Is New Zealand a country in decline or a quiet success story? A new report from The New Zealand Initiative argues it is neither. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich talked to Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB about the New Zealand Initiative's new report tracking the country's progress across more than 100 measures. Dr Hartwich explained that gains like fewer road deaths and longer life expectancy have happened almost automatically through better technology and medicine, while the areas that need bold reform, such as housing affordability and productivity, keep lagging, with Erica Stanford's education changes a rare exception. Read more
Fourteen New Zealand restaurants picked up a Michelin star last week, the first time Michelin had rated New Zealand at all. One reached two stars. Read more
Wellington (Wednesday, 8 July 2026) – Is New Zealand a country in decline or a quiet success story? A new report from The New Zealand Initiative argues it is neither. Read more
Every July, members of the New Zealand Association of Economists – academics, practitioners, and officials – meet to tell each other what they’ve been working on. Work presented tends to be work-in-progress. Read more
Ten years ago, the NZ Initiative brought a Canadian diplomat to Wellington to explain how Canada let ordinary citizens sponsor refugees. Dean Barry told us that when Canadian communities pledged to support one more refugee, Canada admitted one more. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks with Michelle Palmer, Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association, about the retirement village business model and the debate over how quickly operators should repay residents and their estates once a unit is vacated. They discuss the Consumer New Zealand petition, the Government's proposed 12-month repayment rule, and why applying changes retrospectively to existing contracts could raise costs for residents and put pressure on smaller operators. Read more
Victoria University of Wellington wants the teachers it trains to be ‘agents of change.’ According to the university’s handbook for teacher education programmes, teaching graduates must be committed to “social, cultural, and ecological justice.” Decoded, that means attending protests about political causes the activists lecturers find important. Providing teachers with skills to manage a classroom is not part of the brief. Read more
Choice, competition and open markets provide strong consumer protection. The risk that a customer might shift to a competitor, or to another type of product entirely, provides discipline. Read more
Local government reform has turned into a numbers game. The government’s ‘Head Start’ asks how many councils we should have, and where the lines between their jurisdictions should be drawn. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks with Nick Clark about the Government's Head Start process, which asks councils to put forward their own reorganisation proposals or have changes imposed on them. Nick draws on his report Head Start Done Right to question whether the amalgamation the process points towards would deliver the efficiencies the Government expects, and argues instead for subsidiarity, keeping decisions at the most local level rather than consolidating them upwards. Read more
Small countries in a big world can choose to be nimble or they can choose to be stupid. When it comes to medicines, New Zealand has chosen the second path. Read more
National promises that, if re-elected, it will make KiwiSaver compulsory. The case for compulsion is weaker than most assume. Read more
As a former academic, I know how onerous research publication can be. Before being published in a professional journal, an article must undergo peer review. Read more
Wellington (Tuesday, 30 June 2026) – The Government wants to merge New Zealand’s councils into a smaller number of big councils. A new report from The New Zealand Initiative says this is the wrong fix. Read more