Zoran Rakovic - The New Political Prison: How Selwyn Council Taught Me to Love the Cage

Denied speaking time by Selwyn Council, I explore how silence by power becomes a badge of honour and a symbol of modern civic resistance.

There is something strangely beautiful in being silenced by power. A grotesque beauty, yes, but beauty nonetheless—the same kind Kafka might have sketched in the margins of The Trial, where Josef K. is devoured not by violence, but by procedure. I was denied a right to speak at the Selwyn District Council meeting. Just a few minutes. Just one voice. Just one democratic forum. But the Chair—backed by the invisible hand of the Chief Executive—said no. The gate was shut, the forum full. Time had “run out.” That’s what they said. But let’s not be fooled. This was not about time. This was about power. And in that moment, I became, willingly or not, a political prisoner of the 21st century.

Zoran Rakovic - Selwyn’s 634 Pages of Silence: The Theatre of Democratic Surrender

Selwyn councillors received a 634-page agenda just 3 days before voting. Why did no one protest? A searing critique of silence, theatre, and complicity.

Let us begin not with outrage but with a shrug—the shrug that echoes from the silence of elected councillors handed a 634-page agenda with three working days to digest, interrogate, and resolve it. This is not merely a matter of poor administrative timing or clerical overload. No, the real scandal is not in the bureaucratic gesture itself but in the cynical normalisation of such acts, and more terrifyingly, in the docile submission by those elected to resist them. There is a quiet apocalypse taking place in local democracy, and its soundtrack is the passive assent of councillors who have, perhaps unconsciously, chosen comfort over conflict, posture over principle.

Zoran Rakovic - A New Crown, The Same Sword: Power, Hypocrisy, and the Eviction of Selwyn Huts

Ngāi Tahu now owns the land—but the people in the huts must go. We ask: when power changes hands, does justice follow?

Opinion: The settlers of Greenpark Huts did not descend from mountaintops with deeds of conquest. They arrived with huts and hope, making lives on the muddy fringes of Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora. Through decades, generations came to treat those huts not as property but as places of meaning—battered perhaps, but woven into the fabric of ordinary New Zealand life. And now, as ownership passes fully into the hands of Ngāi Tahu, the story is coming to a bitter end. Eviction notices. Legal wrangling. No renewal. No negotiation. Just the cold mechanics of removal.

Zoran Rakovic: When the Crown Stands Alone

What if Treaty obligations returned to the Crown—where they belong? Explore why iwi may soon rush to settle, not because of impatience, but insolvency.

There is an unwritten maxim among distressed creditors: settle while the pot still has something in it. This principle, though rarely invoked by name in Treaty politics, may prove to be the most important yet unspoken factor in determining the pace and finality of Crown–iwi settlements in the years ahead. Māori iwi, long accustomed to protracted negotiations with the Crown, may discover that when the burden of Treaty obligations is reloaded back onto the Crown—where it legally belongs—rather than endlessly diffused among councils, businesses, and ordinary citizens, their incentive structure to hold out indefinitely will collapse. For as long as the Crown is permitted to socialise its fiduciary debts—to pay them not from its own coffers but through the energies, rates, and regulatory concessions of citizens—Treaty settlements risk becoming a perpetuity, not a closure. But if that circuit is broken, then economic logic, not cultural metaphysics, will shape the settlement timeline.

Zoran Rakovic: Shared Environment, Shared Love: Ending the Myth That Only Some of Us Care for New Zealand

New Zealand’s environment belongs to all who cherish it. It’s time to challenge the myth that only one culture holds the key to true ecological care.

It has become a common refrain in official documents, consultation papers, and government-funded summits across New Zealand: Māori are presented as the natural stewards of New Zealand's environment, the only true guardians of the land and waters, the only people whose relationship to the environment is described as spiritual, noble, and ancient. One would almost believe that environmental care was invented in the rohe of iwi, rather than an instinct present among countless peoples who have lived in harmony with the natural world.

Zoran Rakovic: While You Were Watching the Rich List, They Took Your Nest Egg

While headlines rage about New Zealand's ultra-wealthy, it’s the prudent mum-and-dad investors who’ll bear the tax burden. This article exposes how media narratives mask the true targets of wealth taxes.

Zoran Rakovic - No Laughing Matter: The Missing Joy in English Class

A thoughtful critique of NZ's proposed English text list for Years 7–13, drawing on Steiner, Dawkins, and timeless educational insights. Submissions close 13 June.

