Blog

by Kelvin Kemm Nuclear power will be the future. There is no doubt about it. Nuclear is the cleanest, greenest, cheapest, safest, energy source ever. There is no doubt about that, no matter what anyone says. Also, just look at [...]

by Oliver Hartwich New Zealand is barely a military power. It has had no combat aircraft for 25 years, and its ageing frigates need replacing. Lifting defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP passes for ambition. The country comes [...]

by Rodney Hide The Greens have a plan for cheaper groceries. It’s called KiwiMart. Force Foodstuffs and Woolworths to sell 120 stores and a couple of warehouses into state ownership at a heavy discount, splash about $2.8 billion, ban “price [...]

by Larry This week's announcement by Methanex that they would effectively cease operations at their Motunui methanol plant in the first quarter of 2027 is a big blow to Taranaki and ultimately the wider NZ Inc. This is another casualty [...]

by Rachel Stewart Today is the 25th anniversary of 9/11, or tomorrow in the US. Where it actually matters. It should be a straightforward day of remembrance for the nation, and particularly for the affected families, but alas, it is [...]

by Benno Blaschke Imagine two paddocks at the edge of a city. They have the same soil and access to the same roads and pipes. Then town planners allow homes on one side, but not the other. The first can [...]

by Nathan Smith It’s amazing how many intelligent people insist on believing in nonsensical things. I’m not talking about Zeus, aliens or romantic love. I’m referring to the illusion of “market prices” and why this single idea is ruining your [...]

by Peter Williams Because of our relationship through rugby and cricket New Zealanders have long carried an interest in South African politics. For the first thirty five years of my life many New Zealanders actively protested against the apartheid regime [...]

by Jen Bainbridge Recently surfaced communications and regulatory documents show that senior US health officials and Pfizer were aware of potential pregnancy-related risks before Covid-19 vaccines were widely recommended for pregnant women. Speaking to RCR, investigative journalist Sonia Elijah said [...]

by Frank Shostak According to certain experts, there is an urgent need to remove cash from the economy. It is argued that cash provides support to the shadow economy and permits tax evasion. Another justification for its removal is that, [...]

by Vincent Cook The old debate between socialism and capitalism is back. It wasn’t that long ago when socialist economics had been repudiated even by former Soviet insiders, businesses like Wendy’s and Miller ran clever television advertisements poking fun at the once-mighty but by then [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman The election is on a knife-edge. On one side is a coalition that wants to encourage people to get ahead through lower taxes, less regulation, stronger economic growth, and more freedom. On the other side are [...]

by Bonnie Flaws After a recent RCR investigation revealed that more than 311,000 teens aged between 12 and 17 were given two doses of the Covid jab in 2021 - without knowing the associated risk of myocarditis, because this knowledge [...]

by Rachel Stewart I find myself contemplating death a great deal of late. Not other people’s. Mine. And the strange thing is, I’ve discovered I’m less stressed than ever. No, I cannot report that an impending fatal illness – that [...]

by Joshua Riley New Zealand's food and fibre exports earned more than $54 billion in the year to June 2024. A large share of that rests on something money can't easily buy: a reputation for clean, natural, GE-free produce, built [...]

by Oliver Hartwich On Monday evening, I sat on a panel at Foxglove on Queens Wharf in Wellington, where I was expected to play the neoliberal villain. The Institute for Democratic and Economic Analysis is a think tank devoted to [...]

by Nathan Smith The ACT Party’s policies to ensure equality before the law would have been fantastic 50 years ago. But in 20XX, they can only be handcuffs for anyone stupid enough to abide by them. This week, ACT Leader [...]

by Simon O'Connor Accountability is a cornerstone of a successful democracy. Yet it is rarely discussed, particularly when public debate is increasingly dominated by topics such as artificial intelligence, social media, and the causes of political division. New Zealand has [...]

by Peter Williams It’s surely a unique tourism experience in the true sense of the word. Is there any other disused prison anywhere, particularly one used to detain political prisoners, where the tour guide was once an inmate? Such is [...]

