Pee Kay: Where should the ambulance be placed?

And Why the Taxpayer is Left at the Bottom of the Cliff

A recent letter to the editor in the NZ Herald read – “…when are we going to wake up as a nation and realise that we need more tax income to pay for all the health, education and infrastructure that the country needs attending to?

Adding – “Future generations will be burdened with debt that will need to be repaid unless we are brave enough to change our tax structure to meet our growing needs”

So here we have another economic visionary gracing the letters to the editor page, imploring the state to extract even more cash from our already empty wallets. Because obviously to them, the only reason New Zealand’s hospitals are crumbling and our roads resemble the surface of the moon is that the government simply doesn’t have enough of our hard earned tax dollars to fritter away! The prevailing wisdom from these bleeding hearts is always the same; if we just tax our way to prosperity, future generations will magically inherit a debt-free utopia.

Pee Kay: National… the Enemy Within?

PART ONE: The Bolger/Shipley years

Labour may talk co-governance, but it’s actually National who cements it!

It’s bizarre isn’t it, Labour often absorbs the loudest and most heated public condemnation for its Maori centred policies. For decades, political commentators have labelled Labour as the champion of Maori rights and National as its staunch opponent.

But is that, in fact, true?

Geoff Parker: Economic Development Should Be Based On Merit, Not Ancestry

The Government is right to focus on economic growth.

New Zealand desperately needs higher productivity, stronger businesses, more investment, and better use of our land. Ministers have recognised this reality by introducing policies designed to boost rural productivity, encourage development, and support economic expansion across the wider economy.

Matua Kahurangi: Whānau Ora funnels millions to iwi

It’s 6.30pm. The state-funded propaganda machine, otherwise known as 1News is droning on in the background while I’m half-listening, half-scrolling, slowly eating my dinner and getting sidetracked like usual. Then I stumbled across this little gem on RNZ that stopped me right in my tracks…

Ngāti Toa has just launched a new Whānau Ora commissioning agency to funnel “health and wellbeing” funding to Māori and Pasifika only. Not the poor. Not the vulnerable. Not the struggling. Just Māori and PI. If you don’t tick the right ancestry box, you can get stuffed.

Erica Stanford: Supporting More Tamariki Māori To Flourish

An additional $60m of ring-fenced funding for Mori Medium and Kaupapa Mori Education property, which will deliver up to 50 new classrooms to support the network, providing access to immersion schooling for approximately an additional 1,100 konga.

The Government is delivering over $100 million in investment through Budget 2025 to ensure more tamariki Māori thrive at school.

Point of Order: No Prime Minister - School lunches are not free

It’s not the sort of accomplishment – some of us might think – that a Prime Minister would be proud to bray about.

The Government’s healthy lunches in school programme has ramped up to deliver a million free lunches to school kids every week.

The PM dished up these numbers: