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
Tax policy is usually about picking your poison. Set company taxes too high relative to international norms and firms will want to set up abroad. Read more
Last year, the residents of the Hawkes Bay region dodged a bullet. They were not the only ones. Read more
If you are German, it is a little tricky to talk about one of Germany’s greatest philosophers. At least if you’re talking about him in English. Read more
Some New Zealanders might have trouble grasping international affairs without the domestic spin, so here it is. Donald Trump is Winston Peters with money. Read more
It is not easy to say where to pin the blame. Is it media consumers who want more and more hot-takes on the terrors of inequality? Read more
Before making an important decision it is a good idea to take a deep breath and count to ten. Policy decisions should be the same. Read more
I have a solution to inequality. It will take a long time, and I don’t think you’re going to like it. Read more
Distance makes the heart grow fonder, so they say. But sometimes distance can also make you see things more clearly – not just if you are farsighted. Read more
With most major political parties in favour of scrapping urban growth boundaries, land use regulations have captured a fair number of headlines over the past few weeks. And well they should. Read more
New inequality statistics are a bit like Pavlov’s bell. Even the hint of them can induce salivation – regardless of whether the meal winds up being meaty in the end. Read more