The central Government has a local government problem. Rates have been rising too fast, regional councils are seen as inefficient and unaccountable, and the public wants action. Read more
On 5 February 2026, Donald Trump stood before the National Prayer Breakfast. The room was full of the faithful – pastors, politicians, and conservative leaders who had long believed that America’s renewal required a strong hand. Read more
New Zealand has been trying to fix its resource management system for the better part of three decades. The Resource Management Act has been amended virtually every year since 1991 and reviewed several times during that period. Read more
In this episode, Eric Crampton talks to Nick Clark about New Zealand's long and troubled history with the Resource Management Act — and whether the Government's 744-page replacement really fixes it. They examine the missing property rights protections, the absence of robust cost-benefit analysis, and the fail-safes needed to ensure the new framework delivers better outcomes for New Zealanders. Read more
In August 2025, Dr Oliver Hartwich delivered the inaugural Da Vinci Lecture at the Portfolio Construction Forum Strategies Summit, an essay called Leonardo’s Legacy. That lecture attempted something ambitious – to trace the civilisational architecture that connected the Renaissance humanists to our present moment, and to explain how that structure was failing us. Read more
European integration has always been a tug of war. On one side stand the enthusiasts. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to retired Major General John Howard about escalating US–Iran tensions, what 'phase zero' military build-up signals, and the pathways from diplomacy to potential strikes. With New Zealand holding, as Howard notes, around 14 days of fuel reserves, they explain why disruption in the Strait of Hormuz matters, and why energy security and national resilience deserve far greater urgency. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 This submission on the Department of Internal Affairs’ draft proposal ‘Simplifying Local Government’ is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative). Read more
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 This submission on the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill 2025 (the Bill) is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. Read more
It is more than two weeks since the catastrophic failure of Wellington’s sewage treatment plant at Moa Point. Massive quantities of raw sewage continue to flow into Cook Strait. Read more
If this is the first you have heard of ‘social justice day,’ do not feel bad. Few people have heard of it, despite it having featured on the United Nations’ calendar for nearly two decades. Read more
No straight thing can be built of our crooked timber. We can and will err, even with best efforts and intentions. Read more
In this episode, Oliver Hartwich speaks with retired Major General John Howard, whose 40-year military career included a senior executive role at the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Howard explains New Zealand is strategically underprepared for a more contested world, lacking clear national security and intelligence strategies, modern capability and sustained investment to protect a trading nation's interests. Read more
Few policies manage to unite the left, the right and the Taxpayers' Union in opposition. The Government's billion-dollar LNG import terminal in Taranaki managed it inside 24 hours. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich talked to Damien Grant on Different Matters about whether Donald Trump is driving the decline of the liberal rules-based order or is merely a symptom of deeper geopolitical shifts, drawing parallels between Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II as leaders whose recklessness and disregard for the systems they found set the stage for crisis. The discussion also covered the corruption they both see as a systemic risk to American democracy and its institutions, what the erosion of the rules-based order means for small trading nations like New Zealand, and why the trust being destroyed — both domestically and internationally — could take decades to rebuild. Read more