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by Roger Partridge Labour’s first policy announcement ahead of the 2026 election reveals the party recognises New Zealand’s infrastructure crisis. But it also shows it has no idea how to fix it. Yesterday, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins unveiled a “Future [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Last week  I was at pains to insist that the political violence occurring all over the Western world is instigated by the Left - the Woke-Fascist Left, significantly funded by George Soreass. It's true also, however, that many Trump Derangement Syndromers don't require payment - [...]

by Peter Williams In less than twenty-five years, Facebook has become a global phenomenon. It’s extraordinary to realise that Mark Zuckerberg and a few friends at Harvard University developed the first prototype of the social media giant as recently as [...]

This article has been shared to Bassett, Brash & Hide, where it has reached a highly engaged audience. We recommend visiting there if you’d like to join the discussion in the comments section. Please note the version below is the [...]

by Peter Williams When doctors, teachers and nurses walk off the job together it can make international headlines — but that doesn’t mean it’s wise, principled or remotely strategic. Thursday’s public service strike may thrill some union executives and excite [...]

by Peter Williams I spent nearly five decades in the New Zealand broadcasting industry, most of it when the world was very different. They were times when a national radio network of frequencies was a hard won and expensive privilege, [...]

by Peter Williams Two of New Zealand’s cornerstone farmer-owned cooperatives — Alliance Group and Fonterra — are simultaneously grappling with the brutal reality of global agribusiness economics. Between Alliance’s proposal to sell 65% of its meat business to the Irish [...]

by Peter Dunne The great Scottish poet Robbie Burns’ famous quote “O wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us!" could well have been written solely for politics because politicians often have the greatest capacity for [...]

by Simon O'Connor The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has recently decided to go after Sean Plunket and his online radio show, The Platform. The BSA has unilaterally decided that they have the legal authority to oversee his online presence and consequently, [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman Community disillusionment over councils going off the rails was on full display last weekend as voters reshaped local government in the 2025 elections. Across the country, high-spending councillors were booted out and replaced by those promising more responsible [...]

by Simon O'Connor There is a ceasefire. After two long bloody years, Hamas has finally done what it should have done many months ago – release the Israeli hostages. As we tragically know, they did not, and many of the [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Well, it happened. The man who ended wars we didn't know about between countries we'd never heard of stopped a big one. Against all odds. I started to allow myself to believe it could happen when I [...]

by William McGimpsey Sir Karl Popper had an idea called the paradox of tolerance, which in brief was that if a society is too tolerant - if it tolerates intolerance - then the intolerant will ‘take over’ and society won’t [...]

by Mike Butler Twenty three council districts voted to remove Maori wards established without mandate since 2021 while 17 districts voted to keep them, according to early results published yesterday. A total of 45 councils had imposed Maori wards after [...]

by Richard Prebble “Group of 20 economists urge PM and Minister of Finance to urgently change course,” screamed the headlines. When I was a finance minister, I remember similar letters — economists demanding a return to central planning and subsidies. [...]

Well, the votes are (mostly) in, and we’re stoked! Three years ago, we revolutionised local politics with our 2022 local body elections campaign. Remember the supposedly dangerous organisation hiding candidates and seeking to make New Zealand ungovernable?! Or so [...]

by Peter Williams Saturday night on TVNZ One appears to now be a wasteland for worthy stuff while those who still watch linear television can soak up the live sport like the NPC quarter finals or the Bathurst Top Ten [...]

by Peter Dunne There is a crisis of confidence affecting the two old parties, National and Labour, and it is getting worse. Between them presently they are attracting around only 60% support in public opinion polls, the lowest combined vote [...]

by Rachel Stewart Last week, I talked about cowards and how it’s the one trait in humans I despise the most. But how about heroes? Heroes are nice to have, but increasingly hard to find. And, of course, your choice [...]

by Wendy Geus Do NZ's appalling attendance rates reflect parents' rejection of race mandated education? Are the many women with their healthy, energetic kids I see in the supermarket during school hours rejecting Stanford's mandatory, Maori infused programme, or do [...]

