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by Nathan Smith Would you rather your leader be an atheist who acted as if god existed, or a believer who acted as if god didn’t exist? The way I see it, they are the same thing. You might think [...]

Ruptures in global energy markets are exposing, in real time, the vulnerabilities of being at the bottom of the world. Since tensions escalated into open conflict in the Middle East, RCR has made the emerging energy crises a central focus [...]

by Simon O'Connor One of the striking aspects around modern media is not so much the bias that various outlets pursue, but deliberate ignoring of stories and perspectives of importance. In recent days, it became known that the Ministry for [...]

by James Kierstead Academic freedom has become a major concern at universities across the English-speaking world in recent years. Speakers have been disinvited, papers retracted, and academics disciplined or even dismissed for things they have said or positions they have [...]

by Sietze Bosman Modern democracy forces fundamentally incompatible populations — dense urban centers and dispersed rural regions — into a single decision-making system, despite their opposed material interests, incentives, and environments. Because cities are numerically dominant, rural interests are systematically overridden. [...]

by Roger Partridge On 9 March 1776, a Scottish moral philosopher published the most powerful attack on trade protectionism ever written. Two hundred and fifty years later, the world’s largest economy has returned to the policy his great book was [...]

by Alwyn Poole Until a Government has the courage/determination to shrink the size of ITSELF – New Zealand has NO CHANCE of sustained economic growth – or excellence in any sector. The size of the NZ Public Service workforce, as [...]

by Rachel Stewart I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m an expert on Ozzie politics because I’m not. But watching the surge of popularity for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party is deffo worth a squiz. It’s been [...]

by Dr Eric Crampton Too many of the world’s urban planners grew up playing the city-planning game SimCity. You may have played it too. It’s fun, but it’s a terrible guide both to urban planning and to how cities work. [...]

by Lindsay Perigo I must say I am enjoying the current SuperRugby Pacific series on Sky. Normally I deride Sky as Woke Sky Your Home of Beer-Bellied Billiards and Darts, and Whatever You Do Don't Mention the Tennis - after [...]

by Nathan Smith Why is it that the US has started every war it has fought in since 1700? To answer that, we must dig in to the TV show Mad Men, a drama about the Madison Avenue advertising scene [...]

by Bonnie Flaws The Government is not taking the fuel crisis seriously enough, as disruptions linked to the Iran war begin to affect global supply chains, says a petrochemical industry veteran. While countries like India, Thailand and Bangladesh were already [...]

by Alia Bland Alia Bland is a co-founder of Voices For Freedom and Reality Check Radio. The following message was shared this week with the Voices For Freedom community, reflecting on the importance of local connection, resilience, and staying grounded [...]

by M. J. Brown An address to the men of the Victorian branch of the Australian Natives’ Association Strong nations rely on strong founding myths. By myth, I do not necessarily mean a story that is untrue; I mean a story [...]

by Roger Partridge Can a superpower bully its way to greatness? This essay – the second of two assessments of Trump’s second term published in Australia’s Quadrant magazine – examines whether America First is delivering American strength or quietly consuming [...]

by M. K. Grant, national director of Australian Natives' Association In our latest Natives’ Rouseabout podcast there was some discussion on the subject of entryism. Many know the ANA has generally stood against entryism as a course of action at this point [...]

by Simon O'Connor When people are hurt or feel an injustice has been done to them, one of the ways to assist the healing process is to ensure they have been heard and listened to. Importantly, they need to see [...]

by Bruce Cotterill There’s a lot going on. The Middle East. The oil price. The Royal Commission. The polls. The Senate hearings. Epstein. If you’re interested in current affairs, it’s a long list. It’s difficult to stay on top of [...]

by Rachel Stewart The Academy Awards. Remember when it was unmissable? I do. But then, I’ve been around awhile, and during an era that had a touch more class. The Academy, Hollywood itself, and their mouthpieces in the progressive media, [...]

by William McGimpsey The idea of not criticising those to your right has gained traction in online circles recently. The idea has arisen in response to a real problem: for decades mainstream conservatives have disavowed those to their right in [...]

