This is edition 2026/143 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. Democracy Briefing: Luxon Can’t Control Winston Peters
Bryce Edwards — The Democracy Project
- 🔥 Luxon calls FM Peters’ “go back to your own country… lie like a flatfish” to Xu-Nan “racist” and “offensive,” wants apology — Peters refuses. Confidence retained; no sack; Cabinet Manual silence; “vote National if you don’t like it.” Accountability deferred to 7 Nov.
- ⚖️ Post editorial: Luxon PM de jure only; Peters de facto. Overreach on full control, right on the informal veto — NZ First votes keep the lights on.
- 🎩 “Two hats” fails Cabinet Manual 2.56 (“at all times”); Lockwood Smith: FM is always FM. Chinese Embassy dealt with MFAT, not NZ First HQ. Helen Clark: “Don’t take any notice of the foreign minister” = preposterous.
- 🗳️ Willis/Mitchell/Pugh: MMP stability > sanction. Options short of sack unused. (Further sections paywalled.)
- 🎯 Takeaway: standards that can’t bite a coalition partner aren’t standards.
2. Tūwharetoa Water Shake-Down Creep
John McLean
- 🌊 1992 deed: lakebed + feeder streams to Tūwharetoa Trust Board as “symbolic” with public recreational access forever. 2007 deed: commercial licences and charges OK. 2017 affirm + more goodies.
- ⚖️ Aug 2017 High Court bid for carte blanche on commercial users; 2021 declaration under Justice Cheryl Gwyn (ex-SIS head, Treaty/Crown Law track, leaky-home settlement) — 7% levy on fishing guides’ gross. Guides quitting.
- 📜 No fiscal cap; trespass threatened; cash economy tip. Molesworth to Ngāi Tahu management under Potaka; SI water claim pending. Nat won’t legislate extinguishment or limits.
- 🎯 Takeaway: tribal commercialisation of common waters — Parliament never expressly greenlit this rort.
3. The (Non-Libertarian) Case for Freedom of Speech
Liam Hehir — The Blue Review
- 🗣️ Rights-balancing fails when expression must compete with dignity, safety, inclusion — old freedoms whittled by worthy ends.
- 🏏 Oakeshott: enterprise association (teleocratic — cricket team has a win condition; captain picks tactics) vs civil association (nomocratic — laws of cricket; umpire doesn’t favour a result). State is umpire, not national captain.
- 📣 Teleocratic state scores speech by official end; dissent = administered problem (“misinformation,” cohesion). Fraud/threats = conduct rules; misinfo regimes = directing the national mind.
- 🗳️ Poll-booth buffer zones OK as content-neutral process rules — not libertarian harm-principle pure, but civil-order integrity. Rights matter as features of civil order, not the whole foundation.
- 🎯 Takeaway: protect speech by keeping government in its lane — laws, not ideology engines.
4. Australia Finalizes Its Plan to Force Tech Platforms to Pay News Media
Cindy Harper — Reclaim The Net
- 💰 News Bargaining Incentive finalised: 2.5% charge on digital ad revenue of platforms ≥A$250m (search/social) unless ≥6 deals with AU publishers. 150% credit large / 200% small; full clearance ≈1.5% revenue.
- 📈 April draft 2.25% on total revenue → narrower base, higher rate, 4→6 deals. LinkedIn exemption gone. 3-year review.
- 📜 Sequel to 2021 Bargaining Code (Meta blocked news, then paid; deals lapsed 2024). Canada: Meta walked, news stays off FB/IG.
- 🇺🇸 Meta: discriminatory retroactive tax, FTA breach. White House: “foreign extortion.”
- 🎯 Takeaway: prop legacy brands or pay the state — second bite at the same apple.
5. Can Universities Recover Their Mojo in the AI Age?
John Raine
- 🎓 NZ extreme case of DEI/Te Ao Māori capture; Treaty Principles still in eng/med/nursing/law/teaching despite speech reforms. Staff silence, redundancy or exit.
- 🤖 AI commoditises content/micro-credentials; unis keep edge in labs/clinics/studios, critical reasoning, research-led teaching, rigorous exam authenticity. Avatar lectures + AI tutors coming; fact-vs-propaganda vigilance required.
- 📊 Admin bloat 1.5 non-academic : 1 academic (Aus/UK/US ~0.8). Cap enrolments for excellence; cut ratio to ≤0.9; AI admin; less marketing.
- 📜 Bologna 1988: morally/intellectually independent of political authority and economic power. Decolonisation activism out of taught curriculum; mātauranga optional, separate from science.
- 🎯 Takeaway: rebuild MoE culturally neutral; unis as truth-seekers, not activists. (User link resolved via pub archive after app-link 404.)
