HOUSING
Matthew Hooton (Herald): U-turn season starts with housing intensification (paywalled)
Jonathan Killick (Post): Controversial Auckland intensification plans to be watered down (paywalled)
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): The housing reform that will reshape Auckland: Plan Change 120, explained
Gary Blick (Interest): Auckland’s housing supply is about to get more spatially concentrated under Plan Change 120
Amelia Wade (Post): Granny flats get easier - but you still can’t build anything anywhere (paywalled)
RNZ: Ministers mark start of new granny flats rules
Lloyd Burr (Stuff): Go forth and granny flat! No consents needed from today
Ruby Shaw (ODT): Granny flat build red tape reduction welcomed (paywalled)
Deborah Morris (Post): New granny flat rules could reshape property values and living conditions (paywalled)
MANAGE MY HEALTH SCANDAL, CYBER SECURITY
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The Reforms NZ needs after MisManageMyHealth
Nikki Macdonald (Post): Not all Health NZ systems meet information security standards (paywalled)
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): How a private company ended up holding health data for millions of New Zealanders
Sarah Catherall (Listener): How do I feel as one of those impacted by the Manage My Health hack? Shocked, angry and a whole lot more cynical (paywalled)
Gareth Vaughan (Interest): As cyber threat landscape evolves, ANZ and 2degrees talk up the benefits of working with an unnamed NZ tech company
RESERVE BANK, FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Gordon Campbell: On The Overweening Vanity Of Winston Peters
ODT Editorial: The wisdom of silence (paywalled)
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Oi Guv! Peters unusually plain-spoken on Trump crisis
Bernard Hickey (The Kākā): Peters’ fear trumps decades of respect for RBNZ independence
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): Winston Peters vs the Reserve Bank
Greg Presland (The Standard): Peters attacks Reserve Bank Governor
RNZ: Foreign Minister Winston Peters says NZ ‘appalled’ by violence, repression in Iran
PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE
Roy Morgan: Entering 2026, the New Zealand Election due later this year remains on a knife-edge
Ethan Griffiths (Newstalk ZB): Public Service boss spotted at coffee meeting with Andrew Coster
Anna Whyte (Post): The new top faces and the blank spaces in the public service (paywalled)
The Standard: MCERT V MAF V MBIE V Treasury
Chris Trotter (ODT): Predicting 2026 will be just another political horse race (paywalled)
Rob Campbell (Post): Calling for ‘bipartisan’ solutions is like building castles out of sand (paywalled)
1News: ‘Beyond saddened’: A year of law changes impacting Māori
BUSINESS, EMPLOYMENT
Kate MacNamara (Herald): Climate reporting rules loosened more than minister wanted – common sense or overkill? (paywalled)
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): 61 shops announce closures in 10 days: Will liquidation numbers get worse before they improve?
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): BlackRock bails on $2b NZ climate fund
Chris Keall (Herald): Rocket Lab shares surge to all-time high after $1.4b US military contract and Secretary of Defence visit (paywalled)
Māni Dunlop (Te Ao Māori News): New Zealand-founded company, Rocket Lab closely aligns with US military, set to benefit from its spending push
Anneke Smith (RNZ): Coalition pushes go on fresh tourism campaigns to promote regions
Aimee Shaw (Post): New tourism funding targets South Island towns beyond the usual hotspots (paywalled)
Wei Shao (Press): Aussies lead the way as South Island rolls out the tourism red carpet (paywalled)
Chris Keall (Herald): Summer Questions: 2degrees chief executive Mark Callander on instinct, AI and outer space
Dita De Boni (Post): Employee v contractor cases, big and small, abound (paywalled)
ENVIRONMENT, CONSERVATION
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): 2025 was New Zealand’s hottest year on record
Sean Rush (Kiwiblog): No, the Supreme Court Didn’t Hand Climate Activists a Victory. It was an own goal.
RNZ: Conservation Minister says Blue Spring not a priority after councillor seeks funds to protect site
Linda Hall (Local Democracy Reporting): ‘It’s devastating’: Generations-old eel population wiped out in Wairoa stream
Mathew Nash (Local Democracy Reporting): Lake weed: Minister reviews funding after Rotorua clean-up costs over $133,000
Jessica Hopkins (RNZ): Whangaparāoa rock pools ‘stripped bare’ by sea life gatherers, resident says
EDUCATION
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): Students can now claim $12,000 but is it money well spent?
