About this time a week ago, the New Zealand Police released a statement to report that two people had died in a helicopter crash north of Wellington earlier in the day. Work was under way to recover the deceased and to examine the crash scene, near the Battle Hill regional park. The statement included: Police […]
Iwi ensure respect is shown to a crash site – but how are the beliefs of crash victims and their families respected?
Iwi ensure respect is shown to a crash site – but how are the beliefs of crash victims and their families respected?
04 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, liberalism, politics - New Zealand Tags: Freedom of religion
Cutting losses – governments too slow to learn
02 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
Updated 3.20pm Business generally works out when to cut losses because the risks of failure are too high for shareholders and workers. Government on the other hand are very slow, regardless of stripe. Grant Robertson got very grumpy with KiwiRail re the ship and ferry land side infrastructure and should have stopped or changed it, […]
Cutting losses – governments too slow to learn
No wonder Te Pāti Māori wants to abolish prisons when Māori make up most of the inmates
30 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law and order, regressive left
Te Pāti Māori says it wants to abolish prisons by 2040.
No wonder Te Pāti Māori wants to abolish prisons when Māori make up most of the inmates
How authorities failed campers at Mount Maunganui
29 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of natural disasters, politics - New Zealand
The picture is firming up, and it’s devastating. Six people are dead at the foot of Mount Maunganui because, over four critical hours on the morning of 22 January, New Zealand’s emergency management system failed. Not just failed, but failed repeatedly, in ways that now look systemic. And what’s becoming clearer with each new revelation […]
How authorities failed campers at Mount Maunganui
Health workers are kicking off their day with a karakia, but Act MP ensures it is in their own time and not compulsory
28 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
No, it’s not just a lump of rock. The National Public Health Service has been getting along – it seems – on a wing and a prayer. The Platform’s Tina Nixon drew PoO’s attention to the spiritual side of the service’s daily rituals and routines in an interview with Act MP Todd Stephenson. This prompted […]
Health workers are kicking off their day with a karakia, but Act MP ensures it is in their own time and not compulsory
The full text of Don Brash’s Orewa speech (2004)
28 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, politics - New Zealand
I shared the video of Don Brash’s 2004 Orewa speech earlier.
The full text of Don Brash’s Orewa speech (2004)
How Te Pāti Māori and the Greens have put Labour in check on the election-year chess board
27 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand Tags: 2026 general election
* Chris Trotter writes – Chess is war on 64 squares. War is politics by other means. Unsurprising, then, that the moves of chess players and the moves of politicians have much in common. Above all other objectives the political strategist seeks to position adversaries where they can do the least harm. Enemies only become dangerous […]
How Te Pāti Māori and the Greens have put Labour in check on the election-year chess board
The High Cost of Luxury Beliefs
26 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: political correctness, regressive left
Roger Partridge writes – Some ideas cost nothing to believe but a great deal to implement. Political commentator Rob Henderson calls them “luxury beliefs” – convictions that signal virtue among the comfortable while imposing very real costs on those with much less room to manoeuvre. New Zealand, for reasons cultural as much as political, has […]
The High Cost of Luxury Beliefs
How the Labour Party will campaign in 2026
24 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand Tags: 2026 general election
This week Chris Hipkins gave us the clearest picture yet of how Labour plans to fight the 2026 election. His speech at the party’s caucus retreat in West Auckland, and then a rally-style address to party activists, revealed a strategy that combines class-based attack lines, relentless positivity, and a narrowed focus on kitchen-table concerns. But […]
How the Labour Party will campaign in 2026
When the Left and the Right start behaving in the same way, there’s nothing left of the Left
23 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economic history, economics of education, gender, International law, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: regressive left
I HAVE BEEN RESISTING the conclusion that New Zealand no longer possesses a “left-wing” movement. What the news media persists in referring to as “the Left” or “progressives” are no such thing. By any reasonable definition, the movements identified – or identifying themselves – as left-wing fail to measure up. What they truly are we […]
When the Left and the Right start behaving in the same way, there’s nothing left of the Left
The rise of NZ First
23 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
I write at Patreon: NZ First scored 11.9% in the January 2026 Taxpayers’ Union – Curia poll. This is a very high level of support for NZ First generally, but especially for them in Government. The last time NZ First polled this high was in the lead up to the 2017 election. They also spiked…
The rise of NZ First
My polling predictions at Newsroom
22 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
Newsroom asked some pollsters for their predictions for 2026. Mine are below: Every poll (or almost every poll) will show that both National and Labour will need two partner parties to govern, not just one – that is: only National/Act/New Zealand First and Labour/Greens/Te Pāti Māori will have enough seats to make 61. All 71…
My polling predictions at Newsroom
Have the Greens lost their mojo?
19 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand Tags: regressive left
Bryce Edwards writes – The Green Party should be flying high right now. They’re not. As the 2026 election year begins in earnest, the Greens find themselves in a deeply anomalous position: polling has slumped, internal organisation has been shaken by staff departures and scandals, and the co-leaders seem strangely detached from the scale of […]
Have the Greens lost their mojo?
The black market crisis in tobacco
16 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of smoking
A comprehensive article in the SST about the rise in black market tobacco sales in NZ. Some extracts: This is again a reminder that prohibition doesn’t work, and neither does trying to tax something so much to prohibit it.
The black market crisis in tobacco
Guest Post: No, the Supreme Court Didn’t Hand Climate Activists a Victory. It was an own goal.
15 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: climate activists
A guest post by Sean Rush: If you’ve read the headlines about Climate Clinic Aotearoa v Minister of Energy, you might believe a group of law students marched into the Supreme Court and reshaped New Zealand’s climate policy. The popular narrative suggests a solid victory to the students, with reports that the students created new law,…
Guest Post: No, the Supreme Court Didn’t Hand Climate Activists a Victory. It was an own goal.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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