Ask anyone in Australia’s competition law community what transformed the economy, and you will hear a familiar story. Australia was once a cartelised, complacent place where businesses divided up markets and consumers paid the price. Read more

The Resource Management Act 1991 was an act of economic self-sabotage. Over three decades it inflated house prices by imposing what economists call a regulatory tax: the share of prices created by planning restrictions alone. Read more

Hungary is a landlocked nation of ten million people with an economy smaller than New Zealand’s. It has no significant military, no permanent seat on the Security Council and no history of shaping international affairs. Read more

For the first time since the Second World War, New Zealand is being asked to make major economic decisions under direct threat from an ally. New Zealand is negotiating a minerals deal with the United States. Read more

At the World Economic Forum last month, Mark Carney delivered a speech that should make every middle power pay attention. The former central banker, now Canada’s Prime Minister, argued that the rules-based international order is fading. Read more

The past month has been difficult to process. Afemerican special forces captured Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela. Read more

The domestic political year has started with housing density back on the agenda. Is Christopher Luxon walking away from the bipartisan housing accord? Read more

I do not get to Münster often these days, but whenever I am there, I feel drawn to its town hall. This is where, in 1648, diplomats signed the Peace of Westphalia. Read more

To many on the political left, the Mont Pelerin Society represents something akin to a spectre. It is frequently portrayed as a secretive cabal of market fundamentalists operating in the shadows to dismantle the state and privatise the public sphere. Read more

Across the democratic world, voters are losing patience with the machinery that stands between a vote and its result – the courts, parliamentary procedures and constitutional limits that do not care who won. The usual explanations – economic anxiety, cultural backlash, social media – capture something real, but they miss a deeper problem. Read more

Last week, boxes of fudge arrived at New Zealand’s Parliament. Not as a festive treat, but as a political weapon. Read more

After many difficult years, 2025 felt different. It was not easier. Read more