by Keri Molloy Australian researchers fitted five magpies with GPS devices to track their movements, but the birds skillfully removed the harnesses from each other. The first removal took less than an hour. The devices had been designed to stay [...]

by Peter Williams It was never going to be a good day for the All Blacks. Many of their fans who’d paid thousands of dollars to be in Cape Town for the test were denied access to the game because [...]

by Dr Oliver Hartwich On my first morning as Prime Minister, I would deliver a speech. It would contain no slogans or platitudes about becoming the best country in the world. Instead, it would be a stocktake, and it would [...]

by M. K. Grant What does grass-roots popularity offer parliamentarians? very little. In Australia’s constitutional framework, the iron laws of oligarchy are well entrenched. The question of national policy and law is not often dictated by the common desires of [...]

by Rodney Hide In 1990 I travelled the country warning landowners about the Resource Management Bill. It was sold as a simpler, more permissive system. Farmers welcomed it. The old regime of overlapping statutes would be replaced by a single, [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman Last week I received an email from a colleague expressing outrage over his experience with the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission is, of course, the independent Crown Entity tasked with running New Zealand’s General Elections. Since [...]

by Rachel Stewart So, this is me after a week in bed. How do I look? Can I bore you with my flu story? Last Friday lunchtime was the last time I ate. A few short hours later I was [...]

by David Bell and Ramesh Thakur The recent release of Anthony Fauci’s diaries, followed by his refusal to answer questions in an appearance before a US Senate committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 111 times, highlighted [...]

by RCR Reporters While much of the debate around pandemic preparedness takes place behind closed doors, last month RCR had the opportunity to take part in that conversation at Australia's Parliament House. Last month, RCR's Head of Legal, Katie [...]

by Nathan Smith Much of the talk about collapsing birth rates assumes that every generation must be replaced. Don’t believe it. A falling birth rate is not, by itself, a crisis. The real crisis is in figuring out why your [...]

by Bonnie Flaws Pharmac has announced it will fund flu vaccines for every Kiwi aged six months to four years from April 2027, adding about 260,000 children to the taxpayer-funded programme. The expansion comes three months after the funding was [...]

by Nicole Foss Drones have been a major game-changer in modern warfare. There’s been an arms race in the Ukraine war, and drones have been at the centre of it, with electromic jamming, then fibre-optic drones, then netting over roads [...]

by Peter Williams Our tour in South Africa is about as close to the perfect combination of a tourist experience as you can get - watching the All Blacks in three tests against the Springboks and playing golf in between! [...]

by Simon O'Connor I recently had an unexpected visit to Auckland’s emergency department, followed by a longer stay in hospital. It seems I may have brought back more than memories from a recent overseas trip. Before anyone panics, I should [...]

by Peter Williams Too much of the talk at breakfast in Johannesburg this morning was not about the All Blacks wonderful victory against the Springboks but about how members of our tour group are having their phones stolen, victims of [...]

by Rodney Hide I was a materialist from primary school. An atheist without residual superstition. I had flown in an airplane and seen no old man sitting on the clouds. That child’s observation hardened into adult conviction. Science, not revelation, [...]

by Ray Pistol On August 30 patriots will once again March For Australia. Only this time, the focus is upon free speech instead of immigration. If you fail to attend these marches, you are in effect submitting at the most critical [...]

by Nick Clark Suppose a business is deciding where to expand around Christchurch. It can compare rates and building consent performance in Christchurch, Selwyn and Waimakariri. If one council becomes too slow or expensive, investment can cross the boundary without [...]

by Rodney Hide Imagine a medical authority receiving explicit, documented warnings that a mandated pharmaceutical product carries a heightened risk of heart inflammation for young people — and choosing not to tell the public while rolling out the second dose [...]

by Peter Williams A Personal Perspective from the Margins of Mainstream Media Nearly five years ago, I made the difficult decision to resign from my radio talk show, Magic Talk, after being confronted by management about my stance on the [...]

