Imagine that a public health authority publishes a report on the nation’s diet. After 22 years of data and a 100-page methodology, it announces the four least nutritious food groups. Read more

Mike Smith, the climate activist suing six of New Zealand’s largest companies over greenhouse gas emissions, is unhappy. On Tuesday, the Government announced it will amend the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to stop cases like his and others like it. Read more

Local government is hard to defend. Rates are rising at more than three times inflation. Read more

This week, the Government moved to reassert Parliament’s authority over the courts. Two years ago, in Smith v Fonterra, the Supreme Court revived a climate change claim the Court of Appeal had unanimously struck out. Read more

Treasury projects public health spending will rise from 7.1 to 10 per cent of GDP by 2065. Over the same period, the ratio of working-age taxpayers to superannuitants will halve. Read more

Something happened in law schools in the closing decades of the twentieth century. It did not make the headlines. Read more

New Zealand’s housing crisis has causes everyone recognises – RMA restrictions, building consent delays, infrastructure that cannot keep pace with growth and building costs. All are real. Read more

The Reserve Bank keeps inflation in check, oversees the financial system, regulates banks and issues the country’s currency. These are important jobs, defined by Parliament. Read more

Critics of judicial overreach face an odd challenge. The most sophisticated response is not to defend the decisions – it is to deny that the constitutional limits exist at all. Read more

Winston Peters was in Westport on Sunday, announcing that a future NZ First government would return 50 per cent of all mining royalties to the regions where mining occurs. It is one of the more sensible growth ideas to emerge from this election campaign so far. Read more

Peter Smith asks a fair question. In Trump and the Paradox of American Power, I wrote that I had long favoured taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities – but not like this. Read more

When a story recently emerged about the government getting advice on carless days under the Petroleum Demand Restraint Act, older New Zealanders will have felt a warm flush of nostalgia. The 1979 restrictions brought coloured windscreen stickers announcing the weekday car owners had promised not to drive. Read more