Fertility rates have been dropping for a very long time, but the recent plunge is precipitous. Neil Johnson, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at Flinders University, took us through the numbers at a panel session for Fertility Counts Aotearoa at Parliament last week. Read more
Picture a country where unelected judges, not elected politicians, make the laws. Where courts rewrite statutes they do not like and reshape long-standing legal rules based on their views of ‘society’s changing values.’ Sound far-fetched? Read more
BusinessDesk’s Pattrick Smellie had the best synopsis of New Zealand First’s announcement on foreign direct investment this weekend: “it was less important for what it said than for the fact that Peters said it.” The Overseas Investment Act has placed New Zealand among the developed world’s least hospitable climates for foreign investment. Other countries recognise investment as a benefit to be sought. Read more
It is a Monday afternoon in Wellington. Journalists gather in the Beehive’s theatrette for the weekly post-cabinet media briefing. Read more
Imagine a game of tug-of-war in which one team steadily gains ground. Now, picture our legal system as a rope, with Parliament on one end and the Supreme Court on the other. Read more
The United States offers a stark warning of the consequences of an activist judiciary. The outsized role of the U.S. Read more
There are easier jobs than NATO Secretary-General. And if you have just finished almost 14 years as Dutch PM, it is hardly a downscaling option. Read more
As New Zealanders face rising costs of living, ACC's proposed levy hikes threaten to add another financial burden. It is time for a critical look at our accident compensation system. Read more
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) just released its Annual Report for 2024, providing an opportunity to examine how the central bank views its own performance. The Governor’s statement is revealing, praising a “Great team, best central bank” while ignoring the serious macroeconomic mismanagement by the current leadership. Read more
I am kicking myself that we at the Initiative had not read Federated Farmers’ submission to the Banking inquiry before drafting our own. Their submission exhibits a creativity that I had thought New Zealand had lost decades ago – sometime around 1987, if we had to pin a date on it. Read more
The government's Resource Management Act (RMA) reform is shaping to be a tale of two approaches: one necessary but potentially problematic, the other more fundamental and promising. Last weekend, Ministers Chris Bishop and Shane Jones unveiled a long-awaited list of 149 projects that will be included in the government’s controversial Fast Track Approvals Bill. Read more
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has just issued his government’s plan for the final quarter of 2024. If that sounds more like a corporate earnings call than political leadership, you would not be far off the mark. Read more
New Zealand moves inexorably from the ‘faff around’ to the ‘find out’ phase of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill process. On Friday, Google’s New Zealand blog noted that if the bill becomes law, Google would be “forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers.” Google described the Bill as setting a ‘link tax’. Read more
They say you can’t beat Wellington on a good day but in one important respect, ‘they’ are wrong. Christchurch will have Wellington beat, hands-down, unless Christchurch Council manages to screw this up. Read more
Every three years, Inland Revenue undertakes a long-term insights briefing on the tax system. This year’s could spark a shift away from tedious and fruitless discussions of Capital Gains Taxes. Read more