OPINION

This morning’s newspapers carried a full-page open letter from 42,576 signatories pointing out how undemocratic is one aspect of the Government’s three waters legislation. The Government’s Bill confiscates local communities’ investment in water assets without compensation, and wrecks their future governance. Read more

At the risk of losing a few readers in this first paragraph, let’s start with a quote by a lawyer. To make it worse: by a German judge. Read more

There are years in which little happens. Then there are years in which everything seems to happen at once. Read more

On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank increased the Official Cash Rate (OCR) by 0.75 percentage points (pp) to 4.25%. This isn’t surprising given that inflation has reached a 30-year high of 7.2%, but is it too little too late? Read more

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. Even still, it is hard to see how policy could be less friendly to entry by grocers like Aldi or Lidl if it were intentional. Read more

According to Greek legend, the Chimera was a monstrous fire-breathing creature with three heads. It is usually depicted as a lion with the head of a goat protruding from its back and a tail with the head of a snake. Read more

A funny thing happened in the Supreme Court this week. The Court found that the Bill of Rights breached… the Bill of Rights. Read more

Is it enough to have good intentions? Or is it better to focus on the outcomes of one’s actions? Read more

History is replete with war motivated by religious disagreement. One example is the centuries-long clash between the Catholic and Protestant variants of Christianity. Read more

There was a time, not so long ago, when countries in the common law tradition had comparable legal systems. Yes, there had always been differences between, say, the law of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Still, their basic approaches to legal matters were similar. Read more

Last week, the government released the first parts of its proposed overhaul of the resource management system. If passed into law, the Natural and Built Environment Bill will, over a transition period, replace the Resource Management Act. Read more

The main legislation for the government’s proposed reform of the Resource Management System has over 850 sections and was released only three days ago. Critical parts of the framework are still missing. Read more

We at the New Zealand Initiative are aware of an ill-founded view that we are somewhat critical of our much-beloved government. Of course, this “alternative view” has no merit. Read more

So far, the feedback on my moustache has been mixed. My sister, on a Zoom call from Ottawa, compared me (somewhat oddly) to a capybara. Read more

No one likes to spend their precious Saturday morning waiting for the train. But that is exactly what residents of northern Germany were forced to endure in early October, after cables needed to operate the trains were cut. Read more