Articles from ‘elocal magazine’ in ‘Opinion’

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, New Zealand responded with unusual speed. Sanctions followed. Condemnations were issued. The language was unambiguous. We were told this was about defending the “rules-based international order” – a phrase our politicians have grown remarkably fond of. Winston Peters has deployed it frequently in his time as Foreign Minister. So where is that principled clarity now? · On Saturday, the United States…

The image we are taught is romantic and obsolete: ragged men, black flags, cannon smoke, plunder taken at sea. That version of piracy was crude, inefficient, and ultimately unsustainable. What replaced it was far more sophisticated—and far more destructive. The modern pirate does not board ships. He boards balance sheets, parliaments, and central banks. · To understand neo-piracy, we must begin where it was perfected: the British East India…

How much taxpayer funding will politicians spend this year on election advertising? It will be many, many millions of dollars, but we won’t know much about it, because the rules have been written to help MPs electioneer with parliamentary funding, without transparency. You would have already seen plenty of billboards and election ads for the various parties. National MPs have recently been carrying out a blitz of billboards and online ads, but…

New Zealand First is in the ascendancy, and there are signs that 2026 could turn out to be the party’s best in its three decades of existence. Could it even lead to Winston Peters winning his ultimate prize role: Prime Minister? Political commentator Matthew Hooton is very well connected to insiders in the New Zealand First party, and as a result, produced an insightful column on Friday for the Herald about the party’s internal thinking and…

New Zealand is walking headlong into an energy and monetary trap of its own making — and neither major political bloc is willing to name it, let alone fix it. When the Ardern-led Labour Government shut down Marsden Point — New Zealand’s one and only oil refinery — it wasn’t just an industrial decision. It was a strategic surrender. Overnight, the country went from having sovereign fuel-processing capability to being entirely dependent on…

For years, global markets have been lulled into believing that paper promises are as good as physical reality. That illusion is now breaking — and silver is where the fracture is showing first. The current spike in silver prices is not speculation. It is a supply crisis colliding with a leverage crisis. Major global banks and metals brokers have written paper claims on silver that dwarf real-world production. At the same time, industrial demand…

Can the wealthy donate money to politicians to get a knighthood in New Zealand? We associate the idea of “Cash for Honours” with controversies in countries like Britain where businesspeople were found to have given millions of dollars to political parties in power in exchange for knighthoods and other official titles. But does the same sort of corruption occur in New Zealand? Today, the Government has announced its New Year Honours recipients,…

Veteran political journalist Richard Harman summed up 2025 in one bleak line: “This has been the year of our discontent. It has been an awful year at Parliament, dominated by petty point scoring and a determination to hang on to the past.” That feels about right. We’ve watched endless parliamentary skirmishes that go nowhere, with politicians more interested in scoring hits than solving problems. And it hasn’t just been a bad year for whichever…

We talk a lot about money in politics in New Zealand, but we rarely actually examine it in detail. Today that changes. I’m pleased to announce the publication of Following the Money in 2025, the Democracy Project’s inaugural annual audit of political donations in New Zealand. This is the first report of its kind, and I hope it will become an indispensable resource for journalists, researchers, and citizens who want to understand who is funding…

By any modern political measure, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s announcement that the India–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement is a “landmark moment” ticks every box of good optics. There are the celebratory adjectives, the breathless timelines, the diplomatic phone calls, and the familiar promise that growth, jobs, and prosperity are just around the corner. But optics are not outcomes. And for New Zealanders who have lived through three…