Blog

by Peter Williams Like any (sort of) sophisticated nation we’ve always played host to visits from foreign leaders. The APEC meeting of 1999 even had the presidents of the USA, Russia and China all here at the same time. But [...]

by Joshua Riley Spin recovery training was removed from the private pilot curriculum because the manoeuvre was killing more students than the lack of it ever would. Read that again. The cure was deadlier than the disease. (The maths was [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman After decades of rampant migration across Europe, governments are finally confronting a problem they have ignored for far too long: the rise of “parallel societies”. These are enclaves of immigrant communities living under alternative cultural and [...]

by Rachel Stewart Following on from last week’s ‘Riding Shotgun’ where I talked about depression and Big Pharma and SSRIs I got to thinking about my mate Tony Soprano. Now, if you haven’t watched the best show in the history [...]

by Nathan Smith Pop quiz: are the people who make movies your friends or enemies? Most of you would answer this correctly if it were asked in a neutral environment, like a conference room. You understand that Hollywood is run [...]

by Nick Clark Local government reform has turned into a numbers game. The government’s ‘Head Start’ asks how many councils we should have, and where the lines between their jurisdictions should be drawn. But a more important question is, what [...]

by Dr Maryanne Demasi Behind closed doors at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2016, senior figures from the Gates Foundation and the World Bank proposed a new approach to pandemic preparedness: large-scale simulations modelled on military war [...]

by Elisabeth Bennink Across the world, the response to Covid looked strangely alike: the same lockdowns, the same shuttered schools and businesses, the same insistence that there was only one responsible course and that to question it was to put [...]

by Rachel Stewart First, a disclaimer. I’ve been a functioning depressive for a large part of my adult life. I sought help for that in my forties, and like everybody else I was sold a lie by GP’s who didn’t [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman For decades, New Zealand has been undergoing a quiet constitutional revolution. What was once largely unnoticed is now becoming increasingly visible – so much so that the Coalition Government can no longer ignore it if it [...]

by Nathan Smith It was about this time, 11 years ago, when I was in London, news emerged about foreign men and rape gangs across the UK. The horror story of Rotherham was on all the front pages, and I [...]

by Peter Williams Sometimes you just cringe at the content of the television news. Saturday night was a classic. The New Zealand football team lost, predictably, to Belgium by 5 goals to 1 so ending their World Cup campaign. They [...]

by Andy Oakley In today’s opinion piece, the question is a big one: Should New Zealand ban the words Māori and Pākehā? Not just discourage them — I mean remove them from legislation, from government documents, from schools, and from [...]

by Benno Blaschke Before anyone builds a house in New Zealand, someone must pay upfront for the pipes and the roads that connect a development to the city. Almost always, that someone is the council. But a council can only [...]

by Ray Pistol One Nation has political momentum right now like we’ve perhaps never seen in recent Australian political history. For the past year there’s been a trend where every time there’s a new poll, its numbers go up. There [...]

The Definitions of Woman and Man Amendment Bill is currently before Parliament. The Bill seeks to provide legal definitions for the terms "woman" and "man" based on biological sex. We support this Bill because we believe New Zealand law should [...]

by Ro Edge, Save Women’s Sport Australasia New Zealand stands at a crossroads. The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill, introduced by New Zealand First, offers a straightforward, common-sense solution: define “woman” as an adult human biological female [...]

by Nathan Smith One burned bus. One measly, burned-out bus… That was the extent of the outrage in Ireland last week after an African invader almost beheaded an Irish man in Belfast. Look, I’ll be the first to say that burning public [...]

by Joshua Riley A well-connected lobby group with direct access to the Prime Minister privately proposed an internet regulator, age verification, and platform accountability - seven weeks before the select committee inquiry began. The committee delivered all of it, plus [...]

by John Grant What is the reason for the rise of One Nation, and the decline in Australian politics and society? Well, according to the Prime Minister, “it’s the economy, stupid”. Indeed, PM Anthony Albanese invoked the Clinton-era maxim last week as a [...]

by William McGimpsey This submission focuses primarily on the immigration aspects of the India Free Trade Agreement. The immigration provisions have arguably been the major bone of public contention surrounding the FTA, and the agreement comes in an international context [...]

