Some things that sound simple wind up being a bit messier than expected. Keeping kids off of social media sounds simple. Read more
Last year, Canadian First Nations leaders came to Tuahiwi marae, just north of Christchurch, for the third hui-ā-motu. They explained how they have been using their self-governing autonomy, which sounds a lot like rangatiratanga, to build economic self-determination. Read more
Sometime in the first half of 2019, Ji Ruan, a senior lecturer in computer science at Auckland University of Technology, organised an event to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He no doubt assumed that, in a free country like New Zealand, this would be no problem. Read more
Every time New Zealanders apply for a mortgage or business loan, they pay the price for the Reserve Bank’s controversial 2019 bank capital decision to increase capital requirements for major banks by almost 100%. The decision made our banks much more heavily capitalised than most of their international peers. Read more
Not long ago, doing anything on Canada’s Indian Reserves was almost as hard as doing anything on whenua Māori. Here, the roughly six percent of the country held under Māori land tenure is beset by regulatory difficulty far worse than that bedevilling the rest of New Zealand. Read more
The Local Government Commission has been consulting on a draft Code of Conduct for Local Authorities. The Code addresses what bureaucrats see as local government’s biggest crisis: councillors saying unpleasant things. Read more
New Zealand has a bad habit of trying to do everything everywhere all at once. It means national-level policy takes giant swings. Read more
Last week, Treasury released yet another warning about New Zealand’s fiscal future. It was the same message they have been delivering for twenty years: population ageing will create spending pressures that the current tax base cannot support. Read more
New Zealand’s economy shrank 0.9 per cent in the June quarter. A chorus of commentators, politicians and economists are blaming the Reserve Bank for this poor performance. Read more
A lot of changes are coming in competition policy. Last week, the government announced a package of reforms that, overall, set the Commerce Commission on a more activist tack. Read more
New Zealand has always tolerated a bit of theatre in local politics. This year, in Wellington though, it is more like the theatre tolerating the politics. Read more
Australians watching the economic drama unfold across the Tasman might find the plot familiar: An economy shrinks far faster than anyone forecast. Manufacturing slumps. Read more
A young TikTok activist has discovered something shocking about New Zealand policymaking. Brace yourself: A leading New Zealand think tank recommended a knowledge-rich curriculum for schools. Read more
At Eden Park, concerts are capped at twelve a year from six artists. Weekday shows must finish by 11 pm, with a maximum duration of five hours. Read more
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has one big job when it comes to monetary policy. That job is defined in its Remit – the contract that it has with the government. Read more