> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Your Daily Ten@10 - 2026/163 - URL: https://goodoil.news/your-daily-ten-10-2026-163/ - Published: 2026-09-06T22:00:10.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-06T22:00:10.000Z - Description: 10 News Stories They Chose Not to Tell You - Author: Cam Slater - Tags: Ten@10, NZ Politics, Election 2026, Wellington, Local Government, Australia, AUKUS, Defence, Climate, Media Bias, Treaty of Waitangi, Opportunity Party **This is edition 2026/163 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! --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eq3v!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0eb7320f-7e15-4a52-aa57-3edb3322d1d0_900x613.jpeg) ## 1\. Democracy Briefing: Wellington City Council cannot escape blame for Moa Point *Bryce Edwards - The Democracy Project* - 🌊 About 14 billion litres of raw sewage have gone into Wellington's south coast over the last seven months, and it is still flowing daily. Edwards calls it the environmental outcome of a mega-million-dollar catastrophe at Moa Point. - πŸ“„ This week's Crown Review ran to 103 pages. Findings are brutal: risks were badly managed and Wellington City Council remained ultimately accountable. Mayor Andrew Little has accepted the disaster was preventable and avoidable. - 🚫 The report does not say whether there will be accountability or consequences. Instead the failure is labelled systemic. Edwards' point: in New Zealand public life, systemic failure too often means everybody failed so nobody can be blamed. - πŸ› Ultimate responsibility when the plant flooded on 4 February sat with Wellington City Council. Elected councillors and mayors over recent decades, he writes, have been negligent in governing one of their core activities. - πŸ”§ The council owned Moa Point and made the funding decisions, then contracted the work out to Wellington Water, Veolia, Filtec and Stantec. Those arrangements did not relieve the council of its duty to keep wastewater services safe and reliable. - πŸ“‹ Councillors received reports and assurances but did not sufficiently challenge them. The review rated council performance as certifying, with elements of passive. Under-governing the city's most important asset, receiving assurances instead of governing. - πŸ—£ Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul, formerly the councillor chairing Environment and Infrastructure with responsibility for capital works including Wellington Water, has defended the council. The review, Edwards says, pulls that defence apart. - 🧩 The Post's Tom Hunt found no single smoking gun. Responsibility was scattered across public bodies and contractors. Little's colourful take: Wellington needed a pain in the arse who would keep asking questions until something was done. - πŸ”’ Paid after that, with locked sections including The plant that was never finished, Who did not front?, Andrew Little's test, and A wider New Zealand failure. - 🎯 Takeaway: the free cut pins Moa Point on the council, not Wellington Water alone. Do not invent the paid sections. [Read More](https://www.democracyproject.org.nz/p/democracy-briefing-wellington-city?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1730808822974-b21a29d64055?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw1fHx2b3RlJTIwYmx1ZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3ODg0MjAxODd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080) ## 2\. The case for voting National in 2026 *Liam Hehir - The Blue Review* - πŸ—³ Hehir sets out three ways people decide how to vote if they are not loyal to a party: retrospectively (did the incumbent earn another term), by present mood, or by prudent judgment about what the next three years require. - βœ… On earned performance he gives National a respectable case: the India free trade agreement after nine months of talks, phones out of schools plus an hour each of reading, writing and maths, and curriculum rebuild around foundational knowledge. - πŸ“‰ ERO found the phone rules improved focus and teacher-reported achievement while reducing bullying. The NZ Crime and Victims Survey recorded 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime than two years earlier, after targets, visible policing and law changes. - πŸ˜” On how the country feels, National does poorly. Hard three years economically, late recovery, unemployment too high for comfort, households sick of prices and mortgages. Wellington has felt the fiscal corrections hardest. - πŸ‘” Luxon is the CEO type: plans, targets, milestones. Useful for discipline, poor for personal popularity in a turnaround. When things are stuck, Hehir says, he reminds you of the