Wellington (4 June 2014): The New Zealand Initiative has expressed concern about a Fairfax Media report today that the RBNZ is not ruling out restricting mortgage lending according to household income multiples. Such a policy is currently being considered by the Bank of England under its new governor Mark Carney. Read more
Wellington (20 May 2014): The New Zealand Initiative has expressed disappointment that proposed reforms of Resource Management Act (RMA) have been abandoned, calling it a missed opportunity to address skyrocketing housing costs. The National Party’s bid to overhaul the legislation was stymied after coalition partners United Future and the Maori Party withdrew support for the reforms citing environmental concerns. Read more
Wellington (19 May 2014): The New Zealand Initiative today announced that Dr Eric Crampton has been appointed as its new Head of Research. Dr Crampton, a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury and author of the popular economics blog Offsetting Behaviour, will take up his new position in August. Read more
Wellington (30 April 2014): If New Zealand does not ease its restrictive foreign direct investment (FDI) regime, the country risks driving away overseas capital that could otherwise be invested to create jobs and contribute to the tax base. This is the message of Open for Business: Removing the barriers to foreign investment, the final report in The New Zealand Initiative’s series on FDI regulation. Read more
John Morris, co-author of Teaching Stars: Transforming the Education Profession, being interviewed on TV ONE Breakfast show on 5 March 2014. Read more
Wellington (3 March 2014): New Zealand has made a good start towards lifting the status of teaching, but the pace of change could be sped up if pay scales were linked to performance, not seniority. That is one of the findings of The New Zealand Initiative’s latest report Teaching Stars: Transforming the teaching profession. Read more
Wellington (31 January 2014): New Zealand’s relative attractiveness as an investment destination has slumped in the last 10-15 years according to Capital Doldrums: How Globalisation is Bypassing New Zealand, a report released by The New Zealand Initiative. Done well, foreign direct investment (FDI) creates jobs, usefully supplements domestic savings and further enhances the host country’s competitiveness by introducing leading-edge technologies, management expertise and access to overseas markets and expertise. Read more
Wellington (23 January 2014): The New Zealand Initiative has welcomed the introduction of a four new tiers of teaching positions as a huge step toward lifting the educational performance of New Zealand’s schools. The think tank has long been a strong advocate for such a policy, which was announced by Prime Minister John Key today as part of his State of the Nation address. Read more
Wellington (9 Dec 2013): To lift students’ academic achievement, New Zealand needs to take heed of how countries with high performing education systems have turned teaching into a profession. That is the message of the think tank’s latest report Around the World: The Evolution of Teaching as a Profession, a comparative study that examines how Singapore, Germany, Finland, England, Canada and Australia are focusing on teachers to deliver better educational outcomes. Read more
Wellington (4 December 2013): New Zealand’s sudden drop in the international education rankings is a clear signal that the country needs to lift teacher quality if wants students to be able to participate in the modern workplace, said The NewZealand Initiative. Compared to the 2009 results, 15 year olds saw their overall ranking in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) fall across the board, dropping from 7th to 13th in reading, 13th to 23rd in mathematics, and 7th to 18th in science. Read more
Wellington (18 November 2013): The government needs to urgently restructure financial incentives for local councils, shift the burden of water infrastructure costs, and create competition in planning if it wants to deliver affordable homes, according to The New Zealand Initiative’s third housing report. The report, Free to Build: Restoring New Zealand’s Housing Affordability, is the third in a series which explores how the housing market has lost its affordability since the 1970s, and how other countries have maintained stable house prices over the same period. Read more
Wellington (7 October 2013): While national standards, charter schools, and class sizes have dominated the education debate, research by The New Zealand Initiative shows teacher quality is the most important in-school factor influencing student achievement. But as the World Class Education? Read more
Wellington (2 October 2013): If the developed world is looking to put more power in the hands of people at a local government level, why is New Zealand headed in the other direction? According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 30 per cent of member state public spending is controlled by local government on average, but in New Zealand that figure stands at 11 per cent. Read more
Wellington (12 September 2013): Would-be home owners don’t have to resign themselves to ever increasing house prices according to the latest research from the New Zealand Initiative, which found three overseas markets who are getting it right. In brief, the research found: In Germany and Switzerland, where the right to build is entrenched and local government funding is linked to population growth, house prices were stable but high; In Texas, where projects outside of zoned municipal areas are run by private developers, house prices had been maintained at a low level for an extended period; and Britain’s planning system, which shares many attributes with New Zealand, has delivered housing shortages, steep house price inflation, and smaller, more urban dwellings. Read more
Wellington (4 September 2013): New Zealand has outperformed Australia on the latest Global Competitiveness Index for the first time, according to an annual report compiled by the World Economic Forum. New Zealand climbed five places from last year to come in at 18th on the overall ranking of global competitiveness, while Australia slipped one place to drop out of the top 20 for the first time with a score of 21. Read more