by Peter Williams The following was written in Peter's capacity as Taxpayers' Union board member In 2022, I joined the Board of the Taxpayers’ Union to fight Nanaia Mahuta’s plan to confiscate community-owned water assets and put them into ‘co-governed’ [...]

by Nathan Smith “We’ve been focused on fixing the basics of the economy and laying the foundations to build the future,” Luxon wrote in a recent op-ed. To explain all this boisterous new “confidence” in the economy, Luxon cites his government’s [...]

by Lindsay Perigo I noted at the beginning of the beginning of the liberation of Iran two weeks ago that we would quickly discover that Soros and Singham's rent-a-mob trash in Western countries who had hitherto been brandishing Palestinian flags [...]

by Peter Williams There were numerous warning signs Phase 2 of the Royal Commission into the Covid Response would produce a disappointing outcome. The initial terms of reference specifically excluded an adversarial approach where evidence and submissions could and would [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman At the Wellington District Court on 10 March 2026, charges of intentional damage and obstructing police against the protester who defaced Te Papa’s Treaty of Waitangi exhibit in 2023 were dismissed. The Crown Solicitor decided that, in spite of there [...]

by Zac Brandon Australians woke up this morning to hear that immigration minister Tony Burke had granted asylum to five Iranian female soccer players, and offered refugee visas to the rest of their team, because apparently they faced persecution on return for [...]

by Alwyn Poole The great Neil Postman wrote a remarkable book called Amusing Ourselves to Death. It is at least as predictive as Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World. Across every school qualification for leavers in NZ - girls do significantly better than [...]

by Colin Robertson So, it has happened. Rupert Lowe has announced that his organisation Restore Britain is now a political party and will stand in general elections around the country. In a very well-judged publicity video, Lowe presents himself (truthfully) as a farmer: [...]

by Rachel Stewart “Incompetent” and “inadequate” is how Winston Peters described the latest Covid Inquiry report to RCR’s Paul Brennan this week. It’s a good watch, not least because he’s even more definitively pissed off than usual. Now, I could [...]

by Nathan Smith Is Iran a threat to US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia? Maybe. It depends on what is meant by “threat.” A BB gun is a “threat” to my eyeballs, but not to my house. Obviously, if [...]

by Maree Buscke The Covid pandemic is something we will one day tell our children and grandchildren about through an opaque, time-filtered lens. For some, the memories will carry a sense of wistful nostalgia; for others they will remain jarring, [...]

by Lindsay Perigo As the findings of the Second Royal Commission of Inquiry into Wuhan get rolled out - as incomplete and inadequate as those of the first, it would seem, not giving the true picture of our descent into [...]

by VFF Directors The second Covid Inquiry, released today March 10, ignores expert evidence and fails its own Terms of Reference, risking further loss of public trust, says Voices for Freedom (VFF). “The report falls well short of the accountability [...]

by Peter Williams “Not in the public interest” is one of those phrases which means essentially nothing. It’s a cover all or more likely a cover-up on the part of the government, civil service or judiciary for a lack of [...]

by Simon O'Connor This is an opinion piece I wrote recently and submitted to the NZ Herald but they have chosen not to publish (which is their right), ironically as they give their front page over to the views of [...]

by James Turner Contrary to what is often taught in this modern era, Australian bushranger culture was not an aberration on the margins of colonial society; rather it was one of the first truly native expressions of it, forged amongst [...]

by Keri Molloy My close friend still calls me a conspiracy theorist. We were on different sides of the fence during COVID. She took the mRNA vaccine and she’s fine. I did not get the jabs or boosters and I’m [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman At 11.10 am on Wednesday 4 February, Wellington Water – the council-controlled organisation responsible for managing drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater services for the Greater Wellington region – announced a “significant incident” had occurred at the Moa Point [...]

by Robert Bradley Jr. What US industry is the most subsidized and regulated by the federal government? If you answered nuclear power, you are correct. As a result, the 70-year “Atoms for Peace” program represents the most expensive failure (malinvestment) in US [...]

by Rachel Stewart As if we needed any more evidence that the world as we once knew it is way gone, just listen to the western mouthpieces of Iran squawking about “international law” while they ignore the uplifting sight of [...]