guy who made your dad redundant. - πŸ“Š Looking ahead: Budget forecasts an OBEGALx surplus of $2.6 billion in 2028/29, a year earlier than Treasury expected in December. Fragile recovery, not a triumph. Completing the repair beats starting again. - ⚠ Protest-vote trap: shifting party votes from National to ACT or NZ First does not usually shrink the centre-right seat total, but it changes coalition character and bargaining power, and can scare off marginal voters the bloc needs. - 🧾 The available alternative: Greens and Te Pati Maori tax packages (wealth taxes, high top rates, bank levies) would shape any Labour-led deal. Hehir calls the combination close to insane and says a change of government would mean starting fiscal repair again. - 🎯 Takeaway: Luxon is not owed another term. Hehir's case is whether voters owe it to themselves to see the work through and judge National again in three years. His answer is a clear yes, if not a triumphant one. [Read More](https://thebluereview.substack.com/p/the-case-for-voting-national-in-2026) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ru5T!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6286f3c2-9200-430e-8016-495465d9621a_583x318.jpeg) ## 3\. Opportunist Levelling *A Halfling's View - A Halfling's View* - πŸ“œ Opens with the 1640s Levellers and Diggers. Levellers wanted political rights within private property. Diggers saw property itself as the problem. The question: does this sound familiar? - 🎭 Opportunity presents as moderate and technocratic. Qiulae Wong talks evidence, innovation and common ground. Mainstream media have largely bent the knee. Jack Tame's interview was the exception. Helen Clark called it a trainwreck. - πŸ— The economic programme is not centrist. The Tax Reset pairs a substantial annual land tax with a universal Citizen's Income and compulsory retirement saving. A fundamental restructuring of citizen, property and state. - 🏠 Proposed Land Value Tax: 1.75 per cent a year on urban land value, meant to shift tax off work and onto land. The party predicts property prices fall 10 to 15 per cent and says plainly: That's the point. - πŸ“‰ Existing owners absorb a capital loss. Older homeowners may downsize or rent. Deferral does not abolish the tax. It follows the property into the estate. Ownership no longer means keeping the asset free of an annual central-government charge on capital value. - πŸ’Έ Claim: 70 per cent of New Zealanders gain income, 20 per cent unchanged. A comparatively small minority funds benefits for an overwhelming majority. Levelling, literally. - 🎁 Universal Citizen's Income: almost every adult would get $370 a week, or $19,400 a year, whether employed or not. Most existing benefits disappear. Inflation adjustment is conveniently overlooked. - πŸ” Add compulsory KiwiSaver, eventually 6 per cent from employees and 6 per cent from employers, aiming at a capital pool approaching $1 trillion. Land tax, universal payment, forced saving: the state decides more of how resources are allocated. - βš– Under MMP, a small kingmaker need not win 40 per cent. Policies rejected by most voters can still become bargaining chips. The author warns Labour could strike a Faustian bargain with Opportunity for the Beehive. - 🎯 Takeaway: Opportunity's brand is centrist. The package, he argues, is redistributive levelling with compulsion attached. [Read More](https://djhdcj.substack.com/p/opportunist-levelling) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kkH6!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbedf69ec-1672-4418-95fe-af3dcab57bba_2048x1152.png) ## 4\. Answers to Stuff You Wanted to Know. *Ani O'Brien - Thought Crimes* - ❓ First instalment of Stuff You Wanted to Know. Readers asked about He Puapua, TOP, coalition maths and more. This batch answers the shorter questions. - 🏠 MP Wellington accommodation: continuous payment capped at $36,400 a year for ordinary MPs and $52,000 for Ministers, or nightly claims up to $260 commercial / $70 other. Recess is not holiday. Landlords still charge rent. - πŸ’Ό ACC invests billions because serious injuries create decades of costs. Levies, Crown money and investment returns fund future claims so later levy payers are not hit for everything at once. - 🧾 Do Maori corporations pay no tax? No. Qualifying Maori authorities that elect the status are taxed at 17.5% versus the 28% company rate. Not automatic for every Maori-owned business. - πŸ“ˆ Public service: 60,381 FTEs in 2022, up 27.8% on 2017\. Peaked at 65,699 in December 2023, fell to 62,654 by June 2025, then climbed again to 64,535 in March this year. Still vastly larger than 2017. - πŸ‘Ά Material hardship: 14.3% of children, about 