by Thomas David Brough The Liberals built the machinery they now complain about, vacated the ground they once held, and watched One Nation walk onto it. In 2001, John Howard told the Liberal Party’s federal campaign launch that we would [...]

by Grant McLachlan Two hours of questions in New Plymouth, and the Toi Foundation’s trustees fronted up. But the answers raised sharper doubts than the deal began with — and the most forensic case against the sale came from the [...]

by Rachel Stewart Have you heard of the Gell-Man Amnesia effect? You’ll recognise it when it’s described, I’m sure, because many of us willingly partake in it. The term was coined by writer and filmmaker Michael Crichton, inspired by his [...]

by Andy Oakley While New Zealand households are struggling with skyrocketing living costs, crumbling roads, and rates bills that keep climbing, councils across the country have found something far more important to spend your money on: cutting CO₂ emissions that [...]

by Nathan Smith It’s always fun to uncover the hidden fences or gates used by the farmers of men to keep us all safe, productive and not rioting. For example, you’ve no doubt heard that only three things in life [...]

by Nicole Foss Farmers are in trouble worldwide, as the cost of both fuel and fertiliser are soaring, and in some places neither are available at any price. Even in Russia – a major energy producer – deliberate destruction of [...]

by Caldron Pool In any serious system of accountability, the importance of a promise increases the obligation to keep it. In modern politics, however, the more consequential the promise, the less accountability seems to follow when it is broken. Why [...]

by Peter Williams Has New Zealand just appointed its first “celebrity” editor? The quite remarkable announcement today of columnist, speech writer, PR agent and strategist Matthew Hooton to be the editor of Wellington’s Post newspaper has some overtures of former British cabinet [...]

by  Grant McLachlan Taranaki is being asked to bless a $620 million deal that hands its last locally owned bank to a listed company — at a discount, with the seller lending the buyer the money. New Zealand has watched [...]

by Senator Malcolm Roberts The United Nations is in a state of ‘imminent financial collapse’. Apparently. Their decline is moving at a glacial pace. Nations are drip-feeding them cash while the UN negotiates for structural change to how they handle [...]

by Joshua Riley Five days after the parliamentary majority for ratification was already locked in, New Zealand released the full text of its Free Trade Agreement with India. Read it. Because what it says is not what you were told. [...]

by Simon O'Connor I’ve not seen the full text of the agreement between the Islamic Regime and the United States, but I’m prepared already to call it a failure. At best, this is just the start of a temporary ceasefire. [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman “People Power” has forced the Government to change the law to strengthen local government democracy. This is a major win for everyone who raised the alarm about the tribal takeover of local government that’s now underway [...]

by William McGimpsey This essay discusses the issues raised in Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical - Magnifica Humanitas. In it the Pope warns of the threats posed to mankind by technology and the centralisation of power. I am a former policy analyst: [...]

by Nicole Foss The US, Iran, and the mediator -Pakistan – have all said that some kind of agreement is close. This is the first time all have agreed. Usually such statements come only from Trump and are merely for [...]

by John Grant One of the results of the rise of One Nation has been a renewed focus on electoral arithmetic on the Australian right. By how much will One Nation erase the Liberal vote? What will happen with preferences? [...]

by Peter Williams Any day now the June Curia-Taxpayers Union political poll will be released. It’s less than five months to the 2026 election, the time that polling numbers start to matter. Last month a party which rebranded as Opportunity [...]

by Peter Williams Here’s a classic case of how media can attract you with a patently misleading headline. From the New Zealand Herald website, posted at 4.21 pm on June 11: Former commissioners defend Labour police candidate Rakesh Naidoo’s integrity, question [...]

by Rachel Stewart If you haven’t watched our new show called ‘Both Barrels’ with me and Maree Buscke, where we both shoot the breeze about the things sticking in our craw every week, please do avail yourself. While recording this [...]

by Louise Vicente If you've been hearing a lot about new legislation lately and wondering what it all means for organic and non-GMO farmers and food producers in Aotearoa New Zealand, you're not alone. Over the past few weeks, there [...]