by Lindsay Perigo It has become a pattern now that in the immediate aftermath of my weekly Perspective, some major, often hideous, event occurs to vindicate its content. Last week, no sooner had I cited OMBA's bold attack on mass [...]

by Simon O'Connor I am writing on the road, currently in Provo in Utah (next to Salt Lake City) for a symposium where I am presenting a paper at Brigham Young University (BYU) on religious freedom and belief. It is [...]

by Michael Bassett We have entered a new world where few things are on the level. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Dictatorland. Vladimir Putin’s forces brazenly invaded Ukraine in 2022, breaking a vital stipulation in the United Nations [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman Two years ago, we were counting the days to the 14 October General Election. With the left-leaning legacy media in overdrive – promoting the parties on the left and attacking those on the centre-right, New Zealanders [...]

by Iain Davis In my previous article I suggested that the UK’s proposed “mandatory” digital ID, called the BritCard, was a bait and switch psyop. I posited that the arguments presented by Keir Starmer’s purported Labour government, to supposedly justify the BritCard rollout, coupled with [...]

Of all human traits it is cowardice that offends me the most. I despise cowards with the heat of a thousand suns. They are useless pimples on the arse of the world. Cowardice is the polar opposite of courage. [...]

by Lindsay Perigo How delicious it is - how edifying and gratifying - when Woke-Fascists in politics and the media get their panties in a twist all at once. Lockstep apoplexy. Their squawking, squealing, screeching and screaming tell us that [...]

by Bruce Cotterill When the latest quarterly GDP result came out last week, many of the accompanying commentaries expressed surprise that it could be so bad. The June quarter result came in with a negative result of 0.9%. That means [...]

by John Robertson New Zealand’s Laws Are Enforcing Spiritual Privilege — And Nobody’s Talking About It Open a law, a bill, or a policy in this country, and one thing jumps out: Māori spiritual beliefs, wrapped in the language of [...]

by Iain Davis Apparently, in order to be able to work in the UK, we will all be forced to adopt digital ID—the mandatory so-called BritCard. There is absolutely no public appetite for this, as the more than 2 million and [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman The ‘Maorification’ of New Zealand is not by accident. For decades tribal leaders have been plotting and scheming how to get their hands on the levers of power. Their objective is full control of our country. [...]

by John McClean Has maximum Māori separatism been reached? The 50th Rainbow-tongued Māori Language Week is over. I was in Morocco that week, so missed the opportunity to contribute to the associated State-sponsored Te Reo Time Capsule (to be opened [...]

So what didn’t you hear about on mainstream media this week? What major world event didn’t make the breathless, sweaty web pages of what passes for news in New Zealand? What did our illustrious state broadcaster – that we pay [...]

by Lindsay Perigo How edifying and gratifying! The spectacle of normal, sane, decent people, 200,000 of them, gathered together in one of the largest memorial gatherings ever, to bid farewell to Charlie Kirk. Not to mention millions all over the world [...]

by Nick Clark Three weeks. That is how long New Zealanders waited to know the outcome of the 2023 election. While coalition talks were delayed pending the declaration of results, most comparable democracies can declare theirs within hours or days [...]

by Roger Partridge A response to Koi Tū's “news deserts” report. Local journalism faces genuine crisis. Towns across New Zealand risk becoming “news deserts” where civic life unfolds without professional scrutiny. Dr Gavin Ellis’s comprehensive report for Koi Tū documents [...]

by Lindsay Mitchell Asians will make-up a third of New Zealand's population by 2048. (View interactive image here) For those worried about one in eight working-age New Zealanders currently relying on a benefit, this is good news. That's because Asians are [...]

by Roger Partridge When Parliament says gang insignia “is forfeited to the Crown,” citizens are entitled to assume those words mean what they say. Yet on 11 August the District Court ruled otherwise. Judge Lance Rowe directed that a Mongrel [...]

by Keri Molloy In the weeks ahead the New Zealand government will weigh up the cost of the World Health Organisation’s new package of amended International Health Regulations. The government will need to decide its position before a December 2025 [...]

