OPINION

The coalition agreements that formed the Government promised an important change to the Commerce Act. The Commerce Commission has always been able to take on traditional cartel arrangements: secret agreements where businesses divvy up a market, restrict output and raise prices. Read more

The Resource Management Act 1991 was an act of economic self-sabotage. Over three decades it inflated house prices by imposing what economists call a regulatory tax: the share of prices created by planning restrictions alone. Read more

I have spent more than two decades involved in education research and policy, focusing on New Zealand’s school system. Yet even I struggle to understand my primary-aged daughters’ school reports. Read more

Samuel Colt invented the revolver and a slogan to go with it. “God created men, Col. Read more

New Zealanders once took pride in being a resilient “do-it-yourself” (DIY) people. Working city fathers, like mine, would spend much of their weekends working on their houses, gardens, fruit trees or sheds. Read more

Hungary is a landlocked nation of ten million people with an economy smaller than New Zealand’s. It has no significant military, no permanent seat on the Security Council and no history of shaping international affairs. Read more

Turn on the news and you will hear endless references to the Crown: “Crown obligations,” “Crown land,” “Crown Treaty settlements.” Politicians make decisions “on behalf of the Crown.” Courts issue rulings about what “the Crown” must do. Yet ask Kiwis what this “Crown” actually is, and many will give blank stares. Read more

For the first time since the Second World War, New Zealand is being asked to make major economic decisions under direct threat from an ally. New Zealand is negotiating a minerals deal with the United States. Read more

Auckland is deciding where the next generation of homes will go. Plan Change 120 is a proposal to rewrite the city’s planning rules. Read more

Education Minister Erica Stanford stands accused of compressing a generation of reform into two years. Her programme is “radical,” “ideological,” and risks turning children into guinea pigs. Read more

At the World Economic Forum last month, Mark Carney delivered a speech that should make every middle power pay attention. The former central banker, now Canada’s Prime Minister, argued that the rules-based international order is fading. Read more

Think for a moment about how some pharmacy services are funded. Or rather, not really funded. Read more

Right now, Auckland Council’s zoning allows people to build about a million shops selling tasty pies. Tomorrow, someone could buy or lease a commercially-zoned site near you and turn it into a shop selling pies. Read more

Imagine Parliament passes a Schools Act “to promote the establishment of schools for the benefit of New Zealand.” Parliament is careful. It specifies exactly what the Minister must consider before approving a new school: the operator’s financial capability, site safety, compliance history, and consultation with local iwi. Read more

Consumer price inflation in New Zealand is not beaten. The Reserve Bank might decide it has cut interest rates a bit too much. Read more