Two thousand years ago, according to St Luke, Emperor Augustus decreed that all the world should be registered. A carpenter and his pregnant wife walked from Nazareth to Bethlehem to comply. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich joined Lisa Owen on Checkpoint with RNZ to discuss the open letter signed by more than 50 business leaders, spanning construction, grocery, property, banking, and investment, calling on political parties to uphold private property and contract rights. He argued that proposals to buy back BNZ, split up supermarket chains, break apart electricity "gentailers," and re-regulate retirement villages all share the same flaw: they're designed to poll well with focus groups rather than solve real problems, several of which stem from past government decisions such as pandemic-era money printing, restrictions on oil and gas, and decades of restrictive planning law. Read more
Wellington (Wednesday, 23 September 2026) – Fifty-one New Zealand business leaders have signed an open letter asking every political party to uphold private property rights and freedom of contract. The signatories include chief executives, chairs and directors of companies in banking, construction, education, energy, farming, finance, fishing, grocery, insurance, manufacturing and property. Read more
Our Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich joined Ryan Bridge on Ryan Bridge TODAY to discuss the open letter signed by 50 business leaders. It opposes a run of election-year policies from splitting up supermarket chains and threatening to nationalise banks, to rewriting signed mining and retirement village contracts. Read more
Our Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich joined Ryan Bridge on Newstalk ZB to discuss an open letter signed by around 50 business leaders calling on political parties to respect private property rights, freedom of contract, and lawful agreements. Oliver argued that policies like rewriting already-signed retirement village contracts, cancelling lawfully granted mining approvals, and threatening firms with nationalisation (including National's supermarket break-up plan) form a broader pattern of "post-rational politics," where any policy that polls well with focus groups is fair game, regardless of party or merit. Read more
Wellington (Wednesday, 23 September 2026) — Parliament has passed the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill, ending the Resource Management Act's 35-year reign. The New Zealand Initiative says the Acts settle the system's architecture but defer almost every decision about how it will behave to national direction that does not yet exist, to be written by whoever is the Minister after next year's election. Read more
To the leaders of New Zealand’s political parties New Zealand needs investment from both here and overseas to build businesses and create jobs. Investors need confidence that the law will protect what they own and the agreements they make. Read more
National wants to pass a law forcing Foodstuffs to split in two if the Commerce Commission signs off. PAK'nSAVEs and New Worlds would become members of separate nationwide co-operatives. Read more
ur Chief Economist Eric Crampton joined Sean Plunket on The Platform to discuss National's election-year proposal to split Foodstuffs' Pack'n Save operations from its New World and Foursquare banners. Eric suggested the policy looks like a populist response to cost-of-living polling pressure rather than considered reform, and warned the accompanying cost-benefit analysis rests on a shaky assumption. Read more
I do not often write columns that I later come to regret. But I wrote one for Newsroom in January 2022 that turned out to be completely wrong (Russia has won the war without firing a single shot, 25 January 2022). Read more
Wellington (Tuesday, 22 September 2026) – National wants to pass a law forcing Foodstuffs to split in two if the Commerce Commission signs off. PAK'nSAVEs and New Worlds would become members of separate nationwide co-operatives. Read more
Picture a councillor about to vote on whether her council should sell its shares in the local airport. Management tells her that voting one way could expose the council to legal risk. Read more
For three decades we treated defence as a peace dividend to be spent down, not an insurance policy to be maintained. Every government did it, to some degree, because the neighbourhood felt safe and there were always more pressing places to put the money. Read more
One of the most important things teachers can do to help their students improve is to give them feedback on their work. To be effective, feedback must be timely and specific. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The New Zealand Initiative welcomes the opportunity to submit on the Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill. Read more