by Roger Partridge In New Zealand economics, numbers have personalities. Two supermarkets are a duopoly. Three would be perfection – except four banks are still an oligopoly. One airline is intolerable, even though two always seem to collapse. The equation [...]

by Dr Peter Winsley Many young New Zealanders feel that a social contract has been breached. This tacit contract is that, if students worked and studied hard, the government would maintain through its institutions the macroeconomic stability and microeconomic flexibility [...]

by Simon O'Connor Since the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the recent release of an exclusive interview with Israel and Maria Folau, I’ve been asking myself - what is the right response to having your views challenged so aggressively and dramatically [...]

by Gerry Eckhoff “The hand of vengeance found the bed where the purple tyrant fled The iron hand crushed the tyrant’s head and became a tyrant in his stead” The warnings of English poet William Blake (1757-1827) were right. A [...]

by Rachel Stewart Back when I was a columnist for mainstream media I was essentially left to my own devices to write whatever I wanted to write. That is until I wrote one column in 2018 about the sneaky self-ID [...]

by Bruce Cotterill I’ve spent the last week travelling. A good old-fashioned road trip, to be exact. We’ve been driving from Queensland’s Noosa to Port Douglas, along the aptly named Bruce Highway. About 1900km over five days. It got me [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Shortly after a Woketard Leftist did what Woketard Leftists do, Trump aide Stephen Miller posted on X: "There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and [...]

by Peter Williams Around 6pm on Saturday night one of the Sky Sport channels was showing a feature on the young Black Ferns star Jorja Miller. We had visitors so the TV was on mute while this programme played. As [...]

by Roger Partridge Every day, New Zealand workers clock longer hours than their peers in most developed nations yet produce far less value per hour worked. This productivity paradox has haunted our economy for decades, condemning workers to lower wages [...]

by Robert Bartholomew Over the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in indigenous knowledge. The United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa have been at the forefront of the movement to integrate ‘ancient wisdom’ with modern science [...]

by Dr Benno Blaschke Once upon a time, “Yes Minister” gave us Sir Humphrey Appleby, scheming, obstructive, magnificently verbose, but above all, competent. He could bury a reform in procedure without breaking a sweat. A master of his craft. If [...]

by Peter Williams When Australia was playing Wales in Pool D of the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Tokyo the man who should have been fullback for the Wallabies was at home in Brisbane. His wife was watching the game [...]

by Peter Dunne When relationships break up, it is frequently any children involved who suffer most. They often become pawns in a wider game – the struggle between parents over custody and access rights, or questions of responsibility for their [...]

by Mary Hobbs To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it. — Martin Luther King At a public meeting in early August it was heartening to hear New Zealand First MP Shane Jones announce that NZF is not going to [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman The latest polls show the Coalition is failing to capture the hearts and minds of voters. Roy Morgan tells the story: support for National was down 2 percentage points from a month ago to 29 percent, ACT was [...]

by Simon O'Connor Charlie Kirk was a 31 year old, husband and father of two young children, and someone whose skills were to talk, debate, and discuss. For this, he was assassinated. In May last year, I wrote of those [...]

by Lindsay Perigo The last note of Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man had barely faded away at the end of my Perspective last week, starring Oliver Jull and his battle for free speech, when news came through that [...]

by Dave Patterson After World War II, the world wanted peace; the Department of Defense didn’t bring it. Following World War II, there was no appetite in the US for more fights overseas. Americans wanted to get back to their [...]

by Simon O'Connor Well, I was wrong. I thought Peeni Henare from Labour would win the Tamaki Makaurau by-election. Instead, the Māori Party’s Oriini Kaipara did and convincingly so. The reverberations of this are relatively significant - for the Labour [...]

by Garry Robertson So yet again you have been hit with the first round of massive rate rises and there are many, many more to come. So, brace yourself ratepayers, businesses and homeowners as the roads are about to get [...]

by Richard Meade Competition is seen as a panacea in electricity markets: if only we had more, prices would be lower, and investment and supply security would be higher. Politicians love this story because it offers respite when electricity prices [...]

