PARLIAMENT, POLLS, PUBLIC SERVICE
Andrea Vance (Sunday Star Times): Managed decline. Or what 2025 taught us about politics in Aotearoa (paywalled)
Virginia Fallon (Sunday Star Times): Santa, extra pudding, and the naughty list: Voters give their verdict on NZ politicians (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): What the last week of the political year tells us about 2026 election and Christopher Luxon’s life-changing defection (paywalled)
Luke Malpass (Post): Why nothing is settled heading into 2026 (paywalled)
Tova O’Brien (Stuff): 2025 political awards: From the Mouldy Lunch Award to the award for Hand-In-Blender Self-Implosion
Greg Dixon (Listener): The 2025 Drunken Muldoon Awards (paywalled)
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): My politician of the year
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Winston Peters offers advice to anyone thinking of rolling a Prime Minister
Andrea Vance (Post): Uneasy lies the voter: Peters’ kingmaker crown divides opinion (paywalled)
Duncan Garner (Listener): Whatever the question, under MMP, Winston Peters is the answer (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Post): Chris Hipkins on making his own luck, not writing a book, and not attending the Covid inquiry (paywalled)
Luke Malpass (Post): Christopher Luxon: ‘People don’t always understand the plan’ (paywalled)
Chris Trotter: Lucky Christopher, Unlucky Chris. (paywalled)
Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle Lee-Mather (RNZ): Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke tops list of favoured candidates to lead Te Pāti Māori in new poll
Julia Gabel (Herald): Te Pāti Māori’s Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke teases announcement at Waitangi 2026
Herald: Why David Seymour decided being himself was worth the risk
Phil Smith (RNZ): The House: Parliament’s year in numbers
Brent Edwards (NBR): Silly season, GDP growth, super ministry, Nelson Tenths Trust (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): School’s out for summer
Mike Houlahan (ODT): We’re planning to be talking about planning again in 2026 (paywalled)
Steve Braunias (Newsroom): The secret diary of .. Xmas parties
Steven Cowan: The NZ Left: Still waiting for the breakthrough. Will 2026 be any different?
Andrew Gunn (Press): The good boy’s Christmas-time lump-of-coal delivery plan (paywalled)
Victor Billot (Newsroom): Christmas Ode
Andrea Bevin (Newsroom): Ministers getting new BMWs as ‘class 1’ luxury fleet cut in half
Tony Wall (Stuff): ‘Some would call this thievery’: Backlash to new fees for the vulnerable revealed
ECONOMY, COST OF LIVING, RESERVE BANK
Lloyd Burr (Stuff): Nicola Willis, when will things actually start getting better?
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): My word of the year, deja vu (paywalled)
Vernon Small (Sunday Star Times): An aerial view of the year that was (paywalled)
Mandy Te (Interest): Finance Minister Nicola Willis on banking competition, inflation, the upcoming election and hard working NZ families
Brian Easton (Pundit): Consolidating The Fisc
Sam Stubbs (Sunday Star Times): No asset sales? Really? (paywalled)
Damien Grant (Stuff): New Zealand deserves better than Nicola Willis’ plan
Liam Dann (Herald): Smooth sailing for the economy in 2026 ... we can hope! (paywalled)
Liam Dann (Herald): Finance Minister Nicola Willis is looking for ‘rock solid’ not ‘rock star’ economy in 2026 (paywalled)
Tim Hurdle (Post): 2026 will be a battle for economic credibility (paywalled)
Kylie Klein Nixon (Sunday Star Times): Summer holidays are vital to help us refill our emotional wells (paywalled)
Herald Editorial: Is the Kiwi summer break too long? (paywalled)
Ben Thomas (Post): The madness before our annual ‘productivity plunge’ (paywalled)
Greg Presland (The Standard): Much ado about nothing
Mandy Te (Interest): Early KiwiSaver withdrawals topped $255 million in November
FAST-TRACK, RMA, CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, CONSERVATION
Katie Todd (RNZ): Australian company Santana Minerals pushes for quicker decision on its fast-track application
Kate Newton (RNZ): Supreme Court finds government must consider climate change when offering oil and gas tenders
No Right Turn: Climate Change: Losing the battle but winning the war
Paul Gorman (ODT): Preparing for anything
Catherine Knight: How to advance the Libertarian Agenda: Step 56
