Articles by Dr Bryce Edwards

The final phase of the Covid inquiry is out, and almost nobody will be fully happy with what it says. The report says New Zealand got plenty right, but it also lays out a string of failures, blind spots and overreaches. It is neither the devastating indictment that opponents of the Labour government wanted, nor the full vindication that its defenders might have hoped for. That is probably why the political reaction has been so predictable.…

If you want to understand what will happen on 7 November, forget the polls for a moment. Forget the horse-race coverage, the personality contests, and the pundit predictions. Instead, read Danyl McLauchlan’s cover story in this week’s Listener magazine. It’s the sharpest piece of political analysis I’ve read this cycle – and probably the most important you’ll read before voting day McLauchlan’s article draws on the 2023 New Zealand Election…

Friday’s Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll was a political earthquake. National at 28.4%. Christopher Luxon’s net favourability in freefall. The centre-left, for the first time in this polling series, able to form a government on the numbers. Senior figures in the National Party reportedly told the Prime Minister to go home for the weekend and seriously consider whether he was the right person to lead them into November. · Luxon said he was…

It has been one of those days in politics when everything accelerates. This morning I published a briefing warning that Christopher Luxon and National were in serious trouble after leaks of a dire Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll. By lunchtime the numbers were official: National on 28.4 percent. By mid-afternoon the conversation had shifted from “if” Luxon might leave to “when and how”. I don’t normally publish two columns in a day. But when the…

Is Prime Minister Christopher Luxon finally on the way out? A Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll out today reportedly puts the National Party on only 28% support. And rightwing commentator Matthew Hooton says today in the Herald that the senior leadership of the party “need to set up a conference call amongst themselves this weekend” to start the process of replacing him. Hooton says that after Luxon’s extremely poor performance over the US-Iran War,…

New Zealand’s media-politics-lobbying revolving door keeps spinning. The latest turn is the most brazen yet. · On Monday, NZME announced that Hamish Rutherford would chair its Editorial Advisory Board. The news was first reported by Shayne Currie in the NZ Herald’s Media Insider column, which described the appointment alongside other editorial changes as a “real coup” for the company. The Herald announcement itself was revealing for what it…

Corporate lobbyists have become central to decision-making in the New Zealand political system. But we know remarkably little about how they work, who they work for, or what they charge. In my ongoing research on influence behind the scenes of government, one lobbyist told me that the standard pitch of lobbying firms to business is that they can normally change a government decision for a $250,000 fee. That kind of money gets you into the room…

Christopher Luxon had one job this week: explain to New Zealand where the country stands on the biggest geopolitical crisis in a generation. He blew it. Across a disastrous Monday, including a morning radio round on RNZ, an interview with Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, and then a post-Cabinet press conference that may go down as one of the worst of his tenure, the Prime Minister fumbled, misspoke, contradicted himself, and ultimately left the…

The United States has carried out what is clearly an illegal bombing of Iran, a brutal theocracy with a long record of repression at home and proxy warfare abroad. So how should New Zealand respond? The Luxon-Peters Government put out a joint statement on Sunday that has been variously described as “balanced,” “careful,” and “a disgrace.” It is relatively positive towards the US actions and condemnatory towards Iran, but it doesn’t fully…

Something has to give with New Zealand’s electricity market. And this week, the numbers arrived to prove it. The Big Four gentailers (Contact, Genesis, Meridian and Mercury) have just reported combined operating earnings of $1.86 billion for the six months to December 2025. That’s a jump of roughly 45% on the same period last year. Their combined dividend payouts rose 10% to $551 million. Meanwhile, the amount they actually invested in new…