It is the time of the year when people reflect on the past year and wonder what the new year will have in store. So let’s take stock of 2022. Read more
In May 1945, Prime Minister Winston Churchill led Britain to victory. He was celebrated as a hero, but only two months later, the Brits elected a new Parliament and a new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. Read more
This submission in response to the Grocery Industry Competition Bill is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. The Initiative has been actively involved in the Commerce Commission’s market study process investigating retail grocery competition. Read more
Insights 47: 16 December: The most exciting breakthrough of 2022 Insights 46: 9 December: Enquiring into Covid Inquiries | Three cheers for the Auditor-General | Bullsh*t detectors are the answer Insights 45: 2 December: Yet more Government contempt for New Zealand’s democracy | Wayne Brown's not-so-super city | Make it Zero Insights 44: 25 November: It’s cruel only to sound kind | Free speech and the decline of religious war | Bill of Rights contortions Insights 43: 18 November: Too early to say | My important moustache | No such thing as a free lunch? Insights 42: 11 November: How to make a problem worse | Real-time inflation tracker | Was the Spanish Inquisition ever a thing? Read more
Budget 2023 is an election year budget. Many voters want to be fed (bigger) hand-outs. Read more
As the year comes to a close, it is natural to reflect on both the good and the bad of the past twelve months. This year has been tough, with wars, inflation, and the fallout from the pandemic. Read more
Bad constitutional processes are necessarily worse than bad policy processes. Constitutions, whether written or unwritten, are our basic rules about how we make laws and elect representatives. Read more
In this week's podcast The New Zealand Initiative's chief economist, Dr Eric Crampton, chats with Jonathan Alve, National Operations Manager at Hospitality New Zealand, about proposed amendments to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act and the challenges these may hold for licence holders. To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
Sean Plunket talks with NZ Initiative's Dr Eric Crampton who gives us an economic wrap-up for 2022. Read more
A job you didn’t get that would never have been fulfilling. A breakup that turned out to be a dodged bullet. Read more
Perhaps the timing was simply a coincidence. But not long after central government firmed up its intention to take water infrastructure away from local government, and its intention to shift planning up from local councils to regional bodies, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta opened a review of local government. Read more
A rowboat drifts at sea, water seeping in from a hole in its side. Its captain has engineered all kinds of ingenious devices to bail out the boat and to dry sodden things. Read more
The first principle of medicine is “do no harm”. It should be the first principle of economic policy too, especially heading into an election year. Read more
The Auditor-General is deeply concerned “about a lack of transparency and accountability over the spending of public money”. On 14 November, he took the extraordinary step of writing to Parliament's Speaker, Adrian Rurawhe and the chairs of two select committees about the problem. Read more
Many students … intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance … to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. Read more
