Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014, after 16 years as a commercial litigation partner. Roger was executive director of the Legal Research Foundation, a charitable foundation associated with the University of Auckland, from 2001 to 2009, and was a member of the Council of the New Zealand Law Society, the governing body of the legal profession in New Zealand, from 2011 to 2015. He is a chartered member of the Institute of Directors, a member of the University of Auckland Business School advisory board, a member of the editorial board of the New Zealand Law Review and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
Roger Partridge was interviewed on the RNZ podcast The Detail by Tom Kitchin about the increase in public servants. Listen below. Read more
When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand's first-world status was at stake. Read more
2023 was a great year for the Initiative. Have a look through our annual report to see what we achieved and what others are saying about what we do. Read more
My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. Read more
Last month’s Legal Research Foundation conference commemorating the Supreme Court’s 20th anniversary could mark a turning point for New Zealand’s highest court. Or at least it should if the Supreme Court justices were listening. Read more
With age comes wisdom – or so it is said. Yet exceptions abound. Read more
Last week, Oliver and Roger sat down to talk about the Supreme Court's decision on the Mike Smith climate change case. To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
Television audiences were granted a rare privilege last week: an extended interview with warmongering President Vladimir Putin to “set the record straight” on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And who better to provide the pulpit of truth for this enlightening exchange? Read more
‘Hard cases make bad law’ is a common legal adage. It means the more worthy a cause, the more tempting it will be for a court to stretch the law to make it fit. Read more
The New Year always brings the promise of a new beginning. But it also confronts us with last year’s headaches. Read more
The demise of the last Government’s Fair Pay Agreement legislation is a cautionary tale for policymakers. Death and taxes are sometimes called the only certainties. Read more
The country’s education establishment has come out swinging. ‘Destructive,’ ‘weird,’ and ‘radical,’ are how the critics have described the Christopher Luxon-led Coalition Government’s education reform agenda. Read more
After six years of a Labour-led Government, the newly sworn-in Government’s policies were always going to shock its opponents. Despite the centre-left and the centre-right parties all pitching their policies to the median voter, profound philosophical differences divide them. Read more
Real work begins for the new Government Whatever way you look at it, 2023 has been a long slog for the centre-right parties now trying to seal a coalition deal. The election campaign was unusually long. Read more
Last year, respect for the Commerce Commission sank to a new low. The New Zealand Initiative’s 2022 report, Reassessing the Regulators: The Good, the Bad and the Commerce Commission, revealed the Commission had lost the respect of the businesses it is tasked with regulating. Read more