by William McGimpsey This essay examines the evolution of the concept of “neutrality” as it applies to the central institutions of liberal democracies. The paper argues that neutrality is a contested concept, that over time competing conceptions of it have [...]

by David Wojik By “AI” I mean the amazing chatbots that emulate reading and reasoning. There is a lot more to AI but that is how the term is being used these days. There are a couple of reasons why [...]

by Peter Williams Mark down Thursday, March 5 as an unusual evening in the long and curious history of television news in New Zealand. “¿Qué?” you may ask, in the puzzled tone of Manuel from Fawlty Towers. No, it wasn’t because [...]

by Lindsay Perigo There was the Perspective on a quiet Saturday night, minding its own business, enjoying the rugby and some adult libation. Shiraz, in fact. Hold that thought! Crusaders - thankfully they're still called that, Damn Jabby Jihadi Jacinda-Podesta Jackboot notwithstanding [...]

by Nathan Smith I must admit, it was a bit shocking to hear the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee agree it “would be fine” if Israel invaded multiple Arab countries because of the bible. Huckabee made those comments in [...]

by Zac Brandon So Karl Stefanovic has come out and made a weak apology for “not questioning” government mandates during the Covid period, where Melbournians were subjected to the world’s longest lockdowns, and parents were pressured into injecting their children [...]

by Keri Molloy Pandemics are now classified as national security threats and vaccines are now considered a geopolitical tool, so Helen Clark is in a position of tremendous influence. Chat GPT goes so far as to say, ‘This is one [...]

by Lindsay Mitchell The 2026 Salvation Army State of the Nation Report revealed their official conversion to wokeism by repeatedly finding excuses for Maori over-representation in poor social stats because of victimisation through colonisation. This caused a number of readers to ponder [...]

by Alain Bertaud Cities are shaped by millions of individual decisions. When people choose where to live, work and build, an order emerges from their combined choices – what urbanists call "spontaneous order." It arises from markets and human interactions, [...]

by Simon O'Connor As United States and Israeli air strikes continue to decapitate the leaders and degrade the facilities of the Islamic regime - who for decades have held the Iranian people hostage to their mad religious ideology – I [...]

by Roger Partridge On 5 February 2026, Donald Trump stood before the National Prayer Breakfast. The room was full of the faithful – pastors, politicians, and conservative leaders who had long believed that America’s renewal required a strong hand. Trump was asked [...]

by David R. Henderson A global status report on the elements of broad well-being. Each year the Economic Freedom of the World report does something important: it measures whether ordinary people are allowed to make economic choices—work, save, start a [...]

by Peter Williams New Zealand is spending record sums on healthcare while growing sicker by the year. What if the real solution isn’t more hospitals and doctors — but fewer sick people? As the old sage Confucius is supposed to [...]

by Rachel Stewart Heard of MAID? Here’s what AI says about MAID. Medical Assistance in Dying is a legal process in several countries, including Canada and parts of the US, allowing eligible adults with grievous and irremediable medical conditions to receive [...]

by Lindsay Perigo One Nation is leading in the polls in NSW a year out from the next state election across all age brackets, and is winning close to 40% of regional votes, a major new poll shows. According to [...]

by Nathan Smith What do you call someone who performs the same action over and over, each time expecting a different result? Whenever I see a new party created by the political right, I shake my head because it only [...]

by Dr Muriel Newman Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program – Milton Friedman. The future of the Maori Seats has once again been raised as an important issue for New Zealanders to consider. Introduced in 1867 as [...]

by Peter Williams Today, February 25 is a significant day for Bendigo — Bendigo in Central Otago that is. Like its Australian namesake, this district was built on gold. In Victoria, large-scale mining never entirely stopped; the Fosterville Gold Mine [...]

by Simon O'Connor In what I can only describe as a rather poorly considered, and mostly likely politically motivated action - unconsciously or otherwise – the Clerk of New Zealand’s Parliament has decided that the Parliament will no longer use [...]

by Daniel Jones In my long membership of the NSW Liberal Party, I must have heard that quote repeated dozens and dozens of times, usually by some Party Leader who is appealing for a sense of unity among the squabbling [...]