Have your say on RUCs (Road User Charges), privacy and freedom of movement The Government is consulting on proposed regulations for New Zealand’s modernised Road User Charges system. These changes are being presented as a fairer and more convenient way [...]

by Nathan Smith It seems darkly ironic that a person like Donald Trump will be the President of the United States just as the country marks its 250th year of independence. Trump is the quintessential American. He’s not corrupt – not [...]

by Roger Partridge Andy Burnham has one prescription, and he means to fill it, whatever the patient walks in with. The man with the broken arm, the woman with chest pains, the child with a fever: each leaves the surgery [...]

by Peter Williams There’s an intriguing campaign underway to try and manipulate the existence of the Maori electorates at the next two elections – this year and 2029 - and possibly for 2032 as well. That’s because the existence of [...]

by Ryan Henderson 136,200 migrants arrived in New Zealand in the year to February 2026 (Stats NZ). ACT's response, announced on Sunday: a six-point immigration policy. Five of those points describe things the New Zealand government already does in some [...]

by Rodney Hide I have been impressed by just how disgusted parents are by what our Minister of Education Erica Stanford has the schools teaching our kids about sex. It’s easy to see why the radicals pushing this material don’t [...]

by Simon O'Connor and Louisa Wall This is a joint opinion piece written by myself and Louisa Wall. She and I are both former Members of Parliament, and the founding co-chairs in New Zealand for the Interparliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). [...]

by Nathan Smith Bishop Brian Tamaki is one of the only people in politics who clearly feels he has a right to rule. His main issue is that society has rejected the Christian god and fallen into nihilism. Tamaki wants [...]

by Michael Johnston The worst-kept secret of this afternoon’s budget is that the entitlement to a fees-free year of tertiary study will be scrapped. On 8 May, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters ‘leaked’ the policy change on Newstalk ZB. [...]

by Simon O'Connor I’m a big fan of the late Sir Roger Scruton. He was a powerful conservative voice, and among many writings, he warned of the censorship happening to conservative voices. In 2019 he said: “I am a conservative [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman “This is a budget that should have been delivered in year one of the Coalition’s term”, according to Economist Cameron Bagrie. He says the if the fiscal discipline shown in Budget 2026 had been applied back [...]

by Andy Oakley What do the modern idea of “Maori” as a single race with special rights and the sudden explosion of transgender identity in our schools actually have in common? They’re both social constructs that didn’t exist in their [...]

by Sean Rush New Zealand is planning for a climate future scientists now reject. And fixing it will require more than a policy tweak New Zealand’s coastal climate change planning system is built on a simple legal standard: councils must [...]

by Chris Hunter As Kiwis, we’ve always punched above our weight. We’re the innovators, the builders, the "number 8 wire" thinkers. But there’s a quiet crisis unfolding in our suburbs and rural towns that no amount of backyard ingenuity can [...]

by Roger Partridge In 1987 Telecom New Zealand employed about 25,000 people. By 1997 it employed under 8,000. A single corporation shed 17,000 jobs in a decade, in a country of 3.3 million. The cost of Telecom’s long-distance calls fell by 60 [...]

by Nathan Smith What first comes to mind when you see the government signalling that its proposed under-16 social media ban doesn’t go far enough? Education Minister Erica Stanford said papers for her wider programme of work on countering the harms [...]

The Government has backed down on sweeping new homeschool regulations just hours before they were set to become law, following fierce backlash from the public, the homeschooling community and last-minute pressure from NZ First and ACT. Education Minister Erica Stanford [...]

by William McGimpsey I recently returned from a family holiday in Fiji, where I took the opportunity to learn a bit more about that county’s fraught history of mass migration, ethnic conflict, military coups, and demographic shifts. Fiji’s experience serves [...]

by Nicole Foss There are many factors critical for the functioning of the global system, and the world has been approaching non-negotiable limits in several of them – energy, finance, fresh water, fertile soil etc – but what is happening [...]

