‘Charles pushes past Wills as preferred successor’, read a headline in the Herald last Sunday. Following a wave of enthusiasm after the Queen’s diamond jubilee and last year’s royal wedding, the question of who will succeed to the British throne continues to capture New Zealanders’ interest. Read more
Saying something genuinely new on the euro crisis is getting more difficult as time passes. The problems never change, only the sums involved. Read more
“A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.” That’s not a new research finding but a quote by Aristotle (384-322 BC). It opened an event on Dunedin’s Economic Development Strategy on Tuesday, which I attended as a guest speaker. Read more
Budget 2012 continued National’s battle to control government spending by attrition rather than by ground-breaking reforms. This battle will be lost eventually because mere attrition increasingly mobilises thwarted spending interests, while preserving both their privileged positions and the mechanisms they can use to increase spending when attrition fatigue has set in. The Yes, Minister TV series made the point best: entrenched interests and bureaucracies outlast politicians. Read more
Much is being made of the current exodus of New Zealanders to Australia – about a thousand a week at last count. As an indicator of confidence in New Zealand’s economic environment, it is damning. Read more
Newspapers are reporting increasing pressure from Germany for Spain to accept a European bailout. The story is all the more credible as the Spanish government, refusing a bailout, has strongly denied any such bullying. Read more
Eurocalypse Now? British Eurosceptic politician Daniel Hannan MEP debated Dr Ben Wellings from the Australian National University's Centre for European Studies in front of an audience of 140 people at the Auckland War Memorial Museum auditorium. Read more
Analysing the link between the Holocaust and the European crisis is far more interesting than solving the crisis. At least if you are German. Read more
Shaping the Policy Agenda Lessons from a Kiwi think tanker working in Europe. Shane Frith is a New Zealand politician and political activist. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich hosts our first Initiative@home on Wednesday 16 May. Initiative@home are invitation-only after-fives events held roughly every six weeks for our members and a small group of senior colleagues in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Read more
When New Zealand’s budget was handed down yesterday it was business as usual for the National-led coalition government. Prime Minister John Key’s government delivered another cautious, albeit sensible budget edging slowly in the right direction. Read more
As a newcomer to New Zealand, one of the biggest surprises to me was the degree of polarisation I perceived in its political discourse. In the complex world of 21st century globalisation the way in which debates are still conducted as "Left versus Right" is not only anachronistic. Read more
A new independent, non-partisan public policy think tank was launched today by Business Roundtable chair Roger Partridge and New Zealand Institute chair Tony Carter, following the merger of the two organisations on 1 April. The new think tank has been named The New Zealand Initiative. Read more
New Zealand’s youth are more disadvantaged than youth in other OECD countries on average, the disadvantage is strongly concentrated in Māori and there is no convincing sign of improvement trends. Read more
A joint submission by the Major Electricity Users’ Group and the New Zealand Business Roundtable on the 2012-13 appropriations for electricity efficiency appropriation. Read more