Wellington is a small place. Everybody complains they’re always running into people they know, that it’s hard for young people to date people who haven’t been dated by their friends already, and that it’s impossible to have an impromptu coffee at Astoria without being recognised by some journalist. Read more
When Queenstown Lakes District council announced a referendum last week on imposing a levy on visitors to the tourist hub, it made headlines around Otago. In fact, the proposal potentially has implications for infrastructure and tax reform across New Zealand. Read more
There’s an old joke about the neighbourhood dog that loved to chase cars down the road – what would it ever do if it caught one? The Government has been a bit like that with tobacco harm reduction. Read more
Partisanship is a powerful and deadly drug. Canada is the latest in a too-lengthy list of places badly in need of rehab. Read more
The government is hyping Budget 2019 as a world-leading “Wellbeing Budget”. The December 2018 Budget Policy Statement proclaims the government’s key focus on improving the wellbeing and living standards of New Zealanders. Read more
Benjamin Franklyn is famously credited with writing “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. That may be true, but a cynic might retort that at least death does not get worse every time governments look for extra funding. Read more
Australia’s banking royal commission did not pull any punches in its final report released last month. Most of them were directed at Australia’s financial services sector. Read more
British Prime Minister Theresa May masters the art of political flexibility. Over the past three years, she has held a variety of views on many Brexit issues. Read more
In the mid‐1980s, New Zealand was forced into a major economic restructuring. Those adjustments were particularly significant for the traded goods sector, since export subsidies and import barriers were largely eliminated. Read more
“Few ways are guaranteed to make yourself unpopular in New Zealand: try claiming that pavlova was an Australian invention; hating the All Blacks; or maybe expressing sympathy for local government.” This is the opening paragraph in our new publication #localismNZ: Bringing power to the people. We launched it yesterday at a joint symposium with Local Government New Zealand. Read more
The jury is out for the released Tax Working Group’s “Future of Tax” Report, with the government promising to deliver its verdict in April. Unfortunately, a careful reading of the 200-page document already shows a missed opportunity to address New Zealand’s biggest elephant in the room: slow productivity growth. Read more
Scroll down your news feed, what do you see? Trump’s latest dumb tweet, an update on the crisis in Venezuela, maybe something on Brexit? Read more
The Tax Working Group’s proposed capital gains tax would constitute one of the most penal regimes in the world if implemented. A comprehensive CGT regime would also tarnish the simplicity and competitiveness of New Zealand’s internationally praised tax system. Read more
Comparing schools is complex at best – and a nightmare at worst. Every school has a different cohort of students, each with their own unique background. Read more
Last week, Thomas Coughlin reported that “the wellbeing framework that puts the ‘value of a statistical life’ at $4.7 million is coming under fire.” There is a lot to criticise about the wellbeing framework, and I am hardly one of its cheerleaders. But it is absurd to criticise it for trying to apply proper cost-benefit assessment – and even more absurd to criticise it for putting a value on statistical lives. Read more