It’s a pretty minor budget item all things considered. Thirty million dollars over four years, when the government plans on core government expenditure of over one hundred and fifty billion dollars in the 2026/2027 fiscal year, isn’t a huge sum. Read more

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

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