OPINION

Last Friday, New Zealand signed its first city deal, a formal agreement between central government and Auckland, the country’s largest city. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called Auckland “New Zealand’s economic engine room” and promised to get it “firing on all cylinders.” Among the deal’s headline commitments are a plan to roof the Auckland Tennis Centre, a review of the ownership model for Eden Park, the national stadium, and $10 million to relocate Auckland Cricket to Colin Maiden Park. Read more

If you think hell is other people, then cities aren’t a great place to live. We are all at least a little bit annoying. Read more

Imagine waking up and discovering that, overnight, you had been granted superpowers. With a touch of your finger, you could cause new housing to emerge in places with housing shortages. Read more

Critics of judicial overreach face an odd challenge. The most sophisticated response is not to defend the decisions – it is to deny that the constitutional limits exist at all. Read more

Imagine hiring someone to run your business. Except you did not hire them. Read more

Auckland Council protects eighty views across the city. Mainly, not views from homes. Read more

When were you last genuinely enthusiastic about casting your vote? Not just resigned to the least bad option, but actually excited to tick that box? Read more

Try running a company where the board is accountable to shareholders but cannot choose the CEO. Instead, the CEO is appointed by an independent commissioner. Read more

A few years ago, I found an old calendar from 1979 in a box of things from my childhood. It was filled with the scribblings of a four-year-old. Read more

Winston Peters was in Westport on Sunday, announcing that a future NZ First government would return 50 per cent of all mining royalties to the regions where mining occurs. It is one of the more sensible growth ideas to emerge from this election campaign so far. Read more

New Zealand's resource management system is broken. Many attempts have been made over the past three decades to fix it. Read more

Every two or three years, the Ministry of Education and the teachers’ unions engage in the spectacle of ritual combat known as collective bargaining. In 2025, the Public Service Commissioner took over from the Ministry in the arena. Read more

Being a practical scheme whereby New Zealand's retirees may personally contribute to the fiscal sustainability they currently enjoy Superannuation reform is politically impossible, so let us not bother. Instead, let us fix the problem the way we have been fixing it anyway, just more honestly. Read more

Friction, at least as a metaphor for real-world inconveniences and minor hassles in doing things, is usually viewed as a bad thing. Something best done away with, if possible. Read more

There is an old joke about a man who visits his doctor complaining of fatigue. The doctor prescribes a course of vitamins and tells him to come back in a month. Read more