John McLean: New Zealand is racist!

Really? How so? How could it be so?

A former friend and I used to debate Matters Māori . He steadfastly maintained that New Zealand is racist against people with Māori ancestry. His main argument was that film director Taika Waititi has publicly claimed that New Zealand is racist.

Mr Waititi has indeed made that claim, and he’s entitled to his view. Waititi’s claim came in a 2018 interview for Dazed magazine with musician Ruban Nielson. After Nielson mooted an “idealised vision of New Zealand as like Australia without the racism,” Waititi responded, “Nah, it’s racist as f**k. I mean…it’s a racist place. People just flat-out refuse to pronounce Māori names properly…”

John McLean: The Supreme Court empire strikes back

New Zealand’s Supremo Judges have launched their latest salvo on the Foreshore & Seabed Front of New Zealand’s War for Constitution Supremacy. We’re talking here about the ongoing uncivil War pitting the Judiciary against successive elected Governments, on which I have previously published:

John McLean: NZ's critically endangered school kids

How Woketearoa molds Minors into Marxists

“Te Whāriki” early childhood curriculum guidelines were first published in 1996. The inaugural Te Whāriki was published under a National Party-led Government, with Jim “Spud” Bolger as Prime Minister. There’s a misconception that the calamitous decline in New Zealand’s educational standards has been a Leftie subversion. The slow train wreck has received cross-party support.

John McLean: A Pauling

Thinly veiled race lunacy lurks under the veneer of civility

Craig Pauling is the chair of the Canterbury Regional Council (“CRC”). I don’t find Pauling particularly appalling. Craig’s publicly civil - a civility born of his absolute belief in deep-seated dogmas. But Craig is also a lead actor in an appalling tragic farce…the racial renting asunder of the once proud, plucky, pretty unified nation of New Zealand.

John McLean: Democatised voting - God forbid

The current Government has proposed various changes to New Zealand’s voting and electoral laws. The changes will likely be implemented in their current proposed form.

In order to be entitled to vote in a general election, New Zealanders must be registered on the electoral roll. The proposed changes include preventing enrolment on election day, as is currently permitted. Under the proposals, New Zealanders (to be able to vote) will need to be registered on the electoral roll at least 13 days before ballot day.

John McLean: Yet Another Perfectly Innocent Mistake......(Not)

NZ's Department of Conservation pleads guilty to a lesser crime

On 5 June 2025, the Department of Conservation (DoC) declined a mining company’s application for a resource consent to expand an existing gold mining operation - by a moderate 6 hectares.

The company is OceanaGold. The mine is Macraes mine near Dunedin. Macraes, which opened in 1990, is New Zealand’s largest gold mine.

John McLean: Cracked Pot Tries To Burn Better Wellington

Utter Nutter Hattotuwa comes in from the Cold

Sanjana Hattotuwa has been busy spying on Wellington local government affairs. He’s gone so far as to produce his very own hot report on a Wellington incorporated society named “Better Wellington Incorporated”.

John McLean: Taupo District Council offloads to Tuwharetoa

An Ethno Mystic Council will shortly hand the reins to a Māori tribe

The Taupō District Council has a “Joint Management Agreement” with The Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board - the statutory board that represents the Ngāti Tūwharetoa Māori tribe. The Joint Management Agreement was entered into in 2009 and gave Ngāti Tūwharetoa unprecedented decision-making powers in resource consenting.

The 2009 JMA looks nothing like the final draft of a replacement JMA that the Taupō District Council and Tūwharetoa will almost certainly enter into before the end of July 2025. You can read the replacement JMA here:

John McLean: Nothing to smile about

On 26 June 2025, multiple Māori groups filed a High Court legal claim to all New Zealand’s natural fresh water. In the short period since then, more Māori have jumped on the water wagon. The claim’s chief protagonist is a man named Kingi Smiler. You can listen here to a chat that Smiler recently had with broadcaster Michael Laws on The Platform:

John McLean: High Time To Wield The Axe

Tribal threats to New Zealand’s democracy must get the chop, before it’s too late

There’s no such thing as pan-Māoridom. Never has been. Not before colonisation, and not now. “Māori” are a collection of separate tribes (iwi), which now number about 150. None of these tribes were or are democratic. The head of each iwi hierarchy is a paramount chief, the Ariki, typically an inherited status. At the bottom of each traditional Māori tribe were the slaves and baby girls.

So it should come as no surprise that many Māori leaders are no fans of democracy.

