David Farrar: Thanks Labour

The Post reports:

The country’s largest gas user Methanex will close its Taranaki methanol production facilities next year saying New Zealand’s declining natural gas supply made continued operations unsustainable.

Labour’s decision to ban gas and oil exploration has not just cost 150 jobs, but is one of the stupidest decision of recent decades.

Andrew Sibley: ‘Supercharged’ Global Greening in African Savannah....

....CO2 Brings Huge Boost to Grass Growth

More evidence of global greening from carbon dioxide fertilisation has been published in the prestigious publication Nature. The research involved 70 experiments and three decades of field data from many locations in the savannah of South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The international scientific team was led by Dr Kimberley Simpson of the University of Sheffield, the paper entitled ‘Increasing CO2 levels fertilise C4 grass production‘. Phys.org reported the study as follows: ‘Rising carbon dioxide is supercharging grass growth in African savannas, study finds.’ The latest study challenges the previously held view that the dominant grasses in the savannah (known as ‘C4’) benefit little from rising levels of carbon dioxide.

Mike's Minute: Chris Hipkins might not be very numerate

I think Nicola Willis may be right when she suggested to us the other day Chris Hipkins might not be very numerate.

He is undoing himself in front of us. As he does, he reminds us why he has basically done as little as possible these past few years, because when he does he is either in office blowing the place up, or putting out policy in Opposition that makes literally no sense.

He has blocked petrol excise increases for three years.

Thursday September 3, 2026 

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Ani O'Brien: Breaking Down Te Pāti Māori's Constitutional Policy

Te Pāti Māori has proposed a far-reaching constitutional policy that seeks to entrench Te Tiriti in legislation and establish a Te Tiriti Commission with powers to review executive decisions. This video breaks down the details of the Matike Mai report, exploring its implications for governance, political authority, and the broader debate surrounding New Zealand's constitutional future.

Click to View

Judy Gill: English is now an Official Language. The Ministry of Education must review its language policies.

The mixed te reo-English register now routine across New Zealand education did not appear overnight. Its policy roots stretch back decades — and one father’s refusal to accept it exposes a national question.

English is now, in statute, an official language of New Zealand.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm really tired of councils stuffing up and no-one getting in trouble for it

Tell you what, if you don't already have much confidence in councils, the report out on what went wrong with sewage spilling into the water at Moa Point in Wellington isn't going to help.

It turns out the Moa Point wastewater treatment plant is only half built. There's another half that was supposed to be built and never was. If it had been built, that spill probably wouldn't have happened because there would have been enough capacity at the treatment plant to cope with the extra rainwater that fell that evening.

John MacDonald: It's like getting a bank loan to pay the pocket money

Nine billion dollars a year. $750 million a month. Or $24 million a day.

That’s how much interest we are currently paying on government debt. Just the interest.

But, despite that, the Government thinks it’s a good idea to borrow more money to cover the cost of the revenue it’s not going to get because of the fuel tax freeze.

JC: Opt for TOP

This should have been the front page headline in the Herald. They were keen to let their readers know they were on TOP of things last weekend, at least when they came to the Opportunity Party. I picked up the paper and there staring me in the face was another face, that of the by now all too familiar Qiulae Wong. At the bottom of the A1 half-page spread readers were invited to go to A10 to continue the fascinating read. They didn’t mention the furthering of the epic on A11. Suspect bias is one thing but blatant bias is quite another. This was completely ‘over the top’.

Ryan Bridge: Is this really AI theft?

IP lawyers will be licking their lips with all these AI cases landing on their desks.

The latest, we spoke about yesterday, was Sony and Warner going after Anthropic.

Their argument is basically that Anthropic's AI models, the ones we use to get answers to questions, scrape and bottom trawl the internet for information.

David Farrar: The TPM overhang strategy could result in permament left wing government

Te Pati Maori are trying to use the Māori seats to engineer overhang seats, to try and lock the centre right out of power – even if they win more votes. But recent law changes means the potential impact of this strategy could be huge.

At present there are seven Māori seats. If TPM won all seven, and got fewer than 0.4% PV that would be a seven seat overhang. It means that you would need 64 seats to form a Government instead of 61.

Pee Kay: Forget co-governance – the Centre Left will entrench Te Tiriti and co-governance will only be the start.

Michael Laws on Willie Jackson and how Labour will be introducing co-governance under a new guise because the term co-governance has negative connotations.

Dave Patterson: Sudan Remains the Most Under-Reported Foreign Policy Crisis

Thousands have been killed, and there looks like no end to it.

Headlines and major stories focus on the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the ongoing conflict in Iran, and what appears to be a growing tariff dispute with Canada. There’s another deadly international conflict, however, that the American media has barely covered: the civil war in Sudan. The fighting has been going on for nearly four years and has claimed a reported 59,000 lives – probably an estimate on the low side. Furthermore, secondary consequences include more than 13 million people being displaced and enormous areas of Sudan suffering famine.

Kerre Woodham: Hiking the fuel tax would take political courage

It's not often you hear people moaning that taxes should be put up, but we live in interesting times, people. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Transport Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announced that the Government had scrapped the 12 cents per litre fuel increase, with equivalent increases to road user charges, that were planned for January 1st next year.

Bob Edlin: Asian school attendance rates cast doubts over links between the Treaty....

....“cultural safety” and Maori truancy

Newsroom brought Maori truancy into focus in a report headed Record school attendance masks persistent gap for Māori.

It was a narrow focus. No mention was made – for comparative purposes – of school attendance rates among other ethnic groups which might be culturally disadvantaged in the New Zealand school system – or who might feel culturally “unsafe”.

The report said:

Mike's Minute: Fast-track needs to get back to infrastructure, not housing

The prediction we made some weeks back over fast-track housing is starting to come true.

Fast-track in and of itself is working. The Tauranga Port has the green light after literally years of regulatory BS that had it tied up in court, going nowhere.

If you put RMA v fast-track, then fast-track wins hands down and our country will be better for it.

Wednesday September 2, 2026 

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Steven Gaskell: Iwi In Space — With the New Zealand Government

New Zealand has apparently decided that if we're going to reach for the stars, we might as well take co-governance with us. The result is Tāwhaki, a Crown–iwi aerospace venture being developed at Kaitōrete Spit near Christchurch. It sounds impressive. Rockets, satellites, technology, investment and highly skilled jobs. What's not to like? Well, the interesting part is who owns it, who pays for it and who gets a say over what gets launched.

Dame Elizabeth Rata: History of New Zealand Education Promo

Why did New Zealand have one of the best education systems in the world from the 19th century to the 1970s.

Why was that remarkable legacy deliberately dismantled? What can be done to restore quality education?

I’m making thirty-nine narrated podcast episodes using historical documents and photos to try and answer this question.

Pee Kay: “…we’re in bad company…”says Chris Luxon

We could be on the hook for up to $5 billion in carbon credits but Chris Luxon has made a pronouncement from on high that “remaining in the Paris climate agreement is a bottom line in any coalition negotiations…”

Is this another of Chris’s “big time outbursts” that just might end up inflicting pain on his posterior like the July decree might when he stated during a post-Cabinet press conference that National “ain’t doing business” with parties that want to spend, borrow, and increase taxes, pointing to TOP’s proposed land value tax.