Reports & Media

While holidaying in Taupo, we visited the Huka Prawn Park. There, powered by recycled thermal energy from the power station next door, Giant Malaysian river prawns are raised in 26⁰C warm water. Read more

From cowry shells to metal coins, promissory notes, paper money and plastic, humans have adapted to different currency types over the millennia. Then the first Bitcoin was issued on 3 January 2009. Read more

This week, the church of climate change was consecrated in New Zealand. Through widespread face-painting, chanting and dressing-up our newest saviour was born. Read more

When future historians look back at our world today, they will regard it as the end of an era. Over the space of just a few years, the fundamentals of our political and economic order have all changed. Read more

When Arthur Dent complained that he had not been informed of Council’s plans to bulldoze his house for a bypass, Mr Prosser, the Council officer, calmly told him that the plans had been on display for months - in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’. Arthur found the plans there the day before the bulldozers showed up at his door. Read more

Rabobank recently reported farmer confidence had plummeted in the September quarter. Some 41% of surveyed farmers expected the rural economy to worsen next year. Read more

This week, the Chinese government celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s 1949 takeover of the country. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s letter to Premier Li Keqiang noted the opportunity to reflect on China’s transformation over the past 70 years, and on how China “lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, raised their living standards, and created new opportunities for them to fulfil their aspirations.” The only problem is that everyone might be celebrating the wrong anniversary. Read more

Some call it jet lag without the duty-free, others call it a government time heist. Most people just call it daylight savings. Read more

For too long many New Zealanders have viewed low-decile schools as lower quality. And it is easy to see why. Read more

In his speech last week at the NZEI conference, Education Minister Hipkins reminded the audience of primary school teachers that he had scrapped national standards because he was listening, and because the standards were neither national nor standard. It was catchy rhetoric that, if we follow his logic, has implications for our national curriculum, too. Read more

Chutzpah really should be part of New Zealand's vernacular. I don't think I've heard it since moving to New Zealand almost 16 long years ago, but we do see a bit of it here. Read more

Although at very early stages, the Democratic Party’s process to choose its presidential nominee has thrown up three leading figures, two completely opposite policy platforms, and one likely outcome. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders represent the progressive winds of change in the Democratic Party, proposing policies that, if implemented, would radically change long-standing institutions in America. Read more