An apparent pause grips the political scene in the quiet days after New Zealand’s election. The old government remains in caretaker mode. Read more
We made it – or at least, we thought we had. After a tiring and often dispiriting election campaign, New Zealand has voted for a new centre-right government. Read more
How sweet is the sound of victory! On Sunday morning, the All Blacks won against the Irish team. Read more
The true state of public finances is not meant to surprise any incoming government. The Public Finance Act 1989 aimed to prevent any outgoing government from handing an incoming government the kind of horrors David Lange and Roger Douglas found in the books in 1984. Read more
Hamas’ attacks on Israel have repercussions that extend beyond the Middle East. These events have also magnified the social and political consequences of large-scale migration from Muslim nations to Europe. Read more
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. At least according to the Sage of Baltimore, journalist and essayist H.L. Read more
With the New Zealand election just a day away, the closeness of the race is astonishing. It is especially so when one considers the social and economic turmoil the country faces. Read more
Hamas’s actions last weekend were abhorrent, vile, and unjustifiable. It does not matter if your sympathies lie with Palestine or Israel. Read more
Waiting for the release of the official Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures has become more exciting since I launched GDPLive. It is like watching the lotto draw when the numbers drop, and you keep checking your ticket. Read more
If punters at Australia’s Betfair are right, there’s an eighty-nine percent chance any government formed after Saturday’s election will have a National Party Prime Minister. But the things Betfair can’t tell us makes me miss our missing election stock market. Read more
In Amusing Ourselves to Death, the American cultural critic and media commentator Neil Postman argued that television had debased public discourse. His central thesis rested on the idea that television, with its emphasis on soundbites and sensationalism, reduced even the weightiest of matters to mere trivialities. Read more
Winston Churchill is often wrongly credited with saying that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. If a modern-day Churchill sought an argument against democracy, he could easily find one in New Zealand’s election campaigns. Read more
With only a few days left until New Zealand’s general election, you might think the outcome should be easy to predict. Many polls have shown that New Zealanders think the country is on the wrong path. Read more
Pro-housing policy generally tries to find ways of outflanking NIMBYs – the Not In My BackYard objectors to new development. It’s an approach well-supported in academic research and reflected in New Zealand policy. Read more
October 15 cannot come soon enough, and not just because of a potential Rugby World Cup showdown between the All Blacks and Ireland. Like many, I have found Election 2023 a tedious affair. Read more