by Alexandros Dolgov One of the main political developments of the past decade has been the rise of populism, even if its roots can be traced further back, perhaps to the 1990s and the rise of the Freedom Party of [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman Breaking News: The extreme climate scenario, used by the expert United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to forecast catastrophic climate change has been withdrawn. The international body responsible for IPCC modelling has now officially declared the [...]

by Mark Bexgrave Once upon a time, men and women lived and worked together to survive the brutal realities of nature, hunger, violence, and hardship. Then one day, as life became safer and more comfortable thanks to that partnership, someone [...]

by Richard Prebble On a flight to Wellington the passenger beside me introduced himself. “I’m from IBM. We are developing for Railways a world-leading wages management system.” All my alarm bells went off. “World-leading”, “computer system”, and “government department” are [...]

by Rachel Stewart If you’re going to be enrolled at the highest-ranked college in America things just got a bit harder for you. Why? Well, this week hundreds of faculty voted to curb what’s described as ‘grade inflation’ or the [...]

New Zealand’s home education community is mobilising against sudden regulatory changes that would, for the first time since 1989, impose mandatory assessments and reporting on homeschooling families. Education Minister Erica Stanford inserted the amendments to the Education and Training (System [...]

by Nathan Smith It always makes me laugh when I hear people say, “the prime minister is ruining New Zealand!” as if Christopher Luxon is swinging his gold sceptre like a Greek tyrant. The reality is, no leader in a [...]

by Simon O'Connor During a recent visit by the US President to Beijing, President Xi of China made it clear that Taiwan must become part of China. Xi has frequently talked of Taiwan as part of China, and that it [...]

by Roger Partridge Local government is hard to defend. Rates are rising at more than three times inflation. Debt has doubled in less than a decade. Consents drag on while housing remains unaffordable. Each generation of politicians has reached for [...]

by Peter Williams Since my first vote in 1975 I’ve been pretty much around the party clock, although I never stopped at Green o’clock. Once I even put a tick beside a Social Credit candidate because Muldoon’s National was just [...]

by Karl du Fresne I attended two sessions at the Featherston Booktown Festival on Saturday. One, on the state of the news media, was almost totally useless. I walked out before it had finished. The other, however, was not only [...]

Feedback on the New Zealand–India Free Trade Agreement Legislation When we made our submission on the India–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, we warned that the deal reached well beyond tariffs into investment, immigration, labour mobility, digital payments and New Zealand’s [...]

by Richard Prebble I have a confession to make. The Broadcasting Standards Authority was my idea. What is worse, I still think the original idea was right. To my surprise, after the 1987 election, David Lange made me Minister of [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman The recent appointment of ten unelected iwi representatives with full voting rights onto a Council Committee of just six elected Councillors is a stark illustration that the tribal takeover of Local Government in New Zealand is now well underway. But [...]

by Peter Williams For those suffering from insomnia at 2.30 in the morning, can I recommend a taxpayer funded website stv.govt.nz On second thoughts it may not just make your eyes glaze over. It could also make you bloody angry [...]

by Roger Partridge In January 2023, Jacinda Ardern resigned as New Zealand’s Prime Minister after five years in office. She left as one of the most celebrated progressive leaders of her generation – and as one of the most domestically repudiated. Labour’s [...]

by Rachel Stewart What is it about the ever-growing spiritual growth/wellness industry that puts my teeth on edge? Yes, I do tend toward the more melancholic side, but this ‘bypassing of reality’ movement, where most of the players tend to [...]

by Gary Judd KC Trade Minister Hon Todd McClay has announced that the New Zealand-India free trade agreement has been signed and that the formal parliamentary treaty scrutiny process is now under way. The full text of the agreement is now public and has [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Oh, week of rapture! It began before the ink was even dry on my script for last week's Perspective. News came through that the Broadcasting Anti-Standards Authority is to be abolished. That motley little group of Woke [...]

by Nathan Smith The conspiracy theorists have won the conversation beyond their wildest dreams, but they have no idea what to do with their victory. Consider this story: “Kathleen Kelly got two doses of the [Covid-19] vaccine to keep her [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Oh, week of rapture! It began before the ink was even dry on my script for last week's Perspective. News came through that the Broadcasting Anti-Standards Authority is to be abolished. That motley little group of Woke [...]

