If asked to nominate the main objective of public schooling, most people would probably say that it is to teach young people the knowledge they need to thrive in adult life. However, according to the Education and Training Act, that is just one of four equally important objectives. Read more
A drunkard searches for keys under a street lamp. When asked if he lost them there, he replies: "No, but the light is better here." Economists can also seek solutions to poverty, inequality and social problems in familiar places. Read more
Every Saturday morning, our preteen son chats to his grandparents in Germany – on Skype. They swap jokes, blow kisses and add balloons or mistletoe to the screen. Read more
Come the next pandemic, we are going to be in the same stupid mess that we were in during the last one. Trusted pharmaceutical regulators overseas, like those in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the UK, will have given provisional approvals for vaccines that are safe. Read more
Last week, New Zealand’s Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced what she presented as a significant 25 percent cut to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s operating budget. The headlines were dramatic: the RBNZ would need to tighten its belt and focus on core functions. Read more
When does a “woman” include a biological male? And who gets to decide – Parliament or the courts? Read more
There’s a fragility to rules-based orders that has been around for as long as those orders have. So long as people generally agree that it is good to be bound by the rules, and that trying to change the rules is better than ignoring or breaking them, a rules-based order can persist. 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
“First and foremost, there is the need to maintain fiscal space for fiscal policy to play a shock-absorber role. That means paying our debt down during normal economic times.” With these words, Treasury Secretary Iain Rennie signalled a welcome return to sound economic principles in his speech launching the draft Te Ara Mokopuna 2025, the Treasury’s Long-term Insights Briefing on how to manage government finances sustainably. Read more
Easter is here, a rare four-day weekend when many of us will travel for getaways, see family and friends, or host those who have travelled to us. Yet Easter can be a trap for the unwary. Read more
Worries about social cohesion are on the rise. Initiative Chair Roger Partridge aired his concerns in the Herald last month, and this month saw the launch of a report on the subject by the Helen Clark Foundation. 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
There is a devil in European literature who claims an unexpected virtue: he intends evil but accomplishes good. In Goethe’s masterpiece “Faust,” Mephistopheles – essentially the devil – tells us: “I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.” This paradox from German literature’s greatest work perfectly captures a surprising phenomenon unfolding today: Donald Trump may be the Mephistopheles that Europe did not know it needed. Read more