Articles in ‘Opinion’

In our article “Some Hard Sobering Truths Are Beginning to Sink in" we reported that Health Services in highly vaccinated countries are beginning to realise that more people are falling sick than ever before. Higher percentages of the population are suffering from chronic and serious health conditions that require more medical care. This is putting a strain on national health budgets particularly in nations with high rates of Covid vaccination.…

Climate change usually refers to long-term shifts in global or regional temperatures and weather patterns. Meaning and Key Details · Definition: A significant, long-term change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. Causes: While natural, current rapid climate change is driven by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane) from burning…

New Zealand’s first National Infrastructure Plan, released last week, has already produced a flurry of headlines about leaky hospitals, mouldy barracks, tolled bridges and unaffordable mega-roads. It deserves that attention. But for my money, the most important thing written about the plan so far is Danyl McLauchlan’s Listener column this week, “All pitch, no policy”, which slyly turns the report into a takedown of how our whole political…

Independent journalist Penny Marie has released a new investigation warning that UN‑aligned “gender equality” frameworks adopted across New Zealand are quietly redefining what it means to be a woman – with far‑reaching consequences for policy, data, and everyday life. In a detailed article on her Substack, pennymarie.nz, Penny examines the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), the NZ WEPs Survey…

New Zealand has not been invaded. Parliament still sits. Elections are held. The flag flies. And yet, as debt mounts, fuel is fully imported, banking profits flow offshore, and productivity falters, a harder question presses: Are we sovereign in name — but constrained in practice? To answer that, we must begin before decline. We must begin when sovereignty was structural. Part II Here... · The Post-War High-Sovereignty Era · In the decade…

Last week, New Zealand’s Parliament ceased using X. The Clerk of the House, David Wilson, unilaterally decided the institution would no longer have a presence on the platform formerly known as Twitter. His stated reason was that he “could no longer support” X because of its AI chatbot Grok and reports about deepfake imagery. “It didn’t feel right for my organisation to use a platform that allowed that to happen,” he told Stuff. This came…

There is a difference between eyesight and vision. · Eyesight sees what is directly in front of it. Vision sees what lies beyond the horizon. · Chris Hipkins’ latest State of the Nation speech demonstrated clear eyesight. It catalogued rising grocery prices, soaring power bills, stagnating productivity, brain drain, housing speculation, and fragile business confidence. · But it did not demonstrate vision. · And in 2026, eyesight is not enough.…

Fail at what you may ask? · The answer is – Fail to follow up on your promises from the last election! · Prior to the last election in 2023, Sir John Key spoke about the coalition government and the National Party’s chances in the polls. · He also spoke about tensions around issues such as Act’s Treaty Principles Bill, the removal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act and National’s move to overrule a court decision on the Marine and…

Chris Hipkins delivered his State of the Nation speech this afternoon in Auckland, and the verdict is clear enough: there wasn’t much in it. No new policy. No surprises. No real detail on how Labour would govern differently. It was, by design, a low-key affair. The question now is whether voters see this as strategic discipline or something less flattering. The speech, delivered to the Auckland Business Chamber and hosted by former National…

The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is supposed to be the guardian of teaching standards. It registers and certifies teachers, vets who get to stand in front of a classroom, and enforces professional conduct. Right now it looks more like a case study in how public institutions go wrong. Over the past two weeks, two devastating reports have landed in public view, exposing an organisation riddled with conflicts of interest, procurement…