Author: Ani O'Brien

Opinion: Ani O’Brien The sudden enthusiasm for a “Grand Coalition” between the New Zealand Labour Party and New Zealand National Party is being presented by proponents as a sober, pragmatic response to the complexities of modern governance. Its advocates speak the language of stability, maturity, and responsibility. They gesture toward international examples, invoke economic necessity, and lament the supposed distortions of coalition politics under MMP. But under the paternalistic managerial tone and the carefully chosen euphemisms, is an admission of political failure and more troublingly, a repudiation of the democratic choices voters have been making and the subtle-as-a-gun signals they have been…

by Ani O’Brien Inside the Press Gallery: power, silence, and the accountability gap in New Zealand media On the evening of 13 May 2025, Finance Minister Nicola Willis hosted a pre-Budget drinks event in her parliamentary office. The event appears, in official records, as “EVENT: Press Gallery… Parliament… Invited Guests” at 6pm in her ministerial diary. It was intended to be a fairly standard engagement. These gatherings are a familiar ritual; relatively informal, off-camera, and populated by the country’s most senior political journalists alongside ministers and staff. They exist in the grey space between professional obligation and social familiarity and are a…

OPINION: Ani O’Brien. Today must end it. After a weeks and months of constant cycles of breathless speculation, anonymous briefings, and increasingly hysterical headlines, Christopher Luxon walked into caucus, forced the issue, and called a vote of confidence on his own leadership. It passed. That has to be it. Line drawn in the sand. What happens next inside the National caucus will determine whether they crash and burn before the election. The vote has been held and the question of confidence in Luxon’s leadership has been tested and answered. From this point forward, the only thing that will register with…

Opinion: Ani O’Brien. TOP isn’t above Left and Right. It’s just the Left in better packaging. Every election cycle, like clockwork, Opportunity (TOP) reappears. It refreshes its branding, gets a new leader, rolls out a new slate of candidates, and the media, just as predictably, froths over them. Since Gareth Morgan founded the party in 2016, this has become a familiar ritual in New Zealand politics. TOP is treated less like the minor party polling at less than 1% and fighting for relevance, and more like a recurring idea of the sensible alternative, the one that might break through this…