OPINION

From Sunday, my colleague Jason Krupp and I will be attending the annual Local Government New Zealand conference. It is LGNZ’s flagship event of the year, bringing together 600 delegates from New Zealand's councils along with key players from the private sector, business, government and non-government agencies. Read more

This week we released a research report, A Matter of Balance: Regulating Safety. It looked into the costs and benefits of Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment's (MBIE) campaign to reduce workplace injuries from falls from heights of less than 3 metres in residential construction. Read more

Australia National University’s Dr George Barker suggested this week that New Zealand could do well by strengthening its copyright legislation. He warned against the fair dealing exceptions that have crept into the law and asked, “Why not have copyright law like property law – i.e. Read more

As readers of this column will be aware, I am not Angela Merkel’s greatest fan. Nor do I think that her strategy on Greece has been particularly successful. Read more

It’s always a bit tough reporting on the New Zealand Economics Association annual conference. Not because the papers are filled with opaque mathematical theory, or because speakers were less than lucid – neither of those are true, for the most part. Read more

The application of Trans-Tasman Resource (TTR) to go looking for heavy minerals off the West Coast captured few headlines when it was announced last month. It quickly sank below notice amid the tack and gybe of business journalism. Read more

No wonder Winston Churchill once won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He had a wonderful way of summing up political affairs, such as this famous quote: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” We can only wonder what Churchill would make of Europe’s Greek crisis. Read more

On 1 July, smoking in prisons was banned in the Australian state of Victoria, following New Zealand’s lead. But is stripping prisoners of their smokes a benefit to society? Read more

The Kapiti News reported on 17 June 2015 that lower water consumption following the advent of water metering "now means a pricing increase to recover the costs" of piped water supply. Considerable local scoffing ensued. Read more

With the exception of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the Greek referendum did not produce any winners. But it had one big loser: German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Read more

Rapid technological change is more often than not a painful thing, littered with the bodies of those firms and industries that failed to adapt - just ask Kodak, Betamax and former mobile phone giant Nokia. That painful change is brewing again, this time in the form of next generation of transport technologies, such as the Uber. Read more

It is often easy to take for granted the strong institutional backbones supporting highly-developed, western democratic nations like New Zealand. Robust rule of law, separation of powers, governmental accountability, personal freedom, private property protection, bodily autonomy and social safety nets tend to exist with little conscious thought – or even appreciation – by many. Read more

Everybody knows that inequality has been rising in New Zealand since the reforms of the 1980s. We know this because the media and politicians tell us so. Read more

National’s latest social housing announcements have left a lot of low-hanging fruit for critics. There is enough ambiguity for the Opposition to set the expectations of what good evidence-based reform would look like. Read more

Philosopher George Santayana’s quote about those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it is somewhat of cliché, but only because it is damned applicable. But if there is one situation where it seems to be most apt it is with Greece and its debt crisis. Read more