Dr Don Brash: Your career or your opinions — New Zealand is making you choose

The following extract is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge trustee

For years, Hobson's Pledge has been raising the alarm about professional regulators being weaponised against people who simply express differing opinions.

It is not illegal, for example, to call for the Waitangi Tribunal to be wrapped up or Māori electorates to be abolished, but posting such opinions could currently get one in trouble with their profession’s regulator.

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?

Dr Don Brash: Separatism in the fine print

The following is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge trustee

Hobson’s Pledge does not normally involve itself in the politics of free trade agreements. But one detail within the recently signed New Zealand–India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has us very concerned. The Government has affirmed its commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and, in doing so, continues to embolden the very separatist agenda that we fight against every day.

The signing of UNDRIP back in 2010 was the catalyst for moves like He Puapua and more.

Dr Don Brash: Instead of fixing the RMA, Govt is perfecting the machinery of division

The following is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge Trustee.

A few weeks ago, Hobson’s Pledge sent the Government an Official Information Act (OIA) request concerning the Gore District Plan and its requirement that farmers and those using the land must assess their use against Ngāi Tahu's cultural values, such as mauri, wairua, whakapapa, and utu.

Dr Don Brash: Hidden in the Agenda: When Your Vote Isn’t Enough

The following is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge Trustee

While the hard-working people of Otago go about their lives, the Otago Regional Council (ORC) is moving pieces across the board that fundamentally change who makes key decisions in that region.

A few days ago, ORC held a council meeting, and we spotted something in the agenda that made us tune in to the livestream. Decisions were being made about the new Integrated Catchment Management Board (ICM), and yet again, a council was ignoring principles of democracy and appointing unelected members to decision-making roles.

Dr Don Brash: RMA Reform - A step forward. But concerns for equal citizenship

It is almost the end of 2025 and, as you may know, the Government has recently introduced to Parliament the two Bills it seeks to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) with.

The Bills were pushed through first reading under urgency and have been referred to the Environment Select Committee. We will shortly be able to make submissions.

We have already looked at the Bills and sought some initial legal advice. As you can anticipate, there is a lot to take in, but I wanted to give you some initial impressions.

Dr Don Brash: At the end of year two, how are they doing?

With less than a year to go to the next general election, polls suggest that the current Government could well lose to a Labour-led coalition, despite the mess which the last Labour Government left just two years ago. Is that negativity warranted?

There are all kinds of criteria one might use to assess the Government but in recent years I have consistently used just five.

Dr Don Brash: My Oxford Union Speech

The House believes that the Sun should never have set on the British Empire

Mr/Madame President, I speak in opposition to the motion.

But I also want to acknowledge at the outset that the British Empire did more good things for more people than any other empire in human history.

Dr Don Brash: Do rising house prices damage economic growth?

In recent years, when addressing Rotary and other audiences, I often talk about the five big challenges facing New Zealand – persistently slow growth in productivity, and therefore in income levels; ridiculously unaffordable house prices; the increasing division of our society into those with a Maori ancestor and those without; the unsustainable path which government fiscal policy has been on for the last decade or so; and the foreign policy dilemma we’re facing in a situation where our traditional ally seems hell-bent on provoking war with our largest trading partner.

Until today, I hadn’t given enough thought to the possibility that rising house prices may have been part of the cause of our lousy productivity growth.

Dr Don Brash: Why get on the housing ladder?

Almost since I returned to New Zealand from nine years abroad in 1971, there has been a widespread assumption that house prices always go up, if not every single year then almost every single year. And that those prices would rise faster than general inflation and faster than income growth.

As a result of that widespread belief, it was taken as a self-evident truth that the most important financial decision a young person could make was to “get on the property ladder” by borrowing as much money as the bank – the commercial bank or the bank of Mum and Dad – would lend to buy as much house as possible.

Dr Don Brash: The Nail in the Coffin for Maori Seats

I don't know about you, but I have had a gutsful of the disrespect and disdain Te Pāti Māori show for our Parliament and for all of us.