6. It’s Embarrassing It Took This Chinese Grad Student to Ask Christopher Nolan Hard Questions About “The Odyssey”
Michael Shellenberger — Public
- 🎬 Multiracial cast, no Greek principals, “Dad,” rapper tattoos — progressive translator: “nothing convincing to say.” Press soft until Yiyang Zhuge (BC PhD; Plutarch Moralia → Chinese bestseller).
- ❓ “Bard for a civilization at dusk?” Atonement not in Homer — Christianised? “We live in an age that demands apology from greatness.” Nolan: yes we apologise “or the audience rejects the greatness.” Oppenheimer dusk sensibility carried over.
- 📚 West closing classics depts while China drinks from the fountain free of guilt-laden self-castration. Rousseau→Marx→Derrida: civilisation as trauma. Padilla Peralta wanted classics to die of white supremacy.
- 🎯 Takeaway: shame isn’t that a Chinese scholar asked — shame is that she had to. 6M+ views.
7. Luck of the Irish
David Cohen — The Spectator Australia
- ☘️ Aussie Irish-citizenship-by-descent apps +133% 2022–25; 1,880+ via Foreign Births Register in 2025 (record since e-records 2013); Kiwis still surging. “Fairy gold dust passport.”
- 🇪🇺 EU free movement + CTA with UK — O’Mahony: study, work, unrestricted Europe. Nana’s Cork birth cert is infrastructure now; genealogy boom among people who couldn’t name a second cousin.
- 🔄 Map flipped: once Aus/NZ rich and Ireland basket case; now Ireland top-tier per capita, South Seas slipped. Return ticket on the old exit story. (President Connolly flotillas noted.)
- 🎯 Takeaway: romance of native land after leaving — now paperwork and a burgundy booklet.
8. The Secret Diary of Anthony Fauci (Aged 85¾)
Rebecca Weisser — The Spectator Australia
- 📓 Rand Paul dump = Adrian Mole with tenure. 111 Fifths despite Biden pre-emptive pardon (state AGs still hunting: LA, SC, AL, FL).
- 📊 Private IFR ~0.2–0.3% (bad flu); public 1–3% — up to 15× overstate. 15 Mar 2020: bragged persuading de Blasio to close NYC schools; Newsom followed TV Fauci. 27 Feb: “Stock Market crashing! Amazing day!”
- 🌟 Fame diary: Julia Roberts, Streisand butt-dial, “most famous person in the country.” Demonised GBD authors and DeSantis while Florida kept schools/bars open — Brandeis laboratory of liberty.
- 🇦🇺 Aus federalism offered no DeSantis — plenty of mini-Faucis, Dan Andrews worst, same script everywhere.
- 🎯 Takeaway: where was our Ron when we needed him?
9. Nobody Paid for This Article
Cristina Talacko — The Spectator Australia
- 💸 Albanese $67.6m Journalism Assistance Fund: 2,000+ journos / 185 orgs; up to $39k per FTE over 3 years to 2028. On GrantConnect — not on the mastheads doing energy politics.
- 📰 Nine entities >$16m; Conversation $1.03m, Crikey $737k, Saturday Paper $300k, Michael West $129k… Nuclear = “fantasy,” “brain fart”; renewables = half-price proof. Legitimate views — undisclosed govt support isn’t.
- ⚡ Labor locked 82% renewables by 2030, CIS underwrites 40GW, nuclear banned federally — then funds the newsrooms covering the bet. Nameplate ≠ continuous; full-cost nuclear vs generation-only wind/solar.
- 🛠️ Fix free: standing disclosure on site + byline tags; independent admin; no ministerial discretion. Jefferson preferred newspapers without government to government without newspapers.
- 🎯 Takeaway: if the policy is strong, it survives scrutiny; if the subsidy is fine, it survives daylight. Spec took no grant for this piece.
10. Rod Dreher: Tucker Carlson’s Antisemitism
Rod Dreher — The Free Press
- 🎙️ Common defence: “he’s only criticising Israel.” Jews do that daily. Carlson insists he’s no antisemite — religion forbids hating people for birth; no donors to please. AmericaFest reply to Shapiro who hadn’t even called him that.
- 🧾 Shapiro’s actual charge: silence on Owens/Erika Kirk conspiracy, soft-hosting Fuentes (Hitler-apologist lane, Vance smears), Tate, Darryl Cooper — mainstreaming without challenge.
- 🔍 Dreher’s method: look past the disclaimer to claims he lets pass and the cumulative picture they paint. (Full forensic case paywalled.)
- 🎯 Takeaway: saying you’re not antisemitic doesn’t settle it — the unchallenged guests and patterns might.
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