by Peter Williams There’s a new political party that’s beginning to look increasingly likely to make it into Parliament after the November election. Opportunity has regularly broken through the five-percent barrier in recent opinion polls. Roy Morgan has it on [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman With the 2026 General Election only three months away, let’s examine what the polls are telling us about who’s going to be running the country after November 7 and what the key issues are. New Zealand [...]

by Nathan Smith In the future (re: today), people won’t dream of having 15 minutes of fame. They’ll dream of getting a glorious 15 minutes of anonymity. With data centres going up in our backyard, cameras installed on every street and digital IDs [...]

by Peter Williams Here’s a question. If an organisation experiences “systemic failure” isn’t it the responsibility of the person who oversees that system to take the blame for the failure? Therefore when Tauranga City Council has systemic failure, isn’t it [...]

by Peter Williams The lead story on Sunday night’s 1News was about Te Pati Maori and its plan to chase just the electorate vote. For them, it makes sense. The party is hovering around three percent and dropping. They currently hold [...]

by Yvonne van Dongen American nurse practitioner Michelle Green has been in New Zealand for less than a year but she already uses terms like wahine and whānau when talking about her patients. She is employed at a women’s health [...]

by Simon O'Connor Back in April, I wrote a Substack titled Rinse and Repeat about National’s attempted leadership spill. Four months later, the same dynamics are playing out once again: another leadership challenge, another ‘victory’ for Chris Luxon, another distraction for [...]

by Yvonne van Dongen The news that a male student from Oman identifying as trans was able to access New Zealand funding raises serious questions about our immigration policies in such cases. The Otago University student came here on a [...]

by RCR Reporters RCR EXCLUSIVE: New vaccination data obtained by RCR, alongside emails released earlier this year, reveal that 311,257 teenagers received a second dose of the Covid vaccine after officials and Vaccine Ministers had been advised of the [...]

by Amerikanets In mid-February 2026, before the US military initiated the airstrikes that began Operation “Epic Fury,” the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an agency of the executive branch created to synthesize the analysis of the US’s 18 intelligence agencies, submitted [...]

by Yvonne van Dongen Last week a small local newspaper on the Kapiti Coast apologised for correctly sexing a man who believes he is a woman. The man is described in a media release as the “renowned multidisciplinary Indigenous artist Taupuruariki (Ariki) [...]

by Rachel Stewart Well, a day can be a month in politics, and this week was one of those. Christopher Luxon survived his second leadership challenge in four months, and the Penk slip was given to his Minister of Defence [...]

by Peter Williams If more evidence was needed about the relevance or irrelevance of the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) then a couple of judgements they made this week have rammed home the point. The decision about Sean Plunket on The [...]

by Nathan Smith This week, the party of Winston Peters (Boomer) announced the Kiwi Kids Grant. The policy would offer tax-free payments of $5000 a year for the first three years of a child’s life, for up to three children. Peters [...]

by Peter Williams The National Party is a shambles with a leader and senior MPs whose egos matter more than the good of the country. That’s the only conclusion to be drawn from the disaster that unfolded in Wellington on [...]

by Peter Williams The National Party is a shambles with a leader and senior MPs whose egos matter more than the good of the country. That’s the only conclusion to be drawn from the disaster that unfolded in Wellington on [...]

by Peter Williams This post will be relevant for a very short time. In the famous words of another National Party leader, the current one will be “gone by lunchtime” so these words will be out of date before the [...]

