It’s a pretty minor Budget item all things considered. Thirty million dollars over four years isn’t a huge sum, when the Government plans spending more than $150 billion in the 2026/27 fiscal year. Read more

When The New Zealand Initiative set out 235 recommendations for the next government last month, the one this paper chose for its headline was the proposal to pay younger workers less. The news sense was sound, because it is the recommendation that sounds least fair. Read more

At last month’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, New Zealand’s Defence Minister Chris Penk told Bloomberg Television that the country might usefully consider nuclear propulsion, the reactors that drive warships, as something distinct from nuclear weapons. Within two days, his Prime Minister had killed the idea on talkback radio. Read more

Government is awash in consultation processes. So much so that “consultation fatigue” is a real term. Read more