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Walk through Wellington, and you will see plenty of empty shopfronts and shuttered cafes. Switch on the radio, and you will hear experts say this is the best time to buy a house in years. Read more
Damien Grant isn’t normally the one making the case that the government needs to take more in tax. The liquidator and libertarian-minded columnist over at the Sunday Star Times more typically wants what libertarians generally want – a government that spends less and that can let each of us keep more of our own money. Read more
Wellington (Tuesday, 2 December 2025) - A new approach to director accountability could prevent hundreds of millions of dollars in tax debt from becoming unrecoverable by requiring directors to act early when financial distress emerges, according to a research note from The New Zealand Initiative. The research note, 'Responsibility before ruin: A pre-emptive fix for NZ's phoenix problem', addresses companies that accumulate large tax debts before dissolving, sometimes only to restart under a new name. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich talked to Newstalk ZB on the corporate tax debt loophole that sees IRD writing off hundreds of millions of dollars annually due to the "Phoenix problem," where companies dissolve and reform under new names. Dr Hartwich highlighted Germany's solution, where directors face personal liability for tax debts if they fail to pay within 20 days or file for insolvency. Read more
When plans to abolish regional councils were first rumoured, I was more than mildly sceptical. It isn’t that I’m a giant fan of regional councils; I couldn’t name more than a couple of my own regional councillors, and I bet most of you can’t either. Read more
On Monday morning, Eric Crampton and I appeared before the Environment Select Committee to present the Initiative’s submission on the Fast-Track Approvals Amendment Bill. It is well known that the Bill, and the fast-track regime more generally, is controversial among environmentalists. Read more
The Economist, not known for hysteria, has quietly announced that advanced economies are halving their populations every generation. A demographic magic trick. Read more
A familiar lament has resurfaced in recent weeks: that Robert Muldoon’s decision to cancel Norm Kirk’s 1975 compulsory superannuation scheme cost New Zealand a trillion-dollar nest egg. The Government’s weekend signal of higher KiwiSaver contributions has given that argument new life, encouraging some to reach again for the comparison. Read more
Nick Clark talked to Paul Brennan on Reality Check Radio about his report on New Zealand's electoral system and why it needs reform. Clark argued for moving to four-year terms, increasing MP numbers to strengthen select committees, lowering the 5% party threshold, scrapping costly low-turnout by-elections, tightening advance voting rules, and improving civics education so voters better understand how democracy works. Read more
The opening episode traces the intellectual and personal journey that gave birth to the idea of "Competitive Urban Land Markets" (CLM). It follows Chris Parker’s path from his early attempt at NZIER to broaden traditional cost–benefit models so they could capture the transformative effects of infrastructure investment, to his move into Auckland Council as Chief Economist, where he began to see high land prices not as signs of prosperity but as symptoms of monopoly and institutional failure. Read more