Peter de Graaf (RNZ): Fishing for crayfish to be banned on Northland’s east coast
RNZ: More funding announced in battle to eradicate yellow-legged hornets
HEALTH, DISABILITY, ACC
Ruth Hill (RNZ): Hospitals asked to save $510 million despite $538 million going unspent
Sue Teodoro (Local Democracy Reporting): Wairarapa Hospital’s situation ‘a genuine scandal’: McAnulty
Ruth Hill (RNZ): Nurse union says Health NZ settlement delays is costing them a settled workforce
Jimmy Ellingham (RNZ): Retired Waikato couple frustrated over pushed-back deadlines for owed holiday pay
Shannon Pitman (Open Justice Reporting): Northland youth suicide cluster: Minister for Mental Health pressures Health NZ on fixes
ODT Editorial: Mobility cuts may strand the disabled (paywalled)
Tracey Roxburgh (ODT): Lack of ACC cover riles: ‘It needs to change soon’ (paywalled)
Felix Walton (RNZ): Sexual abuse survivors at risk as funding cuts loom - support group (paywalled)
Melanie Earley and Rayssa Almeida (RNZ): Woman on work visa endures long ACC wait after rare blood clot found in brain
RNZ: Some urgent care clinics extend hours
MĀORI-CROWN RELATIONS, NELSON TENTHS, TREATY, TE REO MĀORI
Māni Dunlop (Te Ao Māori News): Luxon admits trust gap with Māori over divisive policies - vows to improve outcomes
Julia Gabel (Herald): Iwi forced into legal action over Treaty settlements to make Crown uphold commitments
Graham Adams: Maori nationalism takes a hammering in 2025
Samantha Gee (RNZ): South Island Māori landowners to get more than 3000 hectares returned by Crown
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Historic settlement: Crown and Tau Ihu Māori reach $420 million deal
1News: Nelson Tenths: Land returned to descendants in NZ’s oldest property dispute
Mike McRoberts and Brent Edwards (NBR): Government settles Nelson Tenths for $420m plus land (paywalled)
Pokere Paewai (RNZ): Study shows the experience of Māori grappling with ‘te reo trauma’
Peter de Graaf (RNZ): Parliament bill set to return historic Māori site in Northland to Ngāpuhi
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Ground-breaking summit sees return of Adrian Orr (paywalled)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT, WATER
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Private company running Auckland elections admits privacy breach
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): This is why postal voting needs to go
Herald: Waitangi Tribunal seeks new approach in local government
Simon Wilson (Herald): The pugnacious Wayne Brown, public transport praise, voided Papatoetoe votes, ridiculous Rons (paywalled)
Todd Niall (Newsroom): Debt grows for liquidated firm owned by former Wayne Brown aide
Julie Jacobson (Post): She unseated one of NZ’s longest serving mayors, so who is Peri Zee? (paywalled)
Joanne Naish (Press/Post): Is this the country’s most rural, cheap and cheerful Christmas tree? (paywalled)
Kurt Bayer (Herald): Kaikōura developer Garry Robertson launches defamation action against district council and senior official (paywalled)
POLICE, CRIME
Jared Savage (Herald): Cabinet Minister Casey Costello releases new government strategy to combat gangs and organised crime (paywalled)
Pretoria Gordon (RNZ): Threat from organised crime needs new approach - Associate Police Minister Casey Costello
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): NZ crime in 2025: Gangs, drugs, and a Minister for Mafias?
Jimmy Ellingham (RNZ): Ministerial advisory group defends catering bill for public meetings around New Zealand
Benn Bathgate (Waikato Times/Post): Minister hails ‘back to basics policing’ for reduction in violent retail offending (paywalled)
Sam Sherwood (RNZ): Privacy Commissioner notified following ‘technical issue’ with police investigation management tool
Melissa Nightingale (Herald): Jevon McSkimming scandal: Why disgraced ex-cop was able to slip outside court backdoor (paywalled)
Paula Penfold (Stuff): How a trusted senior police official became a foreign state’s ‘gatekeeper’
Hanna McCallum (Post): The two-year wait for a detective after reporting sexual assault (paywalled)
Jonathan Killick (Post): The cartel and the corner shop: how crime syndicates took over NZ’s illicit cigarette trade (paywalled)
Joseph Los’e (Herald): Tom Phillips manhunt: The police threat assessments that shaped their four-year search
CARTOON