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I prefer making New Year's resolutions for other people rather than for myself. And in that spirit, can we make 2016 the year of not obsessing about whether New Zealand Inc. Read more
Wellington (9 December 2015): The New Zealand Initiative has welcomed the Productivity Commission’s newest enquiry into what a fit-for-purpose urban planning system would look like. Executive Director of the Initiative, Dr Oliver Hartwich, noted that the regulations governing planning are highly fragmented and complex in New Zealand, adding years or decades to major infrastructure projects, and delaying any economic upside that these investments may produce. Read more
Every Thursday during fourth form, come third period, Miss Sumner would roll in the equipment trolley, laden with tripods, pipettes, Bunsen burners and volumetric flasks. Class, of course, was expected to test some simple hypothesis and judiciously record our results in the standard issue yellow lab book. Read more
"The way this country is run is broken", the cabinet minister said in his speech. "It is high time we faced the facts. Read more
Trialling policy reform in regions that are keen to see the benefits could solve rather a few of the country’s policy problems. New Zealand has one of the world’s more centralised forms of government. Only about nine cents of every dollar of government expenditure is spent at the local level. Read more
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) has made all kinds of waves in the media recently, but the least expected has to be the news that Auckland Council spent two and half hours debating the free trade agreement. The result of the meeting was that the council’s Regional Strategy and Policy Committee kicked for touch by requesting that the final text of the agreement be released before a firmer position was taken on the trade deal. Read more
Should the owner of Lochinver Station, the Stevenson Group, have the right to sell it to the Crown at the Shanghai Pengxin bid price of $88 million? In that case, the Crown could (and should) immediately sell the station to the highest bid from a New Zealander. Read more
Wellington (17 September 2015): The New Zealand Initiative today said that Cabinet’s blocking of the Lochinver Farm sale to Shanghai Pengxin shows that the Overseas Investment Act (OIA) is not fit for purpose. The decision goes completely against NZ’s international reputation as a place to do business, but is unfortunately consistent with New Zealand’s poor OECD ranking for openness to foreign investment. Read more
Today's Top 10 is a guest post from Oliver Hartwich, the executive director of the New Zealand Initiative. 1) Brazil’s recession In case you have missed it, the world economy is in crisis mode. Read more
Earlier this month Genesis Energy announced it was mothballing New Zealand’s only large scale coal fired electricity plant. The move, effective as of late 2018, will reduce the country’s total CO2 emissions by about 2.5%, setting the sector on course to produce 90% of the country’s electricity from renewable sources. Read more