Greater Manchester's 2014 devolution agreement included powers over transport, housing and skills, with matching funding. That was my model for New Zealand two years ago, in a research note for The New Zealand Initiative. Read more

We hear a great deal about the Bank of Mum and Dad. The Bank of the children gets rather less attention, although we have been drawing on it for years. Read more

Last week, we co-hosted a dinner with the Selwyn Foundation. Its chair, former Labour health minister David Cunliffe, led the Government's aged care advisory group and presented their report, A place to grow old. Read more

Here is a paradox that ought to trouble ministers more than any single threat named in the NZSIS’s 2026 Security Threat Environment report, released in August. The New Zealand Government has never had more useful intelligence available to it than it does today. Read more