Articles in ‘Opinion’

For far too long the government, its advisors and the media have been maintaining the fiction that criticism of mRNA Covid vaccines is outside of “settled science”. In other words, safety concerns being widely voiced are false and unfounded. In fact mRNA vaccines are wrongly being claimed as safe in the face of incontrovertible evidence of risk. Last week the Royal Commission on Covid-19 Phase 2 opened the lid of Pandora’s Box, but it didn’t…

The COVID-19 Royal Commission phase two report has landed, and Duncan Garner says it makes for incredibly uncomfortable reading for anyone thinking of voting for Chris Hipkins again. The report confirms that major decisions, including mandates affecting children and the extension of extraordinary powers, were made despite warnings from experts. Duncan asks why there is so little accountability when the architects of these policies have moved on…

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:…

The Free Speech Union is calling on the Government to do the work that the Education and Workforce Committee did not: define the specific harms, identify the gaps in existing law, and develop targeted solutions, rather than reaching for a blanket social media ban that even UK child safety charities say will not work. · On 5 March, the Education and Workforce Committee released its final report after a nine-month inquiry into online harms facing…

Kraft Heinz, which owns the iconic NZ Watties brand, has announced it is closing its local frozen vegetable processing facilities and ceasing its arrangements with local growers. Watties’ coffee processing under the Greggs brand and dips under the Mediterranean, Just Hummus and Good Taste Company brands will also close. At least 350 direct employees will lose their jobs, with many hundreds of contracted growers around the country also affected.…

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.…

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 has confirmed that the government’s pandemic response frequently overstepped its bounds and suppressed legitimate dissent. The Free Speech Union says the report proves that the state used censorship as a primary tool to manage the public. "The 'single source of truth' has been exposed as a single source of silence," says Jillaine Heather, CEO of the Free Speech Union. The Commission confirms that…

Aly Cook, board member of the New Zealand Outdoors & Freedom Party (NZOFP), says the time for inquiries and "lessons learned" is over. Following the release of the Royal Commission’s Phase Two report, Cook is calling for immediate criminal investigation against the officials who suppressed evidence of harm from the novel mRNA vaccine and those who continued to promote it, despite being aware of the risks of myocarditis, pericarditis and other…

A new investigation argues that Sir Ashley Bloomfield’s transformation from anonymous health bureaucrat to “Saint Ashley” was not organic fandom, but a carefully curated propaganda project – and that Stuff’s new Quarantine Nation podcast is part of the same effort to lock in an approved Covid narrative just as the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid‑19 Lessons Learned releases its report. The article, Saint Ashley: Propaganda, Personality…

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…