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The New Zealand Initiative rebuts the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety’s claim to a select committee that New Zealand’s labour productivity growth rate since 1991 was 46% below that of Australia. On figures recently supplied by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the correct figure was 30%. Read more

Last month, the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, appeared before Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee in support of the Government’s Fair Pay Agreement Bill. He was asked for his response to the New Zealand Initiative’s case that the wage rates were not showing a ‘race to the bottom,’ a decline in either employees’ share of income, or labour productivity growth since the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. Read more

Government policies should be judged by the outcomes they deliver for people who need public support. This report has described a fundamentally different funding model for public services which gives control and responsibility to recipients of support services. Read more

The year 2020 was one none of us will forget in a hurry. Lives were put on hold. Read more

Read our submission, written by Dr Eric Crampton to The Ministry of Health. This submission is in response to the public consultation document, Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990: Proposals for regulation. Read more

In preparation for New Zealand’s September 19 referendum on cannabis, all sides of the debate are sharpening their lines of argument. Often, both the proponents and detractors of cannabis reform point to examples in the United States to bolster their position. Read more

Read our submission, written by Eric Crampton, to the Associate Minister of Health and the Health Select Committee on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill. The Initiative has, over the past several years, undertaken research into tobacco harm reduction policies. Read more

Asking the public for submissions on pending legislation while the country is in pandemic lockdown risks making a farce of democracy and unnecessarily distracting the Government, according to a new policy paper by the New Zealand Initiative. The business of government must go on, said the Initiative’s chief economist Dr Eric Crampton, but politicians can afford to put less urgent matters aside for the time being. Read more

New Zealand’s way of regulating nightlife often restricts the opportunities for night owls. This has made nights overly tedious without improving issues of public health and security. Read more

The government’s goal of a highly skilled and innovative workforce and an economy that delivers well-paid, decent jobs and broad-based gains from economic growth and productivity, is a laudable aim. It is what governments should strive for. Read more