I hated sitting exams at school and university. I would break out in sweats and get the shakes. Read more
FIRST PUBLISHED OCT 31, 2022 Updated Jan 19, 2023 It is tempting to look at the usual economic indicators when evaluating a government’s performance at the end of a Prime Minister’s run ... employment, growth, inflation, and maybe the exchange rate. Read more
FIRST PUBLISHED OCT 31, 2022 Updated Jan 19, 2023 Jacinda Ardern swept to office in 2017 on the back of public anger over New Zealand’s long-simmering housing crisis. Rightly or wrongly, there was a perception that the previous National government had failed to address the problem. Read more
FIRST PUBLISHED OCT 31, 2022 Updated Jan 19, 2023 It was an exciting night in New Zealand politics. With bated breath I waited for Winston Peters, the perennial kingmaker in the country’s proportional representation system, to announce which of the two major parties would govern. Read more
FIRST PUBLISHED OCT 31, 2022 Updated Jan 19, 2023 In June 2020, the Labour government strengthened New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme, ensuring it would be effective in getting the country to net zero by 2050. The government then promptly forgot how an Emissions Trading Scheme works – if it ever understood the ETS in the first place. Read more
It is the time of the year when people reflect on the past year and wonder what the new year will have in store. So let’s take stock of 2022. Read more
Budget 2023 is an election year budget. Many voters want to be fed (bigger) hand-outs. Read more
As the year comes to a close, it is natural to reflect on both the good and the bad of the past twelve months. This year has been tough, with wars, inflation, and the fallout from the pandemic. Read more
Bad constitutional processes are necessarily worse than bad policy processes. Constitutions, whether written or unwritten, are our basic rules about how we make laws and elect representatives. Read more
A job you didn’t get that would never have been fulfilling. A breakup that turned out to be a dodged bullet. Read more
Perhaps the timing was simply a coincidence. But not long after central government firmed up its intention to take water infrastructure away from local government, and its intention to shift planning up from local councils to regional bodies, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta opened a review of local government. Read more
A rowboat drifts at sea, water seeping in from a hole in its side. Its captain has engineered all kinds of ingenious devices to bail out the boat and to dry sodden things. Read more
The Auditor-General is deeply concerned “about a lack of transparency and accountability over the spending of public money”. On 14 November, he took the extraordinary step of writing to Parliament's Speaker, Adrian Rurawhe and the chairs of two select committees about the problem. Read more
The Royal Commission announced this week will not help voters provide better-informed brickbats or bouquets in 2023. The inquiry will focus instead on lessons for future pandemics and will report back well after the election. Read more
Many students … intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance … to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. Read more