Ian Bradford: Can we really believe anything the climate alarmists tell us?

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the UN climate arm whose aim is to provide information to the public about climate, particularly changes to climate and the causes of those changes. 

Karl du Fresne: My war with the NZTA: Part One

So let me see if I’ve got this straight: the government’s response to public fury and exasperation at the wasteful, disruptive and mostly useless traffic management racket is to set up a hotline where people can report excessive road cone use? God save us. 

I predict this pathetically feeble non-solution, announced this week, will achieve one-fifth of SFA because hardly anyone will bother ringing an 0800 number to dob the traffic management racketeers in. 

Breaking Views Update: Week of 30.3.25

Saturday April 5, 2025 

News:
Select committee recommends controversial Treaty Principles Bill not proceed
The select committee for the controversial Treaty Principles Bill has recommended the proposed law not proceed.

The justice committee kicked ACT’s bill to the kerb following hundreds of thousands of written submissions, hundreds of speakers, and mammoth opposition marches across the country.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Trump's Tariffs will boost NZ's GDP

Its official (according to the best NZ estimates): Trump's Tariffs will boost NZ's GDP. Thank goodness The Donald is helping lift NZ out of stagnation.

Estimating the effects of tariffs on different countries' GDP is a difficult thing to do, because there are so many flow-on effects. Overall, the strongly held view by economists is they will lower world productivity. However, as a consequence of the Trump tariffs, and the retaliatory moves by other countries, there are winners & losers, even though the average effect on GDP is going to be negative. So how does NZ come out of all of this?

Andrew Moran: Trump Axes Globalization With Sweeping Tariffs

In the classic 1924 Giacomo Puccini opera Turandot, the famous “Nessun Dorma” aria concludes, “At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!” It was not at dawn, but President Donald Trump did declare victory against the globalist machine when he unveiled the contours of his sweeping tariffs. At an April 2 White House Rose Garden event, the president released details of his long-awaited pursuit of reciprocity.

New Tariffs Are in Town

Kerry Woodham: Are our mental health services working?

The Access and Choice Programme, biggest investment in mental health in a generation, has now been in place for five years. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission released its final report on the programme rollout yesterday. The programme was funded from the 2019 wellbeing budget. You'll remember that, where more than a billion dollars, nearer to $2 billion, was committed to mental health support, to provide support for ‘mild to moderate’ needs relating to mental health and problematic substance use or gambling in primary care and community settings. That’s the official name for it.

Peter Williams: We need the full story on the Treaty Principles Bill

So in the end all the submissions made on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill will be on the Parliamentary record. But many of them, thousands it would seem, will not be read or processed until after the Justice Select Committee has reported to the House.

This still makes a mockery of the process. After all, this was the bill that attracted the most submissions of any in the history of our Parliament. That in itself states unequivocally that this was a discussion or conversation or debate or whatever you like to call it that the country wanted and needed to have.

JC: The Time Is Now

If Christopher Luxon, Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop, the top three branches on National’s political tree, mused over whether there is ever a good time to ditch the Māori seats, their answer, due to their reticence on these types of matters, would probably be never. But there is a good time and it has arrived courtesy of the Māori Party themselves.

Their refusal to turn up at the Privileges Committee to get the dressing down they deserve is inviting just such an action. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were hoping it will happen. (It won’t.) Just think of the Pandora’s Box that would open for them.

David Farrar: Labour’s unfortunate experiment

In 2017, the geniuses of the Labour Party decided to have an experiment. They said, let’s cut the prison population by 30%. Someone (hopefully) said, you mean by reducing serious crime by 30%? But the geniuses said, no no – just cut the prison population by 30%, regardless of whether people are committing serious violent and sexual crimes.

Mike's Minute: I have loved my years in the media game

The irony was not lost on me this week as two things job related happened.

The first was the survey that suggested over half of us regret our career choice.

That struck me as profoundly sad. Say whatever you want about work and work-life balance, but a lot of hours are spent in a lifetime grafting. Virtually everyone, at least at the start, has to work.

Friday April 4, 2025 

                    ⇩

Bob Edlin: Centre-right bounce back, could now form Government

The latest Taxpayers’ Union–Curia Poll will bring a sigh of relief for the Coalition parties as they find themselves able to form a Government again.

