Chronic road congestion is taking a toll on the mobility of goods, services and people in New Zealand’s major urban centres, costing us over a billion dollars every year on wasted hours idling in traffic. That means lower productivity growth (i.e. Read more
Parliament rushed through the final stages of the Government’s Zero Carbon legislation this week, passing the Bill yesterday with support from all parties but ACT. For a law that will fundamentally affect the economy, and for a Bill that received over 12,500 submissions, the speed with which it was ushered through Parliament is remarkable. Read more
Chronic road congestion is taking a toll on the mobility of goods, services and people in New Zealand's major urban centres, costing us more than a billion dollars every year on wasted hours idling in traffic. In Auckland, for instance, drivers spend an average 40 minutes of extra time delayed in traffic during their daily commute. Read more
Congestion pricing, which charges drivers a user fee at peak times in overcrowded routes, can solve New Zealand’s shocking congestion woes, according to a new report launched this week by The New Zealand Initiative. Transport experts consistently agree congestion pricing is the single most-effective way to deal with chronic traffic bottlenecks while providing incentives to increase the use of public transport. Read more
In a world without laws about fists meeting noses, it would make a lot more sense to prohibit us from punching someone else on the nose without their consent than to ban us from punching ourselves on the nose. It might make sense to ban both, but it would be ridiculous to start by banning people from punching themselves. Read more
November 1 was the beginning of a new era for the European Central Bank. Former French finance minister and IMF director Christine Lagarde is the new president of the ECB. Read more
Until last week, the East German state of Thuringia was internationally most famous as the home of Martin Luther, Thuringian roasted sausages and the Bauhaus Movement. Now we can add last Sunday’s state election result to that list. Read more
Too many children pass NCEA without being functionally literate. Minister Hipkins committed, in his 2019 NCEA change package, to address this by raising the bar. Read more
I often describe New Zealand as the Outside of the Asylum – the last sane place in a world going mad. But just what should we make of New Zealand’s public health system? Read more
Last Thursday, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank pledged to offer on a daily basis at least $120 billion of cash injections in the short-term money market, up from the initial $75 billion supply agreed last month. Read more
Taken at face value, the government’s zero-carbon bill is a toothless façade. On closer examination, it looks more like a Trojan Horse for dictatorial government by decree. Read more
A Twitter-storm has raged over the last week about Auckland Council’s rules requiring community consultation before private developers can name new roads. Apparently, some Aucklanders believe that holding up housing projects while developers comply with council road-naming requirements is unacceptable red tape. Read more
I don’t know if anyone ever really believed manufacturing televisions in New Zealand made sense. Controls in place until New Zealand’s reforms prohibited importing fully assembled televisions, to encourage manufacture and assembly in New Zealand. Read more
As Karl Marx taught us, history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. With Brexit we are long past these two separate stages. Read more
Two developments this week on the Government’s flagship Zero Carbon Bill. First, Parliament’s Environment Committee sent its report recommending changes back to the House, having waded through more than 10,000 public submissions. Read more