169,300, year ended June 2025\. Up from 10.6% in 2021/22\. Stats NZ says the latest year-on-year move was not statistically significant. It is a deprivation-indicator measure, not a synonym for starving or homeless. - πŸ—³ Electorate split risk: ACT and NZ First candidates can let Labour win a seat under first-past-the-post even when centre-right voters are a majority. Party vote pooling does not work that way. - βž• Overhang: when a party wins more electorate seats than its party-vote seat entitlement, Parliament grows beyond 120\. TPM has urged Maori-roll voters to party-vote elsewhere to enlarge a left coalition. - 🌍 Paris Agreement: New Zealand faces pressure to spend billions offshore on credits while others drag their feet. O'Brien calls Paris an expensive and ineffective waste of time, wants out, but understands the game of chicken first. - 🎯 Takeaway: a clarifying Q+A batch before the election essays. More short answers and longer pieces promised. [Read More](https://aniobrien.substack.com/p/answers-to-stuff-you-wanted-to-know) --- ![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7b14b8_2947fe4ce58848a681ec1a27681251da~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_217,h_286,al_c,lg_1,q_85/7b14b8_2947fe4ce58848a681ec1a27681251da~mv2.png) ## 5\. DON BRASH - The pros and cons of AUKUS: Submission to Australian public inquiry *Don Brash - Brash&Mitchell* - πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί Australia is holding a public inquiry into AUKUS. Panel includes Peter Garrett, Admiral Chris Barrie, Carmen Lawrence, Karina Lester and Leanne Minshull. Brash was invited to submit and appeared before it. - πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ He is not Australian. PhD at ANU, family in Sydney, long ties to both the United States and China, including years at the World Bank and later chairing ICBC's New Zealand subsidiary. - 🚒 First claim: AUKUS makes no sense as a way of defending Australia. Citing Paul Keating, eight nuclear subs could buy about 30 conventional ones. Better 10 conventional boats on station than two nuclear craft built for US South China Sea patrols. - 🎯 AUKUS, he writes, signs Australia up to US war plans for Asia. Pete Hegseth at Shangri-La re-emphasised US intent to keep China behind the first island chain. Australia endorses that ambition by staying in. - πŸ‡¨πŸ‡³ China wants Taiwan reunited and has few overseas bases beyond Djibouti. Trade already supplies what China wants from Australia. Hard to see a motive to attack Australia absent alliance politics. - ⚠ Remaining in AUKUS delegates Australian foreign policy to Washington. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Iran are listed as disasters. Painting China as the enemy puts a target on Australia's back and hands the trigger to the US. - πŸ‡ΈπŸ‡¬ Preferred model: Singapore's posture, friend of both the United States and China, enemy of neither. Hugh White's view: in a conventional US-China fight, China likely wins on shipbuilding and short supply lines. Australia would not tip the outcome. - 🀝 Second claim: AUKUS is a headache for New Zealand via the Anzac military relationship, even if Wellington only toys with Pillar 2\. If Australia is under attack, NZ sitting out is almost inconceivable. - πŸ’Έ So Canberra subcontracting foreign policy to Washington also commits New Zealand. Brash would rather Australia withdraw. There must be many better ways of spending A$360 billion. - 🎯 Takeaway: AUKUS is sold as defence. Brash reads it as a US war-plan subscription that endangers Australia and, by extension, New Zealand. [Read More](https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/don-brash-the-pros-and-cons-of-aukus?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9FbK!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1295d1c5-f74e-449b-a859-ebfb39728e70_600x600.png) ## 6\. The Capacity for Evil: Women Can Be Monsters Too *Ani O'Brien - Women's Rights and Wrongs* - πŸ“š Essay #1 of a two-part series. Recognising female agency, O'Brien argues, means recognising female culpability when women commit violence, cruelty and crime. - βš– Essay #2 will tackle the opposite overreach: men treating Clancy's online defenders as proof women are irrational, dangerous, or unfit for equal rights, including talk of witch-burnings and taking the vote away. - πŸ§’ Lindsay Clancy killed her three children, all under five, strangling them with exercise bands while her husband was out. Case before a Massachusetts court. She has pleaded not guilty citing postpartum psychosis. Prosecution says premeditation. - πŸ“± TikTok middle-class-mom videos pushed conspiracy theories that the husband did it, or