Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He is a regular commentator in the media on public policy and constitutional law. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014, after 16 years as a commercial litigation partner. He is an honorary fellow of the Legal Research Foundation, a charitable foundation associated with the University of Auckland and was its executive director from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the editorial board of the New Zealand Law Review 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 former chartered member of the Institute of Directors, a member of the University of Auckland Business School advisory board, and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
This year, the Government will spend nearly $190 billion. Yet we know remarkably little about whether those billions represent value-for-money. Read more
Few ideas haunt economic debate as relentlessly as “trickle-down.” Perhaps it’s the appeal of attacking something that no one has ever argued. The theory supposedly claims that making the rich richer benefits everyone as wealth “trickles down.” It sounds plausible and feels unfair – making it the perfect villain. Read more
In November 2023, Ayaan Hirsi Ali stunned many of her long-time admirers by announcing her conversion to Christianity. “We can’t counter Islamism with purely secular tools,” she explained. Read more
New Zealand’s economy has a chronic capital problem – and it is getting worse. Over the last 50 years, New Zealand has become one of the most undercapitalised economies in the developed world. Read more
Auckland Council has confirmed what many suspected: in most of the city centre, 20 storeys is quite tall enough. We wouldn’t want to frighten ourselves into looking like a real city. Read more
Nothing to see here, folks. Just a $400 million Boeing 747 from a foreign monarchy — accepted by the US Department of Defense for presidential use, then slated for retirement on the tarmac in full flight readiness at the future former president’s pleasure. Read more
Next week’s Budget is Nicola Willis’s opportunity to prove the government means business about restoring fiscal discipline. Treasury’s long-term models are flashing red. Read more
Donald Trump returned to power with America’s highly politicised universities squarely in his sights. Within weeks of his inauguration, his administration launched a sweeping campaign targeting dozens of institutions nationwide. Read more
American political scientist Francis Fukuyama is best known for declaring the “end of history” after the Cold War. History, of course, had other plans. Read more
Resources Minister Shane Jones recently floated a novel idea: government-backed insurance for oil and gas investors to protect them against future policy reversals. Let that sink in. Read more
When does a “woman” include a biological male? And who gets to decide – Parliament or the courts? Read more
I have no doubt that Peter Smith loves the West. You can feel it in every line of his writing – the anger at its enemies, the contempt for its betrayal, the frustration at its leaders who lack the courage to defend it. Read more
Imagine owning a fortune in investments while lacking the ready cash to fix your crumbling house. That is New Zealand’s position today. Read more
As chairman of a business-funded think tank, I have been called many things — neoliberal, libertarian, right-wing, and even (indirectly) one of “Hayek’s Bastards.” But never left-wing. And certainly not “left of Jacinda Ardern.” That is, until I started writing about Donald Trump. Read more
Two ships passing in the night might share the same destination yet follow very different courses. So it seems with David Harvey’s latest response to my report for The New Zealand Initiative, Who Makes the Law? Read more