At the end of this week, New Zealand is back in a situation we hoped to have left behind. With Auckland in lockdown and the country on alert, Covid-19 is back. Read more
Every parent wants to give their child the best start in life – but when it comes to schooling, does money buy success? In the latest New Zealand Initiative report, we show state-integrated schools may be the best value for money, at least when it comes to University Entrance (UE) attainment. Read more
Even with the best of practices at the border, eventually something will get through. And something now has – though officials are still trying to figure out whether it came in with a passenger, or through refrigerated transport. Read more
Turkey is not the country you might expect to read about in a series of columns called “Spotlight on Europe.” Of course, you could make a geographical argument. A small part of Turkey, East Thrace, is European. Read more
Over the past fortnight the border issue troubling politicians and the media has been whether Kiwis returning from overseas should contribute to the costs of their managed isolation. But even with its half-billion-dollar price-tag, the cost of quarantining returning Kiwis is the least of the country's border concerns. Read more
State-integrated schools offer best value for money compared to their private and public counterparts and on average students at state-integrated schools are likely to gain university entry qualifications. While the average student at a state school has a 30.5% chance of gaining UE, those at state-integrated schools had a 38.8% chance. Read more
Wellington, 10 August 2020 - State-integrated schools are the best value for money compared with private and state schools, according to a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. Many parents want their kids to go to private schools. Read more
Presented as an engineering or operations management problem, it would seem almost impossible to solve. Thinking about it as that kind problem is now part of the problem at New Zealand’s border. Read more
This research note takes a closer look at school effectiveness across state, state-integrated, and private schools, otherwise defined as school authority (or type) using the Initiative's school performance tool. In a New Zealand first, we estimate each school’s contribution to student achievement across the three school authorities after separating out the contribution of the family socioeconomic background using data from Statistics New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). Read more
The problem isn’t just that the Provincial Growth Fund is poorly managed with slipshod standards and politically-driven spending decisions. The problem is that it exists at all. Read more
There must be a German word for it: That feeling when you are enjoying something that is just not quite right. Not a guilty pleasure, more an incorrect one. Read more
Last week, The New Zealand Initiative released a new research report: Pharmac: The Right Prescription? Pharmac’s core role is to get the best health benefits from medicines for New Zealand within a fixed budget. Read more
Roger Partridge tells Corin Dann on Morning Report that border exemptions for critical workers have become a bit of a lottery. A survey among New Zealand Initiative members showed that large projects are stalling, major plant commissions are being deferred and senior executives and their families are marooned overseas. Read more
In George Orwell’s “1984” dystopian novel, the Ministry of Truth was the ministry for propaganda and falsifying history. He would have appreciated the Resource Management Act 1991. Read more
Family coming to stay for the weekend is hardly a reason for home renovations. In a pinch, folks can bunk in together for a while. Read more