by Roger Partridge If there’s one thing every humanities student learns, it’s that everything is relative. Morality is culturally constructed. Truth is a matter of perspective. Values are power dressed in philosophy. To claim that one political system or way [...]

by Caldron Pool Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has suggested that children educated outside the government system are more likely to be influenced by what he describes as “far-right ideology” and to learning attitudes of “hatred and division.” Addressing the Australian [...]

by Stephen Moore Environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg recently calculated that across the globe, governments have spent at least $16 trillion feeding the climate change industrial complex. And for what? Arguably, not a single life has been or will be saved [...]

by Peter Dunne Last week, at the New Zealand Economic Forum at Waikato University I was part of a panel discussing whether MMP had contributed to social cohesion. I argued that MMP had definitely made more Parliament more diverse and [...]

by Alwyn Poole A lot has been made of “significant” changes to the NZ education system under Erica Stanford. Some things have been put in place (e.g. changes to early reading, cell-phone ban). Primary school curriculum changes are being rolled-out [...]

by Lindsay Perigo At the end of last week, the Australian Liberal Party changed its leader. Angus Taylor resoundingly defeated Sussan Ley. Sussan Ley was a wet wuss, who momentarily tried on some testicles in abandoning Net Zero, a move the Perspective [...]

by Geoff Parker Winston Peters has a gift. He knows exactly how to press the public’s emotional buttons without ever quite delivering what many think he’s promising. His 2026 pledge of a referendum on the Māori seats is a classic [...]

by Nathan Smith Looking at the latest Jeffery Epstein files, I realised that I know people exactly like him, have read books written by people like him and that people like him are part of America’s deep history. Was Epstein [...]

by Kathryn Ennis-Carter Hi Maree and Marty Great to have you back on RCR again - we've missed you. A couple of things that maybe you'd like to pick up/comment on some time. The Sexual Revolution Very interesting discussion about [...]

by Katie Ashby-Koppens New Zealand has one month left to make a consequential decision that will shape how future pandemics are governed, yet key domestic inquiries into New Zealand’s response to the last World Health Organization-declared pandemic remain unfinished. By [...]

by Peter Williams Stop the presses! A political party wants the Maori electorates back on the election agenda. New Zealand First says let’s have a referendum and let the people decide. The Winston party thinks it knows what the people [...]

by Peter Dunne Contrary to what many commentators are suggesting, Labour is not in the dominant position on what happens regarding the proposed free trade agreement with India. Labour is actually over a barrel on the issue. Thanks to New [...]

by Dr Oliver Hartwich The Resource Management Act 1991 was an act of economic self-sabotage. Over three decades it inflated house prices by imposing what economists call a regulatory tax: the share of prices created by planning restrictions alone. In [...]

by Richard Prebble Politicians make mistakes. They are human. Decisions must often be made with inadequate information. It is easy to be wise in retrospect. We should be understanding. What we should not be forgiving is reckless decision-making — when [...]

by Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility NZ PDF SUBMISSION TO THE ENVIRONMENT SELECT COMMITTEE New Zealand’s Natural Environment Bill arrives with big claims. It promises stronger environmental protection, better enforcement, clearer limits, and a more coherent system than the [...]

by Rachel Stewart We’ve known each other for a while now and you know that I’m a naturally suspicious person whenever I’m told what to think by “experts” and mainstream media and corporations. You too? And given we’re in the [...]

by John MacDonald Labour leader Chris Hipkins has fallen into the trap that I could very easily find myself falling into if I didn’t think a little bit more carefully about this plan by the Government to set-up a new [...]

by Simon O'Connor So, Hong Konger Jimmy Lai is going to die in prison – a martyr for democracy, freedom, and faith. This might sound a bit dramatic, but if you know the story of Jimmy Lai, you will understand [...]

by Nathan Smith “I’m going to miss this tree, and that tree over there, and all the memories in between.” On the day they moved house, my friend asked his daughter what she thought about the decision to sell the [...]

by Lindsay Perigo So we just observed another Grievance Day, sometimes known as Waitangi Day, where the pseudo-natives get restless and leer up, scream and shriek about colonisation and its unspeakable evils and demand that we White Supremacists remain ever [...]

