Articles by Dr Bryce Edwards

Arguments about the current energy crisis have shifted. It is no longer just about what ministers are doing now. It is also about what they chose not to do when they had the chance. This morning brought the clearest accountability journalism to this debate. Kate MacNamara in the Herald and Edward Miller in The Post both zero in on the same issue: New Zealand was left more exposed than it needed to be, and ministers were warned about the…

A year ago, breaking up the electricity gentailers was protest-chant politics. Consumer advocates pushed it. So did some unions and the odd contrarian academic. It sounded too “radical”, too “anti-market”, too likely to be swatted away with the ritual phrase “investor confidence”. !Image Text · Over the past week, the proposal to break up New Zealand’s gentailers — splitting the big four power companies into separate generators and retailers —…

New Zealand’s annual trust survey is out. The trust figures are not good. But this year, the most alarming finding in the 2026 Acumen Edelman Trust Barometer isn’t really about trust at all. It’s about hope. Only 17% of New Zealanders believe the next generation will be better off than today. That’s a nine-point drop from last year, a sharp collapse in optimism, and it puts us among the most pessimistic countries in the developed world. Lower…

“Thought Covid was bad? If New Zealand runs out of diesel, Covid will look like the rehearsal.” That line from Matthew Hooton in the Herald this morning lands like a slap. Not because it’s designed to alarm, but because Hooton is making a precise argument, not a rhetorical one. During the pandemic, the circulatory system of the economy kept pumping. He explains today that trucks still delivered to supermarkets, harvesters still picked crops,…

The National Party is holding a “Mainland Dinner” at Christchurch’s Town Hall next month, hosted by party president Sylvia Wood, and the invitation was accidentally posted on Facebook by National MP Maureen Pugh before being swiftly deleted. The invitation lays out the “price list for power” with remarkable clarity. For $5,000 you get a seat at the “silver” table. For $8,000, you sit with a Cabinet minister. And for $10,000 (the “platinum”…

Winston Peters delivered his State of the Nation speech in Tauranga yesterday, and it told us something important about where NZ First thinks the 2026 election will be won. Not in the culture wars or in Covid grievances, but in the electricity bill sitting on your kitchen table. Peters ranged across Fonterra’s sell-off, Te Pāti Māori, the India deal. Slipped up calling his party “socialist” — meant “socially conservative” — then declared NZ…

The Press newspaper in Christchurch has just published its “Power List” — a ranking of the fifty most influential people in the South Island. It’s a series of articles that updates the list they published two years. The 2026 edition, compiled primarily by senior journalist Philip Matthews, is worth reading closely. Not just for the names, but for what the list reveals about where power actually sits in Te Waipounamu, and how much of it has…

The scandal around Paul Eagle keeps getting uglier. · Last week this column set out the Auditor-General’s damning findings on Eagle’s tenure as chief executive of the Chatham Islands Council: the $460,000 gold-plated house renovation, the fabricated documents, the forged builder’s signature, the admission that he “panicked.” The Serious Fraud Office is now assessing whether to open a criminal investigation. · What has received less scrutiny…

New Zealand politics just got personal. On Sunday evening, Labour leader Chris Hipkins’ ex-wife Jade Paul posted a series of claims about him on her private Facebook page. The post was deleted. Hipkins issued a five-word denial: “I reject the allegations entirely.” He’s seeking legal advice. And just like that, we’re having a national conversation about the oldest and most uncomfortable question in political life: when does a politician’s…

Election year is ten weeks old and already the donations register at the Electoral Commission tells a familiar but uncomfortable story. Nearly a million dollars in large donations has been declared so far in 2026. The coalition parties have opened the year with a commanding fundraising lead. The opposition parties are barely visible. And the people making the biggest donations are the same sorts of donors who usually dominate this terrain:…