This is edition 2026/151 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. Don Brash & Te Pāti Māori Agree on a Strategy
Ani O’Brien — Thought Crimes
- 🗳 30 years of MMP, blocs finally gaming both ticks. TPM: electorate votes + party vote Lab/Green (“one plan, two votes”). Brash: electorate Nat (ex Epsom/Tāmaki) + party ACT/NZF → National overhang, minors stack lists.
- 📏 How overhang works: keep extra electorates, Parliament expands (already 123). Scenario math: Nat 19.8% party / 43 electorates + ACT/NZF rises → House ~141, right 78. Nat leadership hates it — dilutes their caucus, kills list (Willis/Brownlee/Bishop risk).
- ⚠ TPM easier in theory, messier in practice: internal scars, Lab/Greens not reciprocating electorates. Sacrifice party vote you don’t have; lose electorates = extinction.
- 🎯 Takeaway: don’t hate the player — hate the game. Both sides will scream reform when the other side wins the exploit.
2. Te Pāti Māori Just Made Our Argument for Us
Don Brash — Brash & Mitchell (Hobson’s Pledge)
- 🏛 TPM launch: candidate vote TPM, party vote elsewhere for overhang. Waititi notes Māori Lab/list MPs already enter without Māori seats.
- ✅ That admits the point: Māori representation no longer depends on ancestry-defined electorates. Māori win general seats, lists, leaderships (7/12 party leaders Māori).
- 🎯 Strategy = use reserved seats to extract influence beyond nationwide party share. Time for a binding referendum — Referendum Now.
- 🎯 Takeaway: if the seats still enjoy support, their defenders should welcome a vote.
3. An Opportunity to Clean Up Lobbying
Bryce Edwards — The Democracy Project
- 🏢 Broken markets (power, banks, groceries…) + strongest Wellington lobbies. OECD: NZ “zero” on lobbying rules — no definition, register, regulator. Donations imperfectly regulated; access free-for-all.
- 📋 TOP “Clean Up Politics”: compulsory register, quarterly returns, 1-year stand-down (weaker than TOP 2023’s 18 months / Aus/UK/Canada), ban contingency fees, anti-corruption body. Definition fight (unions? law firms?) sank Holly Walker 2012.
- 💰 Hypocrisy attack on big donors: Hehir analogy — pay the tax rate that exists. Wilderland on board + Alajamber donations → transparency bar higher when you run on money-in-politics.
- 🎯 Takeaway: Nat/Lab must answer — this package, or defend the void out loud.
4. The Female Art of War: How Women Fight Different
Ani O’Brien — Women’s Rights & Wrongs
- 🏀 Essay #1 of WNBA/sisterhood series. Women compete hard — more via relational aggression: exclusion, reputation, coalitions, norm police — not less ambition.
- 🔬 Björkqvist/Archer/Campbell/Vaillancourt: indirect aggression patterns; nature and nurture; Queen Bee + black sheep. Sisterhood slogan is fragile under scarcity.
- ⭐ WNBA = lab: physical competition + all-female relational field + scarce status. Caitlin Clark grew the pie; relative status still stings. Next: tall-poppy case study.
- 🎯 Takeaway: not “women worse” — women human. Myth of seamless sisterhood obscures the real dynamics.
5. The Benefit of Law
A Halfling’s View (David Harvey)
- ⚖ Bolt’s More vs Roper: give even the Devil the law’s benefit — for your own safety when the winds turn. Dicey/Bingham: same law for powerful and despised.
- 🪓 Erosion is quiet: legal-aid cuts, delay-as-punishment, emergency powers that linger, “why does he deserve a lawyer?” Roper’s project by increments.
- 🎯 Due process isn’t anti-victim — it’s what separates conviction from vengeance that may catch the wrong person.
- 🎯 Takeaway: the forest of laws is shelter, not an obstacle course. Keep it standing.
6. COVID: Off-Label
Philip Crump — Cranmer’s Substack
- 💉 Medsafe approved Pfizer booster ≥6 months. Programme: 5 → Cabinet 4 → 3. Medsafe sheet never moved. Henry VIII Immediate Modification Orders, then s34A: DG authorises off-label population-wide + advertising carve-out from s20.
- 📄 RIS frank: outside Act’s scheme; trust/customer journey; stocks before expiry. Fourth dose: Pfizer no NZ application — statute filled gap. Mandates for some workers tied to intervals.
- 🔍 Royal Commission left off-label/advertising largely out of scope. New Medical Products Bill still designs programme off-label paths.
- 🎯 Takeaway: not “was 3 months wrong?” — who may authorise mass use outside Medsafe, and may that become a job condition?
7. Reimaging the Political Spectrum
Mark Imisides — The Spectator Australia
- 🟤 Blackshirts vs Antifa: same hall-storming; horseshoe/circle models paper over it. Left/right imply a metric that doesn’t exist when extremes behave alike.
- 📐 Proposed axis: degree of government control — anarchists → libertarians → conservatives → managerial centre-right → mainstream socialists → totalitarians (fascist/communist/Islamist) at max control.
- 🤝 Explains left soft-pedal on Islam, Queers for Palestine: birds of a feather + Bonhoeffer’s “stupidity” (outsource thinking, wilful ignorance, compliance). Pro-West vs anti-West as plain labels.
- 🎯 Takeaway: liberty isn’t at either pole — it’s resistance to overreach in every uniform.
8. Nothing Racist about Media Scrutiny of Jason Arday
Brendan O’Neill — spiked
- 🕯 Body barely cold before “he’d still be alive if white.” Sultana/Sarkar/unions: press racism. O’Neill: Cambridge/BBC public figure; fact-check is public interest.
- 📚 White fabulists mauled too (Salt Path, Frey, Glass). Best coverage hit institutions that waved diligence for DEI halo. Less paternalist gushing earlier might have spared the end.
- 🎯 “Racism” as ruling-class moral weapon to ringfence ideology from free scrutiny.
- 🎯 Takeaway: they racialised him first. Don’t let them shut the inquest with a slur.
9. Whose KiwiSaver Money Is It Anyway?
Paul McBeth — Jenny Ruth’s Just the Business
- 🏦 Big four lost net $2.71b transfers Mar year; still $66.6b / 1.77m members (45% FUM vs 59% in 2017); $379m fees (+8%). Avg balance ~$42.6k.
- 📈 Winners: Milford +$2.01b net; Generate +$772m; Kernel/Sharesies doubling. Fisher −$814m. Paycheques + employers + tax credit still dwarf manager skill narratives.
- 🎯 Members vote with feet; pie grows so banks “lose” without really losing.
- 🎯 Takeaway: it’s your money — and more of you are acting like it.
10. Some U.S. Allies Are Selling Out to China
Daily Wire — Polaris “Stars and Stragglers”
- ⭐ Report grades 20 partners. Stars: Aus (Huawei ban, subs ~$3b, minerals), Japan, India, Israel, Lithuania, Palau, Paraguay, Philippines, Taiwan, Ukraine.
- 📉 Stragglers: Brazil (trade + Huawei 5G), Canada (EV tariffs 100%→6%, export goal +50%), South Korea (~$340b trade; Lee “irreversible”), France (Macron welcome/AI-nuclear), Thailand (BRI rail + joint drills).
- 🎯 Polaris: China is the defining challenge; US can’t carry alone — share the burden or leave America solo.
- 🎯 Takeaway: alliance is a verb. Check the scorecard.
What our members are saying about Ten@10
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