With their hateful rhetoric and disruptive antics they have demonstrated that Māori seats have become the home of the most extreme race activists.

Te Pāti Māori have put the final nail in the coffin of Māori seats.

Dr Don Brash: NZME can get stuffed - the ad they rejected

Written by Don Brash in his capacity as Hobson's Pledge trustee

This morning, you were meant to open the New Zealand Herald and see a full page ad calling out Christopher Luxon and the National Party for their failure to support democracy, equality, and a New Zealand based on unity – not racial division.

Instead, NZME is clearly making up rules on the hoof and introduced new creative restrictions at the very last moment (literally yesterday afternoon) and refused to print it unless we complied.

Dr Don Brash: Shame on National and Christopher Luxon

The following is written by Don Brash in his capacity as Hobson's Pledge trustee.

So desperate are Christopher Luxon and the National Party to ignore their supporters, they are returning the Treaty Principles Bill from the Justice Committee over a month early.

The committee led by National MP, James Meager, has today tabled its report on the Bill – a report not due until May!

Dr Don Brash: Time for ANZAC 2.0?

A few days ago, I read an article by Oliver Hartwich, the executive director of the New Zealand Initiative, entitled “Time for ANZAC 2.0”. I generally agree with material produced by the New Zealand Initiative, and in particular with articles written by Dr Hartwich. But not this time.

Dr Don Brash: From the internet to medicines, nothing in New Zealand is safe from Treaty mania

The following is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge trustee.

You may not have heard of InternetNZ or know exactly what they do. I didn't until I read some alarming news about the organisation this week.

I was first alerted to the issue via an email from the New Zealand Free Speech Union which said:

Ele Ludemann: Bring back Brash?

Six years with a Labour government showed very clearly that more spending isn’t always better spending.

It’s a lesson the Reserve Bank doesn’t appear to have learned:

Dr Don Brash: Equality is not a dirty word

Surely, in a liberal democracy, there are few words more chilling to read written in earnest than the “flawed concept of ‘equality’”. But there they were, in print, in an opinion piece by the National Urban Māori Authority’s Lady Tureiti Moxon published in the NZ Herald on Tuesday last week.

The Treaty Principles Bill has done exactly what its champion David Seymour intended; it has sparked a national conversation. And that conversation has been eye-opening to say the least. Never could I have ever predicted that ‘equality’ would be treated as such a dirty word.

Dr Don Brash: Time to submit on the Treaty Principles Bill fast running out

This Parliament is being asked to pass a significant number of important Bills during the course of its three-year life – Bills related to resource management planning, to infrastructure, to education and to health. But few Bills are of greater significance than the Treaty Principles Bill which David Seymour has sponsored.

Why? Because it goes to the very heart of our constitution. And there are only days left in which to express your opinion: submissions on the Bill close at 11.59 p.m. next Tuesday, 7 January.

Dr Don Brash: House prices in 2025 - Up or down?

On the last day of 2024, the New Zealand Herald ran an article under the heading “House prices start to rise”. The first sentence quoted OneRoof, an organisation owned by the publishers of the New Zealand Herald and specializing in promoting house sales, stating that “OneRoof’s latest monthly house price index shows prices are starting to climb again.”

While the article acknowledges that in some parts of the country house prices remained subdued in 2024, the entire emphasis of the article is that because house prices have started to move higher in some areas this would be a great time to buy.

Michael Reddell: Fiscal failure and indifference (with introduction by Don Brash)

Don Brash: This short analysis of the current fiscal position as compared with the fiscal position as projected shortly before the Labour Government left office is sobering.

Chris Hipkins and other Labour spokespeople are talking as if the current Government has cut government spending drastically, creating the “politics of austerity”. But over the next few fiscal years core government spending is projected to be as high as, or slightly higher than, that projected in Labour’s last Budget.

So much for the “politics of austerity”!

Michael Reddell was an economist of gradually increasing seniority at the Reserve Bank throughout my 14 years as Governor, and for more than 10 years beyond that. In my opinion, he is one of the most astute economists in New Zealand.