Reports & Media

On Monday this week, the prime minister said she was optimistic that the economy would not shrink further in the second quarter. That would avoid New Zealand officially being in recession. Read more

Paul Bloxham, HSBC’s chief economist, once described New Zealand as a “rockstar economy”. That was back in January 2014. Read more

I always believed that Magna Carta left us with a most valuable inheritance: the right to trial by jury. Even after learning that legal historians now regard this assertion as fiction, I did so. Read more

In February, New Zealand’s PCR Covid testing system fell apart. The Ministry of Health, the Director-General of Health, and the Ministers should have known it would happen. Read more

This month, Central Banking, the journal for the world’s monetary policy experts, hosted its virtual Summers Meetings. With inflation returning, the onset of a new European debt crisis, and the implications of geopolitical conflicts, central bankers have enough reasons to be worried right now. Read more

Just before 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, about a dozen NZTA and Ministry of Transport officials received a weekend-ruining email. Subject: “Cabinet paper: Urgent”. Read more

Pick your favourite bit of bad economic news. How about a 10 percent hike in food prices? Read more

On 4 June, The Dominion Post published a lengthy and disturbing article highlighting the woes and dilemmas of earthquake safety regulation in Wellington. It highlighted the arbitrariness of current building standards and decisions. Read more