by Peter Williams It’s the worst piece of political punditry in the history of this Substack. Maybe in the history of blogging. Your noble, but obviously ignorant, correspondent boldly predicted last Tuesday that Te Pati Maori had given up in [...]

by Simon O'Connor Yet another tragedy in the United States, when a lone gunman opened fire into a Catholic church in Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota, killing two young children and wounding 17 others. Such acts of senseless violence [...]

by Zoran Rakovic We medicate children rather than transforming homes. This essay explores how parenting, trauma, and emotional maturity are the roots of New Zealand’s education failures. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have [...]

by Peter Williams If you’re a Dunedin City ratepayer standby to get angry about your rates – again. No matter who becomes Mayor next month, the cost of owning property in the city will rise beyond the rate of inflation. [...]

by Lindsay Perigo In last week's perspective, I celebrated the news that Woke New Plymouth Boys High had apologised to Unwoke pupil Oliver Jull for excluding him from a speech competition because his speech, on the decline of Western Civilisation  might trigger [...]

by Bruce Cotterill I sometimes wonder if our politicians put themselves in the headlines without thinking things through. This week the supermarket industry has been back in the spotlight. Our Finance Minister is making it her business to keep it [...]

by Peter Williams If the voters of Tamaki Makarau send Oriini Kaipara to Parliament this Saturday they need a collective mental health assessment where the first question should be “are you barking mad?” In the history of New Zealand politics [...]

by Michael Bassett Have you noticed the growing irritation with our mainstream media? Last week Radio NZ was under scrutiny with suggestions it was biased, and statistics showed its listeners were departing in droves. TV3’s main news announcer has been [...]

by Mike Butler For those of you about to vote on whether or not to continue with the Maori ward your council has imposed, a bit of published bragging shows what “iwi Maori” think about seats on councils. The August [...]

by Peter Williams It’s almost twenty years since the indefatigable Bob McCoskrie began Family First, an organisation whose mere name explains simply what it’s about. Unashamedly founded on Christian values, Family First has established itself in the last two decades [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman Last week the Supreme Court delivered the second of its two-part judgement on the first Marine and Coastal Area Act case to progress its way through to our highest court. In their initial judgement, which was released last December, instead [...]

by Fiona Mackenzie …before 2025’s local body elections, Māori ward referenda, RMA reform, or the Coalition Government gets off its chuff! The Coalition Government talks about refocusing councils on their core responsibilities. Yet it—like governments before it—has actively encouraged “partnership” [...]

by Roger Partridge When a constitutional law professor warns of “dangerous foes” threatening New Zealand’s legal system, you might expect concern about genuinely destabilising forces – political interference with judicial independence, or threats to the rule of law itself. You [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Police officers are being offered English classes following concerns about the standards of younger recruits. Probationary officers in Scotland will receive extra reading and writing training, which includes guidance on taking down statements, writing reports, and clearer [...]

by Ani O'Brien You’d think from the way some people talk that the British Empire invented slavery, ran it single-handedly, and then quietly slunk away in shame. That’s the cartoon version of history pushed by activists who want every discussion [...]

by Keri Molloy New Zealand is the first country to propose road user charges (RUC) for all vehicles. The operation will see every Kiwi’s driving tracked to calculate fees, raising major concerns about privacy. And then there’s cost and control. [...]

by Eric Crampton When government makes it hard for a start-up company’s investors to sell up and move on, it simultaneously warns other investors to steer clear. Or, as economists sometimes put it, barriers to exit are barriers to entry. [...]

by John McLean New Zealand’s Supremo Judges have launched their latest salvo on the Foreshore & Seabed Front of New Zealand’s War for Constitution Supremacy. We’re talking here about the ongoing uncivil War pitting the Judiciary against successive elected Governments, [...]

by Roger Partridge It takes talent to lose listeners in a medium still drawing three and a half million Kiwis a week. But Radio New Zealand has managed it with aplomb. Its live audience has fallen every year since 2021, [...]

by Ani O'Brien Why we must stand up to anti-human activists. We need to stand up to the anti-human activists who treat ordinary people as collateral damage in their crusade. Their vision of “climate justice” is really just human misery dressed up [...]