that she was framed, or that a lookalike second wife was involved. O'Brien initially found them compelling as a true-crime consumer. - πŸ” Court filings and sober reporting did not match the TikTok narrative. Clancy's own recounting of how, in which order, and why she killed the children is treated as solid evidence she did it. - πŸŒ€ Online behaviour escalated into what she calls mass psychosis: window stunts to prove a push not a jump, Bratz-doll crime-scene videos with hundreds of thousands of likes, IRS tip-offs about the children's charity. - πŸ₯ Contrary to the help-was-denied story: insurance, multiple doctors, alternative postpartum options she did not take, husband earning about US$400,000, maternity leave, part-time nanny, daycare, and family support on hand. - 🧠 Mental illness is real and may be relevant. Experts disagree on postpartum versus other diagnoses. Equality does not require proving women are naturally gentler or more virtuous. - 🎯 Takeaway: nothing liberating about swapping the old idea that women are too irrational for agency for the new idea that women are too vulnerable for culpability. Full humanity includes the capacity for malice and evil too. [Read More](https://womensrightsandwrongs.substack.com/p/the-capacity-for-evil-women-can-be-monsters) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_Vgg!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ccb127c-a972-443c-9df2-c1c6efee8388_1236x918.png) ## 7\. Te Pāti Māori proposes 'a constitutional transformation in Aotearoa' *Grant Duncan - Politics Happens* - πŸ“œ Te Pati Maori has launched a Te Tiriti Entrenchment Policy, including $220 million for a deliberative process led by iwi, hapu and Maori, with space for tangata Tiriti, local government and the Crown afterwards. - βš– Two proposals get close attention: an independent Te Tiriti Commission that can investigate Crown breaches, require remedies and issue Te Tiriti Compliance Orders; and making Waitangi Tribunal recommendations binding on the Crown. - πŸ› The Tribunal is currently a commission of inquiry. Recommendations are not binding. Settlements still need Acts of Parliament. Binding recommendations would become something more powerful than recommendations. - πŸ“„ Scope is wide: the Tribunal can already inquire into any policy or practice adopted or proposed by the Crown if inconsistent with Treaty principles, and those principles are not fixed in statute. - πŸ›‘ Example: a Tribunal recommendation to halt the 2021 Maori wards law pending more consultation. Duncan asks readers whether the Tribunal should be able to bind a government to delay a bill already in the House. - βš– Binding powers would intensify fights over appointments and undermine parliamentary supremacy, making the Tribunal akin to a constitutional review court. That alone is a constitutional transformation. - πŸ›‘ Compliance Orders could stop or suspend executive action, with the government forced to the High Court to lift them. Duncan says that cuts across separation of powers. - πŸ—³ Electoral angle: TPM wants Maori-roll voters to party-vote left elsewhere to create an overhang and enlarge a Labour/Green/TPM bloc, possibly needing Opportunity too. Policy framed as a bottom line in any coalition. - πŸ—£ Willie Jackson and Chris Hipkins have said no to the $220 million dialogue, the Commission, and binding recommendations. Marama Davidson and Green policy are much closer to TPM on binding Tribunal recommendations and constitutional transformation. - 🎯 Takeaway: ACT's Treaty Principles Bill had an equal and opposite reaction waiting. Duncan sees the campaign set for a war of words across party lines. [Read More](https://grantduncanphd.substack.com/p/te-pati-maori-proposes-a-constitutional) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1mdL!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe45df28d-a605-4c95-bbe2-df0686c98c69_2982x1344.png) ## 8\. Caught Pushing An Apocalyptic Scenario They Knew Couldn't Occur, Climate Scientists Are Now Claiming Their Policies Prevented It *Michael Shellenberger - Public* - 🌑 Leading climate scientists say climate policies saved the world from catastrophic warming. On 1 September a consortium producing IPCC analyses released new scenarios. - πŸ“‰ New worst-case: 3.3C of warming by 2100 over pre-industrial levels. Down from 4.6 to 4.9C in the last three generations of IPCC scenarios. - ✍️ Zeke Hausfather and Justin Ritchie in 2019, quoted approvingly this May with Glen Peters and Piers Forster: business-as-usual near 3C rather than 4 or 5C is a testament to progress in global decarbonisation. - πŸ§ͺ Chris Smith of IIASA told Carbon Brief that back in 2010 RCP8.5 was not