Reports & Media

Wellington, 7 October 2020 – Over the next few years, New Zealand will face an immense challenge to keep Kiwi’s employed, get the economy growing again and rein in debt. According to a report by The New Zealand Initiative, there is also an important opportunity to fix the worst social and economic ills that have plagued this country for decades. Read more

Wellington, 6 October 2020 – New Zealand’s education system is a mess, riddled with unscientific ideas and seduced by child-centred orthodoxy, according to a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. Falling from its height as the envy of the world just twenty years ago, the Ministry of Education has let New Zealand’s education system unravel by turning the focus away from teaching knowledge and on to 21st-century “competencies.” In a comprehensive new report, New Zealand’s Education Delusion: How bad ideas ruined a once world-leading school system, author Briar Lipson traces how the country’s schooling system lost its way and provides solutions for correcting the dangerous path. Read more

Briar Lipson's new book New Zealand’s Education Delusion: How bad ideas ruined a once world-leading school system explains why there is a rot at the core of schooling in New Zealand. The report found that educational standards have plummeted over the past two decades. Read more

Research Fellow Briar Lipson explains in a new book why New Zealand’s education system is a mess, riddled with unscientific ideas and seduced by child-centred orthodoxy. She talks to John Campbell on TVNZ Breakfast about how to create the corrective shift that will reverse the decline and narrow New Zealand's educational inequities. Read more

Following the release of her new book New Zealand's Education Delusion: How bad ideas ruined a once world-leading school system, author Briar Lipson discusses her research and findings with Sean Plunket on MagicTalk. The New Zealand Initiative · Are we making NCEA credits too easy for kids to get? Read more

Educational standards have plummeted over the past two decades. Where New Zealand children once topped international league tables, they now perform mediocrely due to education providers blindly adhering to the philosophy of child-centred learning. Read more

Wellington, 7 October 2020 - If the major political parties were taking climate change seriously, they would rely on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) not add wasteful targets, says The New Zealand Initiative chief economist Dr Eric Crampton. Today, the Labour party unveiled its promise to mandate zero-emission buses by 2025 and to ban some new coal-fired boilers. Read more

Anybody who watches house prices in Wellington will realise there is a mismatch between demand for homes and supply. Wellington City’s Draft Spatial Plan attempts to address this and the fact that over the next 30 years an extra 80.000 will move to Wellington. Read more

Jacinda Ardern’s staff ran into a problem after she declared New Zealand free of the coronavirus in June. It was impossible to keep the prime minister on schedule, they griped, because she was constantly mobbed by supporters. Read more