by Simon O'Connor According to a report in the BBC and elsewhere, displaying the Union Jack or flag of St George means you are someone from the far-right; overly nationalistic; and conservative. You’ve read that correctly - British people flying British flags [...]

by Ele Ludemann When I was thinking about writing a post arguing that the Māori seats have passed their use-by date and asked Goggle Gemini to give me some ideas. This is the reply I got: I cannot fulfil this [...]

by Lindsay Perigo So this week's intended sitting of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Jacinda Jackboot regime's handling of the Chinese Communist Party's Wuhan warfare was cancelled because Jacinda et al were afraid to face the music publicly. [...]

by Roger Partridge Something has gone badly wrong in the public service. From energy policy to financial regulation to education, ministers are too often advised by officials lacking the deep technical background their roles demand. This chronic loss of subject-matter [...]

by Peter Williams In any discussion about name suppression law here’s an argument that’s hard to refute: if Rolf Harris, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby had been New Zealanders we’d probably never know about them. That’s because there’s every chance [...]

by Corina Shields All my life Māori have had a healthy distrust of government and politicians right up until Covid when Jacinda started dishing out dollars. As time went on and we got deeper into the pandemic, more and more [...]

by Dr James Kierstead ‘Every five years or so, I crunch the numbers on college grades across the US and report what I’ve found,’ writes Stuart Rojstaczer modestly on his website. What Rojstaczer, a former professor, has found is that [...]

by Bruce Cotterill In Sebastian Junger’s excellent portrayal of the sinking of the fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, the author outlined what he termed “The Perfect Storm”. The phrase was used to describe a unique weather event whereby a high-pressure [...]

by Simon O'Connor I did not expect to be writing a Substack on Sydney Sweeney and denim jeans. In fact, I didn’t even know who she was until the latest brouhaha erupted over an American Eagle advertisement she headlined. I [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman In his 1985 book Shadows Over New Zealand, the former Communist Geoff McDonald revealed how the Maori Sovereignty movement was using Marxist strategies to gain power: “Marxists understand that the key to destabilising New Zealand is to [...]

by Peter Williams In Britain they call the Prime Minister “Two Tier Keir,” a reference to, perceived or otherwise, a two tier justice system in that country whereby a woman can go to jail for 31 months for posting a [...]

by John McLean How Woketearoa molds Minors into Marxists “Te Whāriki” early childhood curriculum guidelines were first published in 1996. The inaugural Te Whāriki was published under a National Party-led Government, with Jim “Spud” Bolger as Prime Minister. There’s a [...]

by Dr Eric Crampton Land transport funding is not in great shape. Minister Bishop’s announcement last week of a shift from petrol excise to road user charges should be the first step toward a much better funding system. First, the big-picture [...]

by Bonnie Flaws The Government’s Digital ID infrastructure is well advanced, including cross-border plans with Australia for an ‘ANZAC ID’ and a globally interoperable digital passport. Minister for Digitising Government Judith Collins wants us to “get on with it” and [...]

by Elliot Ikilei Our entire billboard campaign has been shut down - not by debate, not by democracy, but by intimidation. Last week, we had our first Māori Wards billboard up for only a short time before the activist machine [...]

by Peter Williams If RNZ wanted a warts and all report on its failings and reasons for the catastrophic audience decline in the last five years it certainly received one this week. The former Head of News for the organisation [...]

by Barry Davis The New Zealand Parliament is now receiving advice which is informed by maturanga Maori, New Zealand universities are offering courses on maturanga Maori, and New Zealand corporations are incorporating maturanga Maori in their business practices. What is [...]

by Ian Bradford A number of weather events have been happening lately that have been associated with climate change by the climate alarmists. Weather events do not in general, signify climate change. Weather is real and observed as well as [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Last week, I celebrated the end of NCEA, the biggest blow against the child-molesters of the mind since the restoration of phonics. Don't stop there, I urged the government, who, of course, are hanging on my every [...]

by  Peter Dunne Albert Einstein apparently once said "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Earlier this week it was reported that the Labour Party's Policy Council is recommending the Party include introducing a [...]