Last week, this newsletter’s third slot was dedicated to all those poor bots that have President Trump’s AI-slop forced down their digitised throats. While their position is unenviable, it pales in comparison to the miserable experience of African diplomats. Read more
Last month, the Ministry of Social Development released the latest of its excellent statistical reports documenting the extent of child poverty, hardship/deprivation in New Zealand. The proportions are much below their peak rates around 15 years ago but are still too high. Read more
Election 2023 brought us a new government committed to localist approaches. National had campaigned on greater localism as an alternative to the prior Labour government’s more centralising tendencies across water services, polytechnics, housing and farming regulation. Read more
The cover of MBIE’s new Workforce Diversity Action Plan shows nine staff holding signs reading “I belong” in several languages. Inside, it declares itself “People-centred | Performance-driven | Evidence-informed”. Read more
Sometimes, a consultation process makes me wonder just how the consultation document got out the door in the first place. Submissions closed last week on the Reserve Bank’s Keeping Cash Local consultation process. Read more
When I specialised in marketing for the business part of my economics degree, I came across a puzzling group of people: consumers. Ask them about their product choices and they will tell you what they care about, how diligently they compare different items and how much weight they put on quality. Read more
Everyone knows that culture matters, at least in a vague sense. But showing how it matters has been like pinning jelly to a wall. Read more
Last week, Eric Crampton made the case for passing the RMA replacement Bills, while noting some risks in their current form. Nick Clark argued that Parliament should pause them. Read more
It’s only going to get weirder from here, folks. Trump did not like existing social media platforms, so he launched his own, Truth Social, in 2022. Read more
New Zealanders have long seen university as the best educational route to the good life. Trades and industry training is seen as a second-best option. Read more
In 1987, on a school trip to the German countryside, my maths teacher made a prediction. Dr Müller had worked at IBM before turning to teaching in our industrial city, Essen. Read more
Ask a well-informed European to name the Council of Europe's constitutional advisory body, and you will usually get a pause. I had to look it up myself last week, which is awkward for a Europe columnist, and worse for one with a doctorate in law. Read more
No country moves people the way New Zealand does. Nearly three in ten New Zealand residents were born overseas. Read more
Oliver asked me to make the case for the government’s resource management legislation. It should be read in conjunction with Nick Clark’s critique below. Read more
Eric shows that, under the right ministers, the government’s replacement legislation should be an improvement on the existing RMA. But being better than the RMA is a very low bar. Read more
