If there is one country Prime Minister John Key seems to be as fond of as New Zealand, it is Switzerland. He has talked about making this “the Switzerland of the South Pacific,” although admittedly that was before the release of the Panama Papers. Read more
This week, Newshub released a new opinion poll showing a large majority of New Zealanders demand curbs to immigration. Three in five voters said so. Read more
The easiest way to catch a fish is to visit the local New World store. Commercial fishing can deliver seafood far more cost effectively than the average recreational fisher. Read more
Minister Simon Bridges has killed a few of my favourite things. By not granting tiny, low-risk iPredict an exemption from Anti Money Laundering regulations designed for the big banks, he helped to strangle it. Read more
Last week most of the country, or at the very least a third of it, heaved a high sigh of relief when the Independent Hearings Panel released its quite sensible recommendations on the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP). The sigh was justifiable to some degree considering just how crazy the outcome could have been given the precursors. Read more
In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 classic, Victor Frankenstein claims to have created his monster for the betterment of humankind. Of course, Frankenstein’s undertaking proved more arrogant conceit than utopian undertaking. Read more
In politics, the good enough is the best you can usually hope for. On most policy questions, the best is irrelevant. Read more
Forget housing affordability, if you want to quickly divide a room into two antagonistic camps ask whether New Zealand should increase its refugee quota. Those in favour of opening the doors are likely to say that New Zealand’s new pledge to accept 1,000 refugees a year is not enough. Read more
By the time you read this a bottle of champagne and bouquet of seasonal blooms will have landed on Conservation Minister Maggie Barry’s desk. It is the least the Initiative could do for someone who has made our lives so easy. Read more
Where to for recreational fishing as commercial industry targets double the exports? There is a saying, 'If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there would be a shortage of fishing poles.' Well, perhaps we should first concentrate on the shortage of fish. Read more
Stephen Jennings’s recent speech to a New Zealand Initiative audience (NBR, July 22) was a wake-up call to Kiwis. It had discordant and harmonious notes. Read more
Former UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson once quipped that a week is a long time in politics, so you can be forgiven if you’ve forgotten about National’s latest fix to the housing crisis: a $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund. Launched at the party’s conference, the fund would allow debt-constrained councils to borrow on an off-the-books basis to put in the infrastructure necessary for housing development. Read more
As a crude rule of thumb, presenting at a conference is always easier when you are telling the audience something it wants to hear. That was the case when I launched The Local Benchmark: When Smaller is Better at the annual Local Government New Zealand conference on Monday. Read more
Today the average Auckland house would put close to a $1million dent in your pocket. Meanwhile a competent teacher’s salary increases yearly and is capped at the seventh year at the mid $70,000 mark. Read more
I have a confession to make…I may be an illegal alien in Wellington. I never got official permission to move here. Read more