The public health system is a political football. Every change of administration is an opportunity to boot the ball at a different set of goalposts. Read more
It’s been hard to get a decent night’s sleep lately. Stories of the Government’s mismanagement of its quarantine facilities and of the pandemic worsening abroad make for restless nights thinking through safer ways of running those operations. Read more
The Cold War is mainly history today with more people remembering the spies than the ideological warfare. But at its heart, it was an ideological battle, which makes comparisons with today’s tensions between China and the West natural. Read more
On Tuesday afternoon, the Environment Select Committee published its report on Shane Jones’ Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Bill in Parliament ahead of its second reading. Despite its many flaws – and an unprecedented chorus of disapproval (including full page advertisements in the media) – the Bill has emerged from the Select Committee largely unscathed. Read more
The Government’s plan to recover from the Covid-19 crisis has essentially been about finding new ways to spend. As a result, public debt is expected to increase from 19% of GDP in 2019 a whopping 54% by 2024 and remain elevated for decades after. Read more
New Zealand’s border is its first line of defence against Covid-19. The gross failures exhibited this week cannot be repeated and require a complete reversal of the Government’s border procedures. Read more
Germany is leading the way with a debate on its constitution, the Basic Law. After seven decades in operation, politicians of all parties want to remove racist elements from it. Read more
If you try to make a balloon smaller by squeezing it, you should be careful. It tends not to work well. Read more
Never have governments and central banks spent other people’s money more freely to support incomes and boost banking system liquidity. Never before have the world’s major central banks’ policy interest rates been clustered so close to zero, if not already in negative territory. Read more
A new publication about Jacinda Ardern is hardly remarkable these days. The Prime Minister’s global celebrity status has created a small avalanche of books and magazine covers. Read more
This week, Trade and Export Minister David Parker was exposed to one of the world’s worst ailments: trade protectionism. After nearly two years of negotiations, the EU leaked its agricultural “offer” to New Zealand to European media. Read more
For the last couple of decades, public debt and banking system liquidity has been ratcheting up around the world after each recession or market correction. But no one appears to have any credible plan for restoring public debt, liquidity or central bank policy rates to normal levels. Read more
Ten weeks later, the coronavirus has revealed the government’s tightrope of managing the deeper changes happening to New Zealand’s economy. Crises always show the cracks. Read more
A government is not a household and reasoning from wrong assumptions can lead to errors. In the last recourse, households cannot print their own currency. Read more
An Overseas Experience is almost a rite of passage for Kiwis. Unfortunately, Covid-19 is likely to keep borders mostly shut for another year or two. Read more