John McLean: Sinophilia at the helm of Zealandia

Sinophilia (noun): Strong admiration for all things China

Christopher Luxon is a Sinophile. New Zealand’s Prime Minister drinks deep of The Kool Sino-Aid.

Immediately after visiting China, Luxon announced on 21 June 2025, “We haven't seen evidence of those four powers [China, Russia, Iran & North Korea] coordinating in a way, actively against the West”. Luxon was not speaking on behalf of anyone other than himself. The “We” was therefore a Royal We (even though Luxo aint no monarch).

John McLean: Woe betide us when parliament's words no longer matter

As a child, I believed my grandmother simply started knitting, without an end in mind, and on each occasion an unforeseen woolen item would magically take shape.

I felt much the same when I began reading tracts of Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s screeds of words. He seemed to me to be aimlessly banging away at his keyboard, invested with nothing but inchoate hope for a useful result.

But what’s Sir Geoffrey really been up to?

Mike Butler: Don’t forget the old pioneers

The Pioneers – Makers of New Zealand, a new book by writer-publisher John McLean, reminds us of those who built New Zealand, tells how, and explains why their contribution should not be forgotten.

McLean descends from an unusual pioneering family of Scots who did a double migration, first to Nova Scotia in 1793, and then on to Waipu, in Bream Bay, Northland, in 1854.

The people behind contractors John McLean and Sons also descended from this group. This company built bridges, railways, most of Wellington’s wharves, the entire Auckland electric tramway system, as well as the early stages of the Otira Tunnel under the southern Alps, starting in 1907.

John McLean: Enduring love of big Pharma & Maori quackery

Free societies enjoy a defining feature that distinguishes them from totalitarian States. The particular feature I have in mind is that, in a free society, what’s not prohibited is allowed. In other words, a free society’s citizens - including corporate citizens - can do whatever they like unless it’s legally prohibited. On the other hand, the default setting to which citizens under totalitarianism are subjected is that they can only do what’s expressly authorised by the State; everything else is verboten.

John McLean: Electricity short circuit

New Zealand’s batty energy system

New Zealand is running dangerously low on electricity. During times of high demand, the only thing saving New Zealanders from power blackouts is electricity generated by burning imported coal at Genesis Energy’s Huntly Power Station. Between April and August 2025, Genesis will import about 800,000 tonnes of overseas-mined coal for burning at Huntly. Power prices are cripplingly high, with no respite in sight.

John McLean: Honesty

One distinct oddity in our strange world is that the darkest actors are often the more honest.

So when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced (late in 2021) his intention for Russia to invade Ukraine, outsiders should have taken him at his word. And when Chlöe Swarbrick chants “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”, we should harbor no doubt that Chlöe sincerely wants to see an end to the State of Israel.

John McLean: Supreme Court endorses defence force covid vax compulsion

New Zealand’s Supreme Court has decided that the New Zealand Defence Force can lawfully force its personnel to be vaccinated against the COVID virus. The Supreme Court’s 11 April 2025 decision means the Defence Force can expel personnel who are not COVID vaccine jabbed, and refuse to employ those odious unjabbed New Zealand citizens. All while the Defence Force constantly laments its struggles to attract talent.

John McLean: Manawa Hooey

hooey (noun, informal): something that is not true or does not make sense, although some people may believe it

In 2021, a man named Satish Ghule, relying solely on Google maps for directions to an intended trekking destination in India, drove his car straight into a river and drowned.

On 5 October 2024, Commander Yvonne Gray, captain of New Zealand Navy ship HMNZS Manawanui, called it a day after surveying the seabed adjacent to a Samoan reef.

John McLean: NZME, Oh Me Oh My

NZME Limited is a New Zealand media company that’s publicly listed on NZX, New Zealand’s securities exchange.

NZME publishes several newspapers, including The Herald, and runs multiple radio stations, the most prominent being Newstalk ZB. Curiously, NZME also owns OneRoof, a website for people wanting to buy or sell real estate.

John McLean: New Zealand Judiciary continues to circle the wagons

The United Judges of Woketearoa give their Government yet another stiff middle finger

In November 2024, District Court Judge “Ema” Aitken, her former-doctor husband David Galler and King’s Counsel Michael Reed KC gate-crashed a private function at Auckland city’s Northern Club. The function was a Christmas get together of the New Zealand First political party. Aitken’s real name is Elizabeth Margaret Aitken. “Ema” appears to be a truncation designed to make herself seem cool.