Navigation for News Categories
Comment & Analysis
Featured Comment & Analysis stories
Trump's retribution sends a chilling message to dissenters
Analysis - Donald Trump's White House has a threatening message for anyone who might even be perceived to disagree with the president.
-
WTF: Weird Tariff Frenzy - what it means for NZ and the world
11 Apr 2025Analysis: The US and China are head-to-head in a trade war, and as the saying goes 'when two elephants fight, it's the grass that gets trampled'.
-
What's the message as Ukraine parades Chinese nationals who fought for Russia?
18 Apr 2025Analysis: Putting prisoners of war in front of media is almost certainly a violation of international humanitarian law.
-
Owners are officially no longer responsible for tourism accidents on their land - but they never really were
15 Apr 2025Analysis - Reforms mean landowners will no longer be responsible for tourism-related injuries on their properties. But it's not clear this has ever really been…
Comment & Analysis headlines with summaries.
-
Damning study of online abuse of female MPs shows urgent legal reform needed
10 Apr 2025Analysis: Recently released research found online threats of physical and sexual violence have caused those MPs to feel fearful, anxious and distressed.
-
RNZ celebrates 100 years - where to now for the national broadcaster?
13 Apr 2025Comment - Paul Thompson, chief executive and editor-in-chief of RNZ, takes a look at the state of journalism in 2025 and the role RNZ has in its future.
-
Six ideas NZ could borrow from Australia to cut smoking rates
8 Apr 2025New Zealand seems unlikely to achieve its goal to reduce smoking to 5% of the population or less.
-
Why Trump's tariffs highlight the need for NZ to build local capacity
7 Apr 2025Analysis: When retail executives start swearing during earnings calls, something is clearly amiss.
-
As more communities leave, what happens to the land?
11 Apr 2025Analysis - New research explores how land use changes after humans leave.
-
Peters at 80: 50 years of political comebacks
9 Apr 2025Analysis: Like a Pied Piper in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, he led the disgruntled all the way to the ballot box at the last election, Grant Duncan writes.
-
Australia election: Dutton's nightmare week as candidates meet for first debate
9 Apr 2025Analysis - As Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton met for their first debate before the 3 May Australia election, Dutton has had just about as bad a start to his campaign as could possibly be imagined…
-
Five years on from its first Covid lockdown, NZ faces hard economic choices
4 Apr 2025Analysis - Five years after New Zealand's first Covid-19 lockdown, it is clear there will be no going back to the pre-pandemic "normal".
-
NZ's Broadcasting Act is as old as Video Ezy. We need media reform for the streaming age
In 2025, New Zealanders' viewing and listening habits are radically different to what they were in the late 1980s.
-
Art for art’s sake? How to maintain integrity and still make money
31 Mar 2025Does an overemphasis on profit make cultural groups wary of market and strategy, hampering innovation in the art and culture sector?
-
Allies flinch as Trump blows up the West as we know it
Analysis - Some of the US's closest friends are rethinking their relationship in the face of isolationism.
-
Musk's grandfather and the 1930s movement aiming to merge the US, Canada and Greenland
A movement that wanted to merge North America into one nation and extend its borders might sound incredibly familiar.
-
Everything is blowing up in Elon Musk’s face
4 Apr 2025Analysis: All it took was losing US$100 billion in three months to make Musk change his tune.
-
New modelling reveals full impact of Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs – with the US hit hardest
Analysis - Previous tariff announcements by the Trump administration dropped sand into the cogs of international trade. The reciprocal tariffs throw a spanner into the works.
-
'Garbage time': When 500 million people change their spending, the world feels it
Analysis: China is not so in the midst of an economic crash as a slow decline of hope, Christian Yao writes.
-
After success with Boygenius, Lucy Dacus steps into the spotlight
30 Mar 2025Tony Stamp reviews American songwriter Lucy Dacus's fourth album, the third solo LP from Ringlets guitarist László Reynolds and some blunt, pithy techno from Canada's Marie Davidson.
-
Super Rugby Pacific round seven: the upsets keep coming
30 Mar 2025Analysis - Even the shortened round gave us a result for the ages. Video
-
Childhood exposure to air pollution can affect teens' mental health
27 Mar 2025There's a higher risk of conduct issues, lower educational attainment and substance abuse linked to higher exposure, researchers say.
-
Analysis: The government's latest plan for schools might fail the history test
Returning to national standards - either in name or just in spirit - should raise alarms for everyone.
-
Explainer: Why does everyone get so bloody angry about schoolboy rugby?
23 Mar 2025Jamie Wall reveals just what's going on in yet another controversy rocking the often turbulent and bizarre school rugby landscape.
-
Albanese vs Dutton: Australia's PM battle decades in the making
28 Mar 2025Analysis - Come May only one can be Australia's prime minister. Audio
-
New sentencing laws will further drive up NZ's imprisonment rates
Analysis - The Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill which is about to become law will likely drive New Zealand's already high incarceration rate even higher, Linda Mussell writes.
-
Does the end of Voice of America leave a void for China and Russia to fill?
25 Mar 2025By defunding the Voice of America and other state-funded US media outlets, Donald Trump risks opening the airwaves to the more overt propaganda of rival countries.
-
Dismal issues survey leaves National little room for error
Analysis - A record-low rating of government performance will be unwelcome news for Christopher Luxon in a political week focused offshore. Audio
Top News stories
- Weather live: Auckland cafe owner 'blindsided' by flash flooding during overnight storm
- Missing man Kory-Dean Wirihana 'vanishes' from Auckland Airport, police whānau concerned
- A loving father of two and a dining coordinator dedicated to service were killed in the Florida State University shooting
- Weather warnings questioned after overnight Auckland downpours
- One person dies following Hawke’s Bay crash
