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Table of Contents

Republished with Permission

Author: Bryce Edwards

PARLIAMENT, POLITICAL FINANCE, 2025
Greg Presland (The Standard): Who funds the Taxpayer’s Union?
Verity Johnson (Stuff): Labour, don’t waste this crisis
Geoff Fischer (Daily Blog): Political quackery: Dr Palmer’s prescription for what ails New Zealand “democracy”
Simon Shepherd (NBR): Podcast Summer Series: Political editor Brent Edwards on 2024’s highs and lows and what’s facing NZ in 2025 (paywalled)
Dita De Boni (Post): 2025 in the outlook for Māori, with Anthony Ruakere (paywalled)
Mike Friend: Rejection of the RSB
Ryan Ward: Neoliberalism in 100 words

TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL
Anneke Smith (RNZ): Parliament website issues could be cost-cutting - tech experts
Anneke Smith (RNZ): Extension for Treaty Principles Bill submissions 'likely' after website woes
Shannon Redstall and Caron Copek (Stuff): Justice Committee to discuss whether to extend Treaty bill submissions time frame
Hanna MCCallum and Maxine Jacobs (Post): Justice Committee to decide on extension to Treaty bill submissions (paywalled)

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SPY AGENCIES
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Trump card looms large for foreign policy in 2025
Gill Bonnett (RNZ): New Zealand still considering sharing criminal offending info with Five Eyes nations
David Robin (Evening Report): An indictment of NZ’s settler colonial and ‘Five Eyes’ spy paranoia over political critics
Kate Green (RNZ): Travelling through the UK? You might need to apply for this before you leave

HEALTH
Suetonia Green, Leigh Hale, Bruce Russell, Tania Slatter (Post): The vital role of Dunedin’s new hospital in the future of healthcare (paywalled)
ODT Editorial: Free vapes raise questions (paywalled)
Tara Shaskey (Open Justice Journalism): Grieving families speak out amid calls for 100% funding of ambulances services, rise in complaints
James Pocock (Herald): Tairāwhiti after-hours care tender delayed, ED faces daytime pressure

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
David Long (Stuff): Auckland Minister Simeon Brown wants fewer rules for the city in 2025
Craig Ashworth (Local Democracy Reporting): No confidence: Iwi reps call out Taranaki regional councillors
Crux: Revealed: The QLDC "hard bargain" for five campgrounds. Was it an Aussie steal? (paywalled)
ODT: Glendhu Bay campers fear tone of site will change
Avina Vidyadharan (Waikato Times): Locals back Nawton’s FIFO in booze war (paywalled)
Harriet Laughton (Post): Pipe work brings motorists seven months of disruption

TRANSPORT, INFRASTRUCTURE
Nick Leggett (Herald): Toll road announcement pivotal moment in transport future (paywalled)
Russell Brown (Listener): Our neighbourhood is now an exemplar of urban design philosophy all but outlawed (paywalled)
Phoebe Utteridge (Stuff): ‘Rare’ ghost tickets leave more Cook Strait ferry passengers waiting on refunds
Local Democracy Reporting:'Ready to take off': Plans to save troubled southern airport

CLIMATE
Katie Todd (RNZ): NZ's 10th warmest year on record: What we can learn from 2024 climate data
Michael Daly (Stuff): Despite two unusually cool months, 2024 was still NZ’s 10th-warmest year on record
RNZ: How has 2024 fared in the climate record books?
Jack Horsnell (1News): NZ's sunniest, wettest and warmest places in 2024

BUSINESS, EMPLOYMENT, MIGRANT WORKERS
Ernie Newman (Herald): Government should be focused on fixing market failures (paywalled)
Gill Bonnett (RNZ): Immigration adviser's poor communication a factor in scam, tribunal says
Liu Chen (RNZ): Migrant worker dies as workplace fall probed
Michael Wright (Press): Failed daycare deal triggers businessman’s $2.6m insolvency case and bailout (paywalled)
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): Whakaari White Island tour company has $8.5m debts, report shows

PRIMARY INDUSTRIES
Matthew Littlewood (ODT): Calls for use of webcams ‘impractical’
David Chaston (Interest): Our economic saviour?
RNZ: Fruit fly incursion: No new insects found as intensive search continues
Mike Dinsdale (Northern Advocate): Northland’s multi-million dollar horticulture industry at low risk from Oriental fruit fly

HOUSING
Federico Magrin (Waikato Times): House prices, rents, rates on the rise – when nowhere is affordable (paywalled)
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): 'Expect sub-5 percent home loan rates'
Dita De Boni (Post): Tales from the Tenancy Tribunal: Problems with pets (paywalled)

RESERVE BANK
David Chaston (Interest): The Deposit Takers Act upgrade spawns a new NBDT
Nicholas Pointon (NBR): New finance company receives non-bank deposit takers license (paywalled)
BusinessDesk: RBNZ issues first non-bank deposit-taker licence in nearly a decade (paywalled)
NBR: Out of Office Reply: Paul Conway (paywalled)

OTHER
Deborah Coddington: You’re not going out dressed in that!
Virginia Fallon (Post): Who remembers the outrage for Baby Ru? (paywalled)
Kate Green (RNZ): Meta removing fact checking will have 'catastrophic consequences' - disinformation expert
Lindsay Mitchell: Remembering Tariana Turia
John Lewis (ODT): ‘Matter of when, not if’ H5N1 bird flu arrives (paywalled)
RNZ: Otago farm's bird flu recovery could take months
RNZ: New Zealand walking trail inspired by Camino de Santiago
Ágnes Szabó, Mary Breheny, Polly Yeung (The Conversation): ‘Cold violence’ – a hidden form of elder abuse in New Zealand’s Chinese community
Mike Dinsdale (Northern Advocate): Plans for improved resilience of Northland electricity network announced
Moana Ellis (Local Democracy Reporting): Central North Island iwi elect first post-settlement board

Cartoons

Hubbard - The Post 9 January 2025

Emmerson - NZ Herald 9 January 2025

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It Is More Than Dismal Now

It Is More Than Dismal Now

My personal perspective on all this is much darker than Damien Grant’s. We have consistently failed to meet the challenges of the future over the last 25 years and each decade (or even half-decade) has felt more constrained, stressful and gloomy than the one before it.

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