by Alex Stewart For an increasing share of rural New Zealand, one foreign company now carries the broadband, the cellular backhaul, the school connection, the emergency hub, and the mobile service. The New Zealand Defence Force examined what depending on [...]

by Simon O'Connor Do you believe in law and order? Believe that being proud of your country is a good thing, and that managing who migrates here is prudent? Think children having a mum and dad is preferable? Can you [...]

by CIG Harold Mackinder wrote in 1904 that the era of European maritime predominance established 400 years earlier was coming to an end. Western naval and colonial powers had previously been able to outflank and dominate the Asian landmass through [...]

by Alex Stewart The Commerce Commission paid an international expert to assess New Zealand’s telecommunications regime. He warned that the rural market was heading toward a monopoly that the Government would soon find itself unable to regulate. It published his assessment, [...]

by Ryan Henderson 1,000 young Indians get working holiday visas in NZ. Young Kiwis get zero from India. The India FTA locks this in. NZ commits hard. India’s promise: “maybe later… if we feel like it.” New Zealand’s commitment is [...]

by Rodney Hide New Zealand’s fertility rate sits at 1.55 births per woman. Official Stats NZ figures for the year ended December 2025 confirm it. Replacement level is 2.1. We have been below it since 2013 and the numbers keep [...]

by Peter Williams In 1875 New Zealand had 10 provinces, each with their own government. We now have 26 provincial rugby unions. Currently there are 78 local authorities – 12 city councils, 53 district councils, Auckland Council, Chatham Islands council [...]

by Alex Stewart New Zealand has the highest rate of satellite broadband adoption in the OECD. I filed 28 Official Information Act requests across 18 agencies to find out what the government knew about the consolidation that produced it. Most [...]

by Zac Brandon Extraordinary things are happening in Melbourne. A mysterious crime syndicate, which appears to be a Middle Eastern gang linked to the city’s tobacco wars, is firebombing bars and nightclubs, and the police seem powerless to stop it. Venues [...]

by Ryan Henderson WHAT NEW ZEALAND OPENED: • Every category of goods. Food, machinery, chemicals, vehicles, textiles, every line. Tariff goes to zero on day one. No exclusions, no phasing in, no quotas. • Every service sector. NZ is open [...]

by Roger Partridge Treasury projects public health spending will rise from 7.1 to 10 per cent of GDP by 2065. Over the same period, the ratio of working-age taxpayers to superannuitants will halve. Something has to give. The question at [...]

by Rachel Stewart I’ve got a bit a thing for strong leaders. By “strong’ I mean that they are prepared to say the unsayable, they generally see the way of things earlier than most, and they take risks for speaking [...]

by Ryan Henderson NZ has just signed an FTA that makes us train and bankroll India’s apple and kiwifruit industries, so they can crush out our own growers. Zespri, our fruit growers, scientists and MPI all forced to help their [...]

by Peter Williams In April 2024 the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) launched its Matangirua strategy – its formal Maori engagement and capability framework. The strategy was designed to help Maori “participate as Maori” in financial markets. That apparently means “not just as [...]

by Nathan Smith It’s a pity that US President Donald Trump is seen as a 6ft 3in buffoon, because he has an uncanny knack for accidentally revealing the nature of the permanent bureaucracy and the insidious mechanisms of the American [...]

by Peter Williams The abolition of the Broadcasting Standards Authority was inevitable. Dithery Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith finally made a decision, or more likely his cabinet colleagues and some Act MPs gave him a boot in the behind and told [...]

by Lindsay Perigo I want to begin this week with an off-cut from last week, which I dropped at the last minute for reasons of time. I was talking about the hypocrisy of the Dirty Dems in America in supporting [...]

by Ryan Henderson Read the original article here: Damien Grant: Reading the NZ-India free trade agreement made my stress levels rise | Stuff Damien, I read your column on Sunday morning. I'm deep into the same agreement and I have [...]

by Simon O'Connor To badly quote Marcellus from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 4) - there is something rotten with the state of our mainstream media and its wider ecosystem. Whether it is the behaviour of some reporters; the increasing use of [...]