Digital Driver Licences: Understand the Proposal & Have Your Say The Government is consulting on proposed changes to the way driver licensing and other NZTA services operate, including the introduction of an optional digital driver licence. There is a [...]

by Peter Williams There are no official records for New Zealand’s longest delay between a court hearing and the judgement. High Court guidelines say judges expect 90 percent of reserved decisions to be delivered within three months of the last [...]

by Dr Michael Johnston New Zealanders have long seen university as the best educational route to the good life. Trades and industry training is seen as a second-best option. That attitude has always been based more on prejudice than reality. [...]

by Dr Oliver Hartwich When I specialised in marketing for the business part of my economics degree, I came across a puzzling group of people: consumers. Ask them about their product choices and they will tell you what they care [...]

by Simon O'Connor This is not my regular Substack. It is a copy of a speech I recently gave to those attending a symposium on foreign interfernce, hosted by the Tasman Alliance and co-sponsored by the Free Speech Union and [...]

by Peter Williams If you wanted a display on who is the country’s most composed and unflappable politician, look no further than the reaction to Christopher Luxon’s rather bizarre pronouncement that if returned as Prime Minister after the election he’d [...]

by Rodney Hide Elon Musk is blunt: “Demography is destiny.” New Zealand’s numbers prove his point. Our total fertility rate sits between 1.55 and 1.60 births per woman. A decade ago it was still around 2. The fall is across [...]

by Rachel Stewart I’m not worried about Brian Tamaki. There. I’ve said it. I’m more worried about the NZ Police and their tactics. I’m more worried about the NZ media and their tactics. I’m more worried about who decides who’s [...]

by Nathan Smith The government’s revamped Move-On powers have already had a positive effect on my life, but there’s so much more that could – and should – be done to fix the problem of the “sturdy beggar.” Just down [...]

by Peter Williams In my not entirely successful career as a radio talk show host, a few encounters remain fresh in the memory. One was with former Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira during the time of the Ihumatao land [...]

by J. R. Bruning With a general election scheduled for November 2026, I thought I would review the health policies to identify which parties understand that many of our chronic illnesses, many of the chronic diseases now common in New [...]

by Peter Williams Paul Henry always had a knack for cutting to the chase. That’s why his succinct line about Act’s education discipline policy will hit the spot with so many teachers. “Let’s be honest, there are a lot of [...]

by Diego Fusaro “The presently existing society is the only possible one, as it always has been and always will be” — this refrain, ceaselessly repeated by the society of the spectacle across all media and presented in various figures [...]

by Peter Williams I did something on Saturday I’ve never done before. I went to a Warriors game. It wasn’t a home game but it might as well have been because it was on Australia’s Gold Coast. The poor old [...]

by Rodney Hide Is it too soon to declare the brouhaha over Stuart Nash’s text theatre? And a political hit job? I don’t know. Let’s test the water. The text was private to former National Attorney General Chris Finlayson. Finlayson [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman The Coalition’s proposed shakeup of local government is well underway. Time is now running out for councils to decide on the shape of their mergers. This is not the first time local councils have undergone major [...]

by Dr Oliver Hartwich A fortnight ago, I wrote about the fall in New Zealand’s road toll, from 843 deaths in 1973 to a provisional 271 last year. I thought it was an achievement worth celebrating. But then my colleague [...]

by Peter Williams From the wilds of Central Otago I am cheering loudly, clapping enthusiastically and hooping and hollering “go you good thing” to the councils in Taupo, Tararua and Rangitikei who are basically saying to the government “get stuffed.” [...]

by Rachel Stewart Yes, yes, absolutely they do good – even great – work. Yes, we need them more than ever. Totally and utterly. Free speech is the hill I’m willing to die on. That said, why am I no [...]

by Jen Bainbridge Labour's Clean Slate bill has passed its first reading. Let's call it what it is: creating voters out of thin air. The bill would wipe the criminal records of offenders who have stayed out of trouble for [...]

by Nathan Smith I like Paul Henry. He was always a bit of an unserious joker, but I think all his joking around has caused him to be confused about the reality of New Zealand politics. Part of his stated [...]

by Simon O'Connor Spoilers. If you haven’t seen The Odyssey in theatres yet and don’t want any surprises, then step away now. Like the Sirens on the coast, block your ears (and in this case, close your eyes) and move on. Commenting [...]

by Peter Williams The great irony of Christopher Luxon ruling out a coalition with those redistributive Marxists of Opportunity is that the longer Luxon leads National it’s becoming the kind of left leaning social democratic party I’ve spent my life [...]

