Rather than rising since the 1980s, income inequality in New Zealand rose in the late 1980s and early 1990s, then flattened out. Some of that increase was real, but some of it was complicated – as explained late last year. Read more
Everything has its season. The slow January news period brings Oxfam’s annual condemnation of wealth inequality and calls for redistribution. Read more
KiwiBuild – the government programme to build or deliver 100,000 homes in 10 years – serves no useful public interest purpose and promises to endlessly distract and embarrass the government. That is the signal conclusion of KiwiBuild: Twyford’s Tar Baby, a research note released this week by The New Zealand Initiative. Read more
Being the most recent addition to the New Zealand Initiative research team, I would like to briefly introduce myself. My name is Patrick – also known more commonly in some social interactions as the “Father of Liz” or the “Husband of Julia”. Read more
KiwiBuild – the government programme to deliver 100,000 down-sized homes in 10 years – is a waste of time and money. It serves no useful material public purpose and absorbs time and resources that would be far better devoted to addressing the real problem – housing affordability. Read more
Every January, Oxfam releases a report on global wealth inequality. This year's Oxfam report contrasted the drop in wealth held by the less wealthy half of New Zealand with the rise in wealth enjoyed by the two Kiwis who made it on to Forbes' 2018 list of billionaires. Read more
The Tomorrow's Schools Independent Taskforce sees competition and self-governance as bad, collaboration and ministry management as good. It is seductive stuff, if a little Orwellian. Read more
Wellington is starting to empty, the morning commute is getting shorter, and the capital is finally feeling like summer – all signs that Christmas is not far away. And so it is the time of the year to thank you, our readers, for your interest in the Initiative’s work. Read more
It’s hard to make young people care about New Zealand Superannuation. I should know. Read more
After the tumultuous years of the Euro crisis (2010–15), Europe seemed to have returned to more normal conditions. Gone were the riots in Athens, the stock market rollercoasters and the immediate threat of monetary union collapse. Read more
Meet Jim. Jim first started paying taxes when he was 12 years old and picked up a lawn mowing job. Read more
Few countries centralise government power as much as New Zealand. In most areas of public life, Wellington calls the shots, makes the rules, and holds the purse strings. Read more
New Zealand is world leading in many aspects, most notably for Sir Edmund Hillary’s triumph on Mt Everest, Ernest Rutherford’s breakthrough in nuclear physics, and women’s suffrage. We can also be proud of leading the world in integrated data, a process that combines data from different sources and displays results in a unified view to users. Read more
We have to take the flower by the thorns and cut the animalism out of our everyday language. That is the message this week from PETA, or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Read more
It was during the discussions of measuring spiritual capital that the ghost of Sir John James Cowperthwaite hovered near. The shade whispered in my ear, “When I was Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, I refused to collect economic statistics for London. Read more