Reports & Media

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In early March, we were worried about Italy after the Italians had elected a parliament with no clear majorities. In late March, we got concerned about Cyprus because the European Union’s misguided crisis management undermined confidence in the safety of bank deposits across the eurozone. Read more

Last week, considerations to raise the speed limit on some of New Zealand’s open roads made headlines. The current speed limit of 100 km/h has not changed for about half a century – a period that has seen improvements to both cars and roads. Read more

Amid the doom and gloom in New Zealand retirement saving rates, there is a certain wistful longing for the system across the Tasman: superannuation in Australia has a contribution of up to 12%, has been around for 20 years, is compulsory, and has generated a massive pool of domestic savings. What’s more, your employer is compelled to pay it! Read more

In The New Zealand Initiative's Better Education Project, I am looking at how policy levers interact and affect the quality of teaching in schools. Teacher training and qualifications, or Initial Teacher Education (ITE), is one policy area of promise. Read more

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Last Thursday night, former Australian Prime Minister Hon John Howard spoke at The New Zealand Initiative's inaugural retreat in Auckland. Below is an edited excerpt of his speech in which shared his views on think tanks and how they influenced him during his time as a politician. Read more

Manufacturers and exporters have been complaining about the high Kiwi dollar for a long time. Opposition politicians are openly toying with the idea of changing the Reserve Bank’s mandate to manipulate the exchange rate downwards. Read more

Will it be Rudd or Gillard? The Australian Labor government’s fortunes are at an all-time low; Prime Minister Julia Gillard has emerged victorious; and the most talented and respected members of her cabinet have resigned. Read more

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Last night, former Australian Prime Minister Hon John Howard OM AC spoke to guests of the Initiative on 'Trans-Tasman Relations in the Pacific Century'. Today we have an excerpt from our chairman's welcome speech, and next week we will publish an excerpt from Mr Howard's speech. Read more

It’s break time in an all-male office. The boys gather around a window to watch a gorgeous woman outside seductively pop open a bottle of soda and show off her stunning figure. Read more

The election of Argentinian Cardinal Jose Mario Bergoglio to the papacy may not matter much to non-Catholics. But the public’s reaction to Pope Francis’ display of humility has a lot to say about our times. Read more

When I last wrote about Cyprus, the eurozone faced a political and economic dilemma in its smallest member state (The spectre protecting a sinful little Cyprus, January 24). With last weekend’s bailout, Europe’s politicians have once again managed to make a bad situation worse. Read more

If you filled in your census forms last week, you would have had to answer question number 13: "In which language(s) could you have a conversation about a lot of everyday things?" The wording of the question is clumsy. I wonder how our statisticians define ‘a lot of’, what they mean by ‘everyday’, and whether ‘things’ could have been more specific. Read more