by Salima Padamsey Climate change planning has become one of the most important and contentious public policy issues of our time. Communities are being asked to make decisions that affect homes, infrastructure, insurance, property values and future development. Those decisions [...]

by Simon O'Connor Multiculturalism has failed. In fact, multiculturalism will – by definition – always fail. A society cannot indefinitely sustain competing cultural norms on fundamental questions of law, rights, and social order. This is not a new observation. Leaders and commentators [...]

by Kelvin Kemm The Sun has mystified mankind for centuries. In days long gone, primitive people worshiped the Sun or a Sun God. But much more recently, in the later 1800s, people were still mystified because by then science had [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman One of the things we’ve learnt about climate change politics over the years is that their predictions are always wrong. Remember Al Gore’s 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth” which frightened audiences worldwide with apocalyptic predictions that [...]

by Oliver Hartwich The Opportunity Party wants to be known as the party of ideas. Now polling near five percent, I decided to test one. The party’s website offers a calculator. You enter your income and land value, and it [...]

by Rachel Stewart If one more politician, activist, media wallah, or dinner party guest uses the term “community” again, my very individualistic brain’s going to explode. To label say, 5 or even millions of unique people as simply the “gay [...]

by Peter Williams Chloe Swarbrick makes ridiculous and outrageous statements, most of which go unchallenged by a sympathetic media. Here’s the latest nonsense. “Luxon’s Government has made active, consistent decisions to make climate change worse for the past three years.” [...]

by Nathan Smith Good news everybody! Another piece of the tired 20th century may finally be on its deathbed. The university system is in terminal decline, and I couldn’t be happier. The news comes from a family member who teaches about [...]

by Peter Williams In the immortal words of tennis legend John McEnroe: “You cannot be serious.” Whatever slight remaining credibility 1 News might have had as a genuine, unbiased, commercially neutral news organisation disappeared completely tonight (July20) because they did not lead [...]

by Peter Williams At our golf club a few of us play a side bet that if you hit a shot backwards, unintentionally or on purpose, you have to buy the rest of your playing group a drink. It sometimes [...]

by Kelvin Kemm At a shopping mall or amusement park one can see vendors selling balloons filled with Helium. Kids love them and dance around trailing their balloons, which float above them. From time to time some kid accidentally lets [...]

by Andy Oakley Well, today we have a real humdinger to discuss. In a July 6 article in Kapiti News by Ashleigh Collis, Kapiti Mayor Janet Holborow made what amounts to a public confession that she is a Marxist, or [...]

by Rachel Stewart British politicians have a problem. Understatement. It’s not just that their nation is financially, socially, morally, and spiritually re-entering a modern-day version of The Dark Ages and generally brought about by their own actions - or more [...]

by Bryce Wilkinson Among prosperous nations, New Zealand is relatively a low-income country. That hurts. In 2024, net national income per capita was 30% higher in Australia, according to the Paris-based OECD. It was only 19% higher on average over [...]

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 Nathan Smith Glad I caught you. There’s not much time, I can already hear the helicopters. You told us about wanting to become a player rather than a volunteer, right? The note was something about being sick of doing [...]

by Peter Williams One of the rapidly emerging features of the 2026 election is the announcement of candidates carrying a profile from another sphere of activity. New Zealand First started the trend in April with former All Black captain Taine [...]

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 Simon O'Connor Having recently left London, I found that much of the press coverage was consumed by the murder of former politician Ann Widdecombe. I don’t know how much coverage this has received in New Zealand, but the story [...]

by Peter Williams One of the rapidly emerging features of the 2026 election is the announcement of candidates carrying a profile from another sphere of activity. New Zealand First started the trend in April with former All Black captain Taine [...]

by Peter Williams One of the more unexpected consequences of the Covid era and its restrictions has been a boom in the number of people playing golf. According to Golf New Zealand, in 2019 there were 105,967 paid up members [...]