Denmark last Wednesday elected a Social Democrat-led government – so what else is new? Along with its Scandinavian neighbour Sweden, Denmark is the quintessential social democracy. Read more
If the Canterbury earthquakes taught us anything, it’s that the immediate response to a disaster is a very different thing from the rebuilding that has to follow. Disaster response is about triage, the good-enough, and avoiding substantial further harm. Read more
Winston Peters’ comments on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre were candid. Where Western politicians have turned not upsetting China over its human rights record into an art form, the Foreign Minister left diplomatic niceties behind. Read more
New Zealand has to slow down. At least, that was the overall message from the NZ Transport Agency’s Mega Maps data released this week. Read more
Readers of the NBR may have seen my column last week, “The great Brexit delusion”. For reasons that may not appear obvious, I comment in the column on proposals from the British government to curb the number of calories in restaurant meals and takeaway food. Read more
Remember former finance minister Steven Joyce’s claim that Labour’s fiscal plan for its 2017 general election campaign had an $11.7 billion “hole”? Back then, Labour intended to spend $572 billion in the five years to 2021-22. Read more
It used to be the case that the question of firing of public sector chiefs never even came up. Senior civil servants would themselves tender their resignations for catastrophic failures, and Ministers could accept or reject those resignations as appropriate. Read more
“With a little ingenuity, it is possible to devise methods of charging for the use of the city streets that are capable of adjusting the charge in close conformity with variations in costs and traffic conditions,” wrote William Vickrey, Nobel Laureate and the father of road pricing theory, in 1963. Little did he know that it would take more than 50 years for the technology to catch up to his vision. Read more
Through his review of NCEA, Education Minister Chris Hipkins has demonstrated how successful consultations can be. The six Big Opportunities presented last year by the Ministerial Advisory Group were a mixed bag. Read more
Two years ago The NZ Initiative’s executive director, Oliver Hartwich, and I presented to a full house at the Adam Smith Institute in Westminster. We were in London ahead of a visit to Switzerland with a delegation of New Zealand business leaders. Read more
There are a lot of promising initiatives in the coalition Government's first "Wellbeing" Budget. But delivering on that promise requires closing a currently open loop in the wellbeing policy process. Read more
The saying goes that a camel is like a horse designed by a committee. Of course, the analogy does not actually work to denigrate the work of committees – camels are highly adapted to desert life – but, still, the image of a misshapen horse holds meaning, and relevance to NCEA. Read more
It has been four weeks since the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) delivered to Minister James Shaw its analysis of the government’s 100% renewable electricity policy. If reports from a conference presentation given by the committee’s chair in April are correct, the results are not kind to the government’s commitment. Read more
Once upon a time, the pursuit of happiness was a personal duty. Not anymore. Read more
The Wellbeing Budget came in the government’s proclaimed year of delivery. But whether this budget will deliver the wellbeing outcomes everyone has been led to expect is a bit up in the air. Read more