any of the half dozen or so Parties.
That accepted we are said to have a functioning democracy even though there is no way a simple majority can eliminate an individual MP and we end up with shirt lifters , paedophiles, shop lifters, alcoholics, fraudsters and the mentally deranged, sitting in a chamber of horrors legislating for all.

Pee Kay: Wishful Thinking

Welcome to 2026!

Have you made your New Years resolutions, made plans and set goals for 2026?

Well done if you have.

Insights From Social Media: The He Puapua road map

PB adds to Geoff Parker’s post (bolding emphasis added):

What Waatea News is producing here is not analysis of 2025. It is a maintenance narrative — a story designed to protect institutional arrangements at the point they are being democratically wound back.

The structure is familiar and closely follows the He Puapua road map, as articulated by Claire Charters and advanced in practice by Lady Tureiti Moxon.

Richard Prebble: When Everything Is Called Corruption, Democracy Suffers

I admire Dr Bryce Edwards. Our universities like to proclaim themselves the “critic and conscience of society” while remaining silent on almost everything. In contrast, Dr Edwards is industrious. His daily email round-up of commentary often alerts me to articles I would otherwise have missed. For that, I am grateful.

His larger venture — the so-called Democracy Project and the accompanying “Integrity Institute” — is less admirable. Both portray themselves as experiments in democratic renewal. In reality, they are sustained polemics premised on a single idea: that politics, business, and the interaction between them in New Zealand are fundamentally corrupt.

Dr James Allan: Trump’s First Year Has Been Outstanding

It’s been just over a year since President Trump capped off the most remarkable comeback in US political history (okay, we can argue about Andrew Jackson) to win a non-consecutive second term as President. He was only the second man ever to do that. Now the US Constitution requires the election winner to wait over two months before taking power in the new year. That meant lots of time for the Biden autopen to issue pardons, spray money everywhere and allow myriad Third World people to keep pouring into the US. So any assessment around now is not of Trump’s first year of his second term, but rather more like a 10-month gauging or evaluation. But hey, for all those lovers of the metric system, let’s go ahead now and see how The Donald is doing.

Geoff Parker: Tribalism Is Creeping Into New Zealand....

Tribalism Is Creeping Into New Zealand — And It Threatens Centuries of Hard-Won Democracy 

Democracy didn’t fall from the sky. It was built through blood, rebellion, struggle, and centuries of ordinary people refusing to live under systems where power belonged only to the few. It took generations to overcome monarchy, class hierarchy, feudal obligation, and tribal rule. What replaced them was the revolutionary idea that every individual is an equal citizen, and that government answers to all the people — not to clans, castes, or inherited elites.

Today, New Zealand risks sleepwalking backwards.

Dr Will Jones: Judges Need Fewer Powers, Not More

The Hillsborough Law is well-intentioned, but its effect will be to transfer yet more power from elected members of Parliament to judges – the opposite of what is needed to restore public trust and democratic accountability, says Toby in the Spectator. Here’s an excerpt.

Ross Meurant: Turmoil in Tanzania Tranquility in Cameroons.

Recent elections in Tanzania seem to have produced a bit of a mess.

Political opposition manifests in riots, many persons killed, incarcerations and opponents blocked from standing as candidates in elections. (1)

Cameroon sits on a powder keg. (2)

Dr Will Jones: Milei Wins Landslide in Argentina, Confounding Doubters of State-Shrinking Agenda

Argentine President Javier Milei’s party has won a landslide in midterm elections, with voters confounding doubters by backing his cost-slashing, state-shrinking agenda and deregulation of the economy. The Telegraph has more.

David Round: Thoughts for our Time - Article 5

Representative democracy works only for as long as the elected representatives are ready to respect the wishes of the electors. There may sometimes be a tension between the wishes of the electors and the conscientious beliefs of the elected ~ the great Edmund Burke was among those who argued that a Member of Parliament was not a mere mouthpiece to repeat unthinkingly what his electors told him, but also had a duty to his (or her) own honest sincere convictions. But Burke would also have agreed, of course, that MPs are obliged to serve their electors to the best of their ability, should strive, at least, to represent their wishes, and in any case should always respect them.

Insights From Social Media: Tribalism

Bryan Mitchell writes > Interesting, but what it should reveal about the modern 'tribal' aspect of claims, is that they are not individual. If people looked history in the UK, and take Scotland as the example because it was the last tribal based society in the UK. It's the land owners and controllers that have the wealth and influence. The Lairds that once were clan chiefs who gained control of the clan lands and assets, not the ordinary clan (tribal) members. Apply that to our circumstances and because the government has dealt with tribal entities instead of individuals the same inequity as happened in Scotland is being applied here.