implausible, and we've now made it an implausible future. - πŸ›° Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS: scenarios shifted in light of what society is doing, so business is no longer usual. IPCC working-group cochair Robert Vautard: old high scenarios assumed no climate policies; many countries now have them, especially after Paris 2016. - 🚫 Shellenberger's free-page pivot: But the high emissions scenarios were never plausible. - πŸ”’ Paid after that sentence. About 2,894 words. No named leftover headings on the free page. - 🎯 Takeaway: the free cut is scientists claiming policy prevented apocalypse, then Shellenberger's denial that the old highs were ever plausible. Do not invent the rest. [Read More](https://www.public.news/p/caught-pushing-an-apocalyptic-scenario?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7b14b8_c6a1be880ec143f7ae0ecebfd9a4b726~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_189,h_195,al_c,lg_1,q_85/7b14b8_c6a1be880ec143f7ae0ecebfd9a4b726~mv2.png) ## 9\. RODNEY HIDE: The watchdog comes last *Rodney Hide - Brash&Mitchell* - πŸ“Š Credit to Family First's Bob McCoskrie for flagging the Quality of Life survey on institutional trust across New Zealand cities. - πŸš“ Rank order: Police first, then schools, hospitals, courts, then local government, then Wellington. Last was the media. - πŸ“‰ Across seven cities in 2026: 31% trusted central government, 27% trusted the media. More people actively distrusted the press (45%) than the Beehive (43%). Local councils beat both. - πŸ§ͺ Ipsos, paid for by the councils, surveyed 5,725 adults from March to May. The same question in 2024 already had media at 27% and government at 28%. Two surveys. Same bottom of the table. - ❓ Question: How much do you trust the following institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand? Scale of one to seven. Wellington spelled out as MPs and government departments. Media was just the media. The lump. - πŸ• The public was invited to rate the watchdog against the thing it is supposed to watch. The watchdog lost. - πŸ“’ A press trusted less than the government cannot hold the government to account. It can only lecture. People who have decided you are not straight with them will not take your word on the Prime Minister. - πŸ™ Tauranga: one in five trusts the media. More than half do not. Not talkback vibes. The official city survey. - 🎯 Takeaway: they will say the public has become cynical. Hide says the numbers show the public has been paying attention. If the press wants the job back, notice it has already lost it. [Read More](https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/rodney-hide-the-watchdog-comes-last?ref=goodoil.news) --- ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!W51L!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe5edf6c4-104b-4e19-856f-b4df65010295_732x486.png) ## 10\. Everybody wants to go to heaven (but nobody wants to die). *Chris Trotter - Chris Trotter* - 🎢 Old saying from the American South: Everybody wants to go to heaven (but nobody wants to die). Turned into a bluegrass standard popularised by Loretta Lynn. - πŸ—³οΈ Trotter recalls quoting it nearly a quarter century ago around the election when Peter Dunne and the worm made United a kingmaker. - πŸ’° Concern then was fiscal, not religious. New Zealanders wanted to keep core welfare-state services but were unwilling to accept the tax levels needed to fund them. - πŸ“ˆ That contradiction, he writes, has only grown more glaring. - 🚫 Any party that floats higher taxes to improve the welfare state risks being howled down by an angry chorus of naysayers. - πŸ”’ Paid after that. About 1,405 words. Free page is only the opening and a trial paywall. No leftover headings. - 🎯 Takeaway: the free cut is the heaven/taxes contradiction. Subtitle promises the state's meagre fiscal diet is killing it. Do not invent the paid case. [Read More](https://christrotter418256.substack.com/p/everybody-wants-to-go-to-heaven-but) --- ## What our members are saying about Ten@10 **Elizabeth** These articles are compulsory reading for me and the perfect addition to the usual list of Goodoil items! **Lynne** Absolutely brilliant to receive these current and thought provoking articles. **Jonathan** Just wanted to let you know that I’m loving this new 10@10\. Much appreciated from someone who chooses to read/watch almost NO mainstream media. **Murray** Cam, relish your output as the newspaper in Christchurch is so intent on non news. Thankyou **Fred** Thanks for Ten @ Ten, really enjoy reading it.Keep it up. All the best, keep healthy. **Jocko** Wonderful info not otherwise available in NZ. More power to your elbow! Thanks.