Dave Ananth (Interest): Rethinking student loan interest: Why discretion is needed for borrowers who are now overseas
Fiona Ellis (Waikato Times): Veteran GP Leo Revell brings hands-on wisdom to Waikato (paywalled)
TRANSPORT, INFRASTRUCTURE
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): Wayne Brown will never stop texting the CEO of AT about road cones
Ian Llewellyn (BusinessDesk): Overseas firms named for part of Cook Strait ferry terminal works (paywalled)
RNZ: Faulty ferry doesn’t damper Bluebridge bookings
HEALTH
Keiller MacDuff (RNZ):Health NZ confirms another major tech outage
Ian Powell: Consequences of hospital maternity systems failure and unsafe staffing levels
Pokere Paewai (RNZ): Marlborough’s only kaupapa Māori GP receives funding to address critical gap
MEDIA, BROADCASTING, DIGITAL HARM
Nik Dirga (RNZ): The X Factor: Grok deepfakes and why NZ is still using Elon Musk’s X
RNZ: Election 2026: Labour proposes ‘game-changing’ streaming levy to fund local productions
NBR: NBR banks banking giant Macquarie for alleged copyright breaches
Shayne Currie (Herald): Scott Robertson’s axing - inside the All Blacks coaching storm; ‘Nothing made in China’ advertising controversy; Magazine editors step down (paywalled)
ENERGY
NZ Energy: New Zealand’s 2026 Energy Stock-Take - Part 1 – Electricity
Jamie Gray (Herald): Rising power bills and gas crunch set to ignite 2026 election (paywalled)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): Four new mayors on rolling a grenade down the road for future generations
RNZ: Kaipara council’s CEO resigns
Peter McKinlay: 2026: the year for local government to lead the governance debate
POLICE
Sam Sherwood (RNZ): Sensitive info possibly made public as 1000 police cases affected by tech problem
Katie Ham (Post): Pressure remains on police leadership as further Jevon McSkimming findings loom (paywalled)
OTHER
Christine McCarthy (Newsroom): Punishing prisoners alone won’t make us safer
Derek Cheng (Herald): Why violent crime is up 7% and down 21% (paywalled)
Gill Bonnett (RNZ): Skilled migrants on path to residency warned status may change
Martin Van Beynen (Press/Post): Has woke died or has it changed us forever? (paywalled)
André Chumko (Post): Radical Te Papa cuts rejected as funding pressure mounts
Ethan Manera (Herald): Wellington Central Library Te Matapihi’s $217m renovation cuts 80,000 books from collection (paywalled)
John Weekes (Herald): Aircraft pilot shortage: High costs pushing some to drop out during training, industry says (paywalled)
John Weekes (Herald): New Civil Aviation Authority boss on prosecuting change and building a fairer system (paywalled)
Angus James: The Hidden Cost of Trust: Aotearoa’s inherited advantage and the cost of running it down
Roger Partridge (Herald): From protecting heritage homes to banning oil and gas exploration, we need to be realistic about the cost of our ‘luxury beliefs’ (paywalled)
Herald Editorial: Protests at Sikh parades sign of push for NZ war on immigration (paywalled)
RNZ: Funeral service to be held today for Sir Tim Shadbolt
Jamie Gray tells us that New Zealand’s electricity sector looks set to become an election issue in 2026.
I think we would all be better off if the Government (I mean the next one) seized the assets of the NZ Superannuation Fund and used them to buy back 100% of all the electricity gentailers, and convert them into a state agency to provide us all with electricity at cost as a social necessity, a 'public good'.
This is what Labour ought to campaign on in 2026. And if they're too neoliberally lily-livered to do it, let's hear it from the Greens.
Jamie Gray: With power prices on the rise and 2024’s price spike still fresh in voters’ minds, politicians can reliably be expected to use electricity as a platform.
Separately, there are concerns about the impact that rapidly diminishing gas... reserves will have on the economy.
Power prices are on the rise – stemming mostly from the cost of distribution – and look set to continue upward over the next few years.
Stats NZ consumers price index data showed electricity prices were up 11.3% in the year to September.
Household prices increased by an average $10 a month in April 2025, reflecting rising levels of investment need for the electricity network.