by Roger Partridge Economic historian and Hoover Institution senior fellow Niall Ferguson declares that Donald Trump “won Davos, hands down.” Writing in The Free Press, Ferguson’s argument runs as follows. European leaders genuinely feared Trump might use military force to annex Greenland. They [...]

by Julian Adorney For the past few years, the world has been falling into what Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s Matthew Harwood calls a “free speech recession.” It’s tempting for those of us who grew up in a robust [...]

by Dr Oliver Hartwich For the first time since the Second World War, New Zealand is being asked to make major economic decisions under direct threat from an ally. New Zealand is negotiating a minerals deal with the United States. [...]

by Roger Partridge In last Waitangi Day’s NZ Herald column, I argued that New Zealand’s sovereignty was not created in a single moment in 1840 but built over generations through practical governance, with Māori and Pākehā participating together. This year’s column takes [...]

by William McGimpsey In an article in The Press, David Farrar proposed that New Zealand become Australia’s seventh state. Summarised, Farrar argues that: The “rules-based world order” is crumbling and being replaced with a “might makes right” world; In such a [...]

by Peter Dunne The election year blame game over the state of the economy is underway, with all the accompanying fanatical partisan vehemence that makes the politicians' claims and counterclaims tedious and pointless. National will always say that they have [...]

by Liam Hehir David Farrar has made an argument in The Post for New Zealand becoming a state of Australia. His views are thoughtful and offered in good faith. We should acknowledge it as a serious attempt to think clearly about New [...]

by Gerrard Eckhoff First of all - the good news. The Resource Management Act (RMA) is gone for good. After reaping destruction over our productive sectors - of all hues for past thirty-five years, the RMA is to be finally [...]

by Michael Bassett If you are watching the bizarre goings on at Waitangi, keep an eye out for which politicians use the term “The Treaty”, and which refer to what was signed on 6 February 1840 as “Te Tiriti”. The [...]

by David Seymour, Deputy Prime Minister E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e rau rangatira mā. Tenā, koutou katoa. I'm proud to be here, celebrating the 186th anniversary of the Treaty being signed on these grounds. I [...]

by William McGimpsey It’s Waitangi Day. I know a lot of Kiwis are sick of it and think it’s become toxic and divisive. But Maori protests and the Treaty gravy train really aren’t the biggest threat to New Zealand. The [...]

by Rachel Stewart Someone you know, someone you will know, or you, will be caught up and flailing in the net of deep-sea grief – if you haven’t been there already. And now it’s my turn. Over the last nearly [...]

by Dr Bryce Wilkinson Consumer price inflation in New Zealand is not beaten. The Reserve Bank might decide it has cut interest rates a bit too much. It has cut the official cash rate nine times in just 16 months. [...]

by Nathan Smith Congratulations, Australia, you now have censorship laws that are nearly identical to post-WWII Germany. Did Australia lose a war? If we’re being honest, it probably did. The recently passed Australian hate speech legislation could have been a [...]

by Lindsay Perigo Thank you Paul and Happy New Year everyone! It's been a few weeks of the best and worst of everything. The worst leaves me wondering still, can Western Civilisation and its pillars - freedom of speech and association, the [...]

by Ian McLean New Zealand faces a grey rhino event. We now feel the impact of the NZ birth rate dropping. Across the world it’s happening. Birth rates are well below replacement. Workforces are tightening. Populations are ageing. The cost [...]

by Simon O'Connor Consistency. Not the most exciting word in the English dictionary, but an attribute I place a high value on. As some of you may know, philosophy is one of my great loves and I think the merit [...]

by Maree Buscke For those who aren’t aware of Louise Perry, she is a British journalist, author, and commentator known for her sharp, research-driven writing on sex, culture, and modern feminism. With a background that includes working at a rape [...]

by Roger Partridge Imagine Parliament passes a Schools Act “to promote the establishment of schools for the benefit of New Zealand.” Parliament is careful. It specifies exactly what the Minister must consider before approving a new school: the operator’s financial [...]

by David Lillis New Zealand has a Problem Recently, Peter Williams has commented on Australia's social media ban for under-16s (Williams, 2025) and Joanna Grey has expressed her own views on the problem in New Zealand (Grey, 2026). Unfortunately, the [...]