Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014, after 16 years as a commercial litigation partner. Roger was executive director of the Legal Research Foundation, a charitable foundation associated with the University of Auckland, from 2001 to 2009, and was a member of the Council of the New Zealand Law Society, the governing body of the legal profession in New Zealand, from 2011 to 2015. He is a chartered member of the Institute of Directors, a member of the University of Auckland Business School advisory board, a member of the editorial board of the New Zealand Law Review and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Latest reports:
Research Note: Nothing costs nothing: Why unjustified dismissal laws should not apply to the highly paid (2021)
Submission: The third consultation round of phase 2 of The Reserve Bank Act review (2020)
Roadmap for Recovery: Briefing to the Incoming Government (2020)
Policy Point: Extra quarantine capacity for 'critical workers' is critical (2020)
Research Note: The rule of law or the law of rulers (2020)
Submission: Better protections for contractors (2020)
Work in Progress: Why Fair Pay Agreements would be bad for labour (2019)
Who guards the guards? Regulatory governance in New Zealand (2018)
Scroll down to read the rest of Roger's work.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
The vaccination phase of the Covid pandemic raises some tricky conflicts. The Government is reluctant to make vaccinations compulsory. Read more
On Newstalk ZB, Mike Hosking reviews Roger Partridge's latest NZ Herald article "Should the Ministry of Health be responsible for pandemic policy?" Roger highlights various studies that have called for a dedicated agency to manage New Zealand's pandemic response. The NZ Herald article "Should the Ministry of Health be responsible for pandemic policy? Read more
Until a little over a year ago, questioning the Ministry of Health's handling of the pandemic was tantamount to heresy. The country had just celebrated 100 days without a case of Covid in the community. Read more
Mike Hosking reads out Roger Partridges' opinion piece (published in the NZ Herald) about why the Government can't drive covid strategy by looking backwards. Roger points out that looking back at what worked on the early part of the Covid journey may not help with what is in front of us now and looking backwards is a big part of New Zealand's current predicament. Read more
Unless you're reversing, the rear-view mirror won't help you navigate the conditions in front of you. Instead, you must look ahead. Read more
In 1870, British Prime Minister William Gladstone up-ended Britain’s civil service. Instead of officials being appointed by politicians following changes of government, Gladstone’s reforms introduced a permanent, politically independent public service. Read more
According to the Peter Principle, people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence." While intended as satire, many people will have their own story of the Peter Principle in practice. Of a boss not up to the role they have been promoted to fulfil. Read more
Roger Partridge talks to Mike Hosking on Breakfast about his new report that says our employment protection laws make it hard to fire poorly performing senior managers.
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Readers of this column will be only too well aware why the Government’s proposals to return to compulsory, occupation-wide collective bargaining (misleadingly dubbed “Fair Pay Agreements”) will damage New Zealand’s already fragile productivity growth. The evidence is set out in black and white in The New Zealand Initiative’s 2019 report, Work in Progress: Why Fair Pay Agreements would be bad for labour. Read more
A law change is needed to make it easier to dismiss highly paid staff who are underperforming. Roger Partridge discusses his new report with Wallace Chapman on Radio NZ - The Panel. Read more
The personal grievance provisions of the Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA) prevent an employer from firing an employee without good cause. Instead, dismissals must be justified. Read more
Wellington (Monday, 21 June 2021): New Zealand's productivity growth is being hampered by employment protection laws that constrain boards and business owners from firing poorly performing senior managers, warns a report from The New Zealand Initiative. In Nothing Costs nothing: Why unjustified dismissal procedures should not apply to the highly paid, Initiative chair and senior fellow Roger Partridge found strong arguments for New Zealand adopting an Australian-style carve-out of high-income earners from the unjustified dismissal provisions of the Employment Contracts Act 2000. Read more
Persistence looks set to pay off with one of Labour’s 2017 election manifesto promises: to reintroduce compulsory sector-wide collective bargaining across the country. Dubbed “Fair Pay Agreements,” the Government’s plan is to take New Zealand back to the system of awards that dominated industrial relations for most of the 20th century. Read more
Read our submission to the Ministry of Education on Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories in the New Zealand Curriculum (draft for consultation). New Zealand's history is much more complex than can be explained by arguments about the exercise and expression of power. Read more
Following the Government's annoucement, Roger Partridge and Oliver Hartwich discuss how Fair Pay Agreements are likely to harm productivity and would not be in the interests of workers, the unemployed, consumers, and overall wellbeing. Read our 2019 report, Work in Progress: Why Fair pay Agreements would be bad for labour. Read more
