Reports & Media

There is a great deal of debate on the causes and solutions of the housing crisis but little disagreement that the problems we face are enormous: The number of new homes consented dropped from a record 39,800 in 1973 to a little over 24,700 last year. Over the same period, New Zealand's population grew by 50 per cent. Read more

Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their gun-slinging, bank-robbing outlaws once ruled the lawless western frontier. With only rudimentary government to manage civil society, life in the Wild West was nasty and brutish. Read more

Bankers are overpaid, bonus payments are useless and there is an inflation of fancy job titles in banking. That was the essence of a speech recently delivered at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. Read more

Most of the time, I look at policy in Canada and despair at how much worse things are back home. But the past few months have reminded me that Canada gets a couple of things right that New Zealand simply hasn’t managed to figure out yet. Read more

Last week’s town hall meeting in Khandallah on Wellington City Council’s proposed medium-density re-zoning was an eye-opener. I have been exceptionally frustrated by town planners’ inability to zone enough housing to meet the demands of a growing population. Read more

Over the last four months as part of our education research project I have visited a number of schools around New Zealand and I was struck by two things. The first: despite some of these schools being labelled as under-performing, the vibrant corridors were packed with eager young children with real potential. Read more

As it turns out, a side of bacon with your breakfast could prove a deadly gamble with your health. You may as well take up smoking, sunbathe excessively, or inhale asbestos. Read more

Most of the time, I look at policy in Canada and despair at how much worse things are back home. But the past few months have reminded me that Canada gets a couple of things right that New Zealand simply hasn’t managed to figure out yet. Read more

In the cut and thrust of politics it was no surprise that Environment Minister Nick Smith denounced the Labour Party’s new housing policy. After all, while it is the opposition’s job to oppose government policies, it is just as much the incumbent’s job to shoot down ideas coming from across the house. Read more

The late Ronald Reagan mastered the art of condensing complex issues into witty statements: “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. Read more

We do not yet know how the courts will rule on whether Wellington City Council can force its contractors to pay their employees a minimum of $18.55 an hour. But I think we can come to a verdict on the policy's economic merits, and I do not think council would much like it. Read more

What do societies gain from migration? What are the social, political and cultural effects of an increasingly mobile global workforce? Read more

Strolling the markets of Hong Kong, I came across a stall dedicated to selling t-shirts bearing the slogan: “same same but different”. The stall’s popularity is just another one of the wonderful quirks of Hong Kong. Read more