The poll, conducted between 29 March and 01 April, shows National is effectively static, down 0.1 points to 33.5 percent, while Labour is down 4.3 points from last month to 29.8 percent.The Greens are up 1.0 point to 11.0 percent, while ACT is up 2.3 points to 10.0 percent. New Zealand First is also up 2.3 points to 7.4 percent, while Te Pāti Māori is down 2.2 points to 4.3 percent.

Bob Edlin: Parliament conduct rules explained

No, we don’t need a tikanga expert to put context around a haka that disrupted proceedings in Parliament

The Māori Party – bleating about three of its MPs being denied the right to have someone explain tikanga to Parliament’s Privileges Committee – is engaged in provocative grandstanding.

The committee, chaired by Judith Collins, considers and reports on issues relating to parliamentary privilege and can find MPs in contempt of the House.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: RBNZ's Board Chair & Medical School at Waikato?....

Question: How Can RBNZ's Board Chair Make the Best Non-Political Monetary Decisions when he's at the same time begging Finance Minister Willis for a new Medical School at Waikato?

Its a tense time at the Reserve Bank. It currently has an Acting, or Temporary, or Stand-In, or Stand-Up, or On Probation, or Interim, Governor ever since the Former Governor walked off in a huff. Finance Minister Willis and Reserve Bank Chair of the Board, Neil Quigley, who is also Vice Chancellor of Waikato University, are discussing monetary & financial regulation matters which put potentially billions of dollars of Big Monopoly Private Bank profits and bonuses at stake. This week, Willis & Quigley together announced there would be a Review of the Capital Requirements that the retail banks must adhere to. The Finance Minister was the driver behind that announcement, which came about from lobbying by the Big Banks.

Chris Lynch: Prime Minister says Trump’s new tariffs risk global economic fallout.....

Prime Minister says Trump’s new tariffs risk global economic fallout, but New Zealand won’t retaliate

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has criticised former US President Donald Trump’s sweeping new 10% tariffs on imported goods from New Zealand, calling them harmful to the global economy and warning of broader economic consequences.

Peter Dunne: MBIE’s narrow-minded influence

While the government is in the mood for breaking up failing conglomerates like the supermarket duopoly, it should consider doing the same to one of its own largest agencies – the ubiquitous Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. MBIE was supposed to be the government’s go-to department, but nearly everything it gets involved in ends up turning to dust at some stage.

Brendan O'Neill: The last thing Britain needs is Trump’s free-speech imperialism

Will Donald Trump save us benighted Brits from our speech-policing overlords? That’s the hope of Britain’s excitable right. They’re giddy at the news that the Trump administration is reportedly tying its trade deal with Britain to the issue of freedom of speech. ‘No free trade without free speech’, says one US source. In short, if the British state doesn’t stop muzzling the unwoke, our nation will suffer. Mighty America will rap our knuckles.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Germany’s post-election theatre of the absurd

Winning an election can still mean losing control. This paradox is playing out in Germany right now. The Christian Democrats under would-be Chancellor Friedrich Merz have squandered their election win with breathtaking efficiency.

The 23 February 2025 election results presented a challenging political landscape. Merz’s centre-right CDU/CSU bloc won with 28.5 per cent of the vote. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) followed at 20.8 per cent. The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) limped in with a historically poor 16.4 per cent, while the Greens secured a meagre 11.6 per cent and the far-left Die Linke a surprising 8.8 per cent.

Sir Bob Jones: Liz Gunn

The Liz Gunn prosecution was scandalously corrupt and has been exposed as such by High Court judge Justice Peters.

The initial prosecution was before District court judge Forrest who described Gunn as “rude, overbearing and offensive”.

JC: The Green and Māori Party MPs Need to Go

The events of recent days have proven beyond doubt that the Green MPs are a bunch of weirdos. They talk a lot about the planet but are so far off it that their presence in parliament serves no useful purpose. Examples of their perverse behaviour are becoming ever more frequent and should be of concern to any normal thinking voter. It seems they exist purely to lurch from one crisis to the next, most, if not all, of their own making.