Are we teaching students to think—or just what to think? As the Ministry of Education seeks feedback on its new English curriculum text list, one question looms: where’s the humour, the wonder, the wit, and the wisdom beyond ideology? Before submissions close on 13 June, take a closer look between the lines.

Zoran Rakovic: The Real Equity Is Found in Equations

New Zealand’s education system must shift from ideology to inspiration. It’s time to teach STEM, creativity, and AI to prepare kids for the next century.

Our children deserve rocket fuel, not red tape. As the Ministry of Education clings to 19th-century grievances, the future is slipping through our fingers. This is a call to reclaim education for what it should be: a launchpad into the stars.

Zoran Rakovic - Shadows Over Capital: How Regulatory Uncertainty is Stalling New Zealand’s Economic Future

From Lucas to de Soto, what the world’s greatest economists can teach us about our stifled growth.

New Zealand's prosperity is being quietly strangled—not by taxes, but by regulatory uncertainty. From Lucas to de Soto, the world’s leading economists warn: without clear, stable rules, capital flees. A must-read analysis of where we’re headed and why.

Zoran Rakovic: Te Tiriti Obligations Quietly Shifted Into the Backyards of Private Citizens

Opinion on why New Zealand’s Crown cannot legally transfer its Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations to private landowners under section 6 of the RMA.

Section 6 of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) purports to set out “matters of national importance” to which all persons exercising functions and powers under the Act must “recognise and provide for.” Among these are matters such as the preservation of the natural character of the coastal environment, the protection of outstanding natural features and landscapes, and the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands, water, sites, wāhi tapu, and other taonga. Specifically, section 6(e) elevates Māori interests into a planning context that places regulatory burdens on private landowners through local council decisions made under the RMA. At first glance, this framework may appear as a principled reconciliation between land use regulation and the Crown’s Treaty obligations. 

Zoran Rakovic: Human Rights Commission to Public: Sit Down, Shut Up, and Pay for the Treaty

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission, in its well-meaning but dangerously misleading tone, declared on its website: “The Treaty does not, as is sometimes claimed, confer ‘special privileges’ on Māori, nor does it take rights away from other New Zealanders. Rather, it affirms particular rights and responsibilities for Māori as Māori to protect and preserve their lands, forests, waters and other treasures for future generations.”

Zoran Raković: The Illusion of Ownership - Why Your Land May No Longer Be Yours

In New Zealand, land has always been sacred. It’s where we build our homes, raise our families, and pass down security through generations. But today, I offer a sobering warning: the meaning of land ownership in New Zealand is changing—quietly, bureaucratically, and with profound consequences.

Zoran Rakovic - A Bureaucratic Blueprint: Woke Architecture Meets Soft Totalitarianism

The NZRAB’s latest Schedule NZ Consultation Briefing Paper arrives not with the dignity of an architectural manifesto but with the hesitant shuffle of a government department having just discovered adjectives. Drenched in the warm bathwater of consultation rhetoric and spiritual deference, it proposes the introduction of new “performance criteria” that would see architecture in New Zealand surrender its compass to a cultural worldview—Te Ao Māori—not as a complementary influence, but as a central moral axis. The tone is more missionary than managerial. The intent? Ostensibly noble. The implications? Chilling, if we still take the Bill of Rights Act even half-seriously.

Zoran Rakovic - Operation Bubblewrap: Parliament Declares War on Teenagers

Let it be known: the greatest threat to our nation's future is no longer inflation, climate change, or potholes on State Highway 1. No, it’s 14-year-olds with TikTok accounts.

The other day, Member’s Bill Ballot Cake Tin became richer – a Social Media (Age-Restricted Users) Bill was submitted.  A name which, like most things coming out of Wellington these days, sounds like it was generated by a mildly concussed AI intern on a sugar crash.

Zoran Rakovic: Whose Land Is It Anyway? New Zealand’s Property Rights Farce

“Property rights are not about hugging a fencepost. They’re about knowing who’s in charge, who gets the bill, and who reaps the spoils.” — Alchian & Allen, paraphrased for clarity and sanity.

Let’s drop the pretence. New Zealand is fast becoming a textbook case in how to muddle up a perfectly decent nation. The latest chapter in our decline? A slow, clumsy dismantling of one of civilisation’s most basic and boringly essential inventions: clear property rights.