Everyone knows the old joke about the traveller who, on asking directions to a better place, is told he shouldn’t have started from here. But stepping back from it a little, we always start from here. Read more
Last October, Minister for the Environment David Parker announced a two-year agenda for an improved freshwater management system. Following on from an election campaign in which freshwater management featured prominently, the announcement should not have come as a surprise. Read more
When US psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Righteous Mind in 2012, he himself may not have known how prescient it would be. The book’s subtitle is Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Read more
Students and employees – even high-tech workers – are usually taught what to learn but rarely how to learn. This gap is an enormous opportunity. Read more
It’s too easy for bad statistics to influence policy. About a decade ago, BERL added up every dollar spent by heavier drinkers, counted some other costs twice, and claimed that alcohol use cost New Zealand $4.8 billion per year. Read more
Few subjects are as dry as prudential regulation. As something that relates to banks, it is not the most obvious topic requiring our attention. Read more
Late last year, embattled Chancellor Angela Merkel resigned the leadership of her Christian Democrat CDU party and announced she would not seek a fifth term. After a tight contest, the party’s general manager Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer succeeded Merkel as leader. Read more
When it comes to funding our roads, the average New Zealand driver is not getting the best deal. For one, we have been paying for our streets and highways roughly the same way for the past 50 years, despite technological advancements and global best practice. Read more
This year’s close alignment of Easter and Anzac public holidays translated into 10 days of joy, family time and… congestion – with the New Zealand Traffic Agency (NZTA) issuing multiple heavy traffic warnings across the nation. Unfortunately, traffic jams are not restricted to holiday seasons in New Zealand. Read more
“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake it for the genuine article.” Poe’s Law warns that without strong warnings, parody will confuse people. We occasionally get into a bit of a pickle with the third column in our Insights newsletter. Read more
The primary teachers’ union, NZEI Te Riu Roa, has called a series of nationwide meetings to decide on industrial action to take place early next month. NZEI proposes primary teachers “work to rule” from 15 May, culminating in a national strike on 29 May. Read more
Essayist and author Nassim Taleb is more than a little tedious on Twitter. But he gets one big thing very right. Read more
In a letter to a select committee last week, Liz MacPherson, chief statistician of Statistics New Zealand (SNZ), said about 240,000 individuals had only partially completed the 2018 census. This, on top of the 480,000 individuals who did not complete the census at all, increased the census data gap to more than 700,000 individuals (or 14.3 per cent of the population). Read more
It seemed a simple enough question. It was, really. Read more
A shocking 700,000 individuals - or 14.3 percent of New Zealand’s population - either partially completed or did not complete the 2018 Census. More shocking than the numbers themselves was how this information was made public. Read more