OPINION

When The New Zealand Initiative set out 235 recommendations for the next government last month, the one this paper chose for its headline was the proposal to pay younger workers less. The news sense was sound, because it is the recommendation that sounds least fair. Read more

It’s a pretty minor Budget item all things considered. Thirty million dollars over four years isn’t a huge sum, when the Government plans spending more than $150 billion in the 2026/27 fiscal year. Read more

At last month’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, New Zealand’s Defence Minister Chris Penk told Bloomberg Television that the country might usefully consider nuclear propulsion, the reactors that drive warships, as something distinct from nuclear weapons. Within two days, his Prime Minister had killed the idea on talkback radio. Read more

Government is awash in consultation processes. So much so that “consultation fatigue” is a real term. Read more

Budget 2026 was not a typical election year budget. Instead of breaking out the pork barrel, Finance Minister Nicola Willis brought forward New Zealand’s projected return to surplus by a year, even if the projection rests on some bold assumptions. Read more

To most New Zealanders in 2026, slavery sounds like a relic of past centuries and faraway places. Unfortunately, it is not. Read more

In a meeting room on Lambton Quay, a paper is on its eleventh draft. It is about whether the public service should adopt AI. Read more

For forty years, New Zealanders have been told that fewer councils mean better government, and for forty years, the evidence has refused to oblige. Until 1989, New Zealand had around 850 elected local government bodies. Read more

When I read last week that Tony Blair had published a 5,600-word essay on everything that ails Britain, every instinct told me not to read it. But I could not help myself and read it anyway. Read more

The debate about New Zealand’s Supreme Court has been framed as a question about the current court – its composition, its appointments, its judicial philosophy. This column frames it differently: as a question about what the current court inherited, and from whom. Read more

This week’s Budget confirmed what most New Zealanders already suspected. The government’s finances are tight, the deficit persists, and there is no pot of money waiting to be spent on the country’s problems. Just as well, because government spending never delivers growth or prosperity. Read more

In an age of unprecedented technological upheaval — an upheaval more consequential than even the advent of fire or settled agriculture — we find ourselves standing — quite literally — at a crossroads. The question isn't whether AI will transform writing — it’s what we lose when we let it. Read more

If the country sees a few lucky breaks, Budget 2026 shows a return to surplus in 2029. The period of structural deficits will have lasted almost a decade. Read more

The worst-kept secret of this afternoon’s budget is that the entitlement to a fees-free year of tertiary study will be scrapped. On 8 May, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters ‘leaked’ the policy change on Newstalk ZB. Read more

The strongest protection tenants can have is plenty of other potential places to rent, from different landlords eager to rent them a home. When zoning rules make it very difficult to build new housing, existing landlords do not face much potential competition. Read more