On Tuesday morning, President Trump told CNBC he did not want to extend the ceasefire with Iran. Yet on Tuesday afternoon, he extended it. Read more
Every year, respiratory syncytial virus, RSV, sends over a thousand infants to hospital. Six years ago, Kiwis volunteered to be part of a large international study testing whether vaccinating pregnant women for RSV would protect their newborns. Read more
The guns have paused in the US-Iran conflict but Oliver Hartwich and John Howard argue New Zealand should take little comfort from that. All parties are struggling to find an off-ramp, damage to Qatar's refineries alone means a two-to-three-year rebuild, and New Zealand still lacks the energy strategy promised in 2024. Read more
Bob Davies joined the New Zealand Army at 16 and served 31 years, rising to Sergeant Major of the Army. He deployed to Vietnam in 1968, took shrapnel wounds, caught malaria twice, and was exposed to Agent Orange. Read more
The Government's 2025 Defence Capability Plan allocates $12 billion over the next four years—the biggest outlay in generations and long overdue. The challenge is that the defence acquisition machinery was built for a slower, steadier world and has not been rebuilt for this one. Read more
Wellington (Thursday, 23 April 2026) - The Government’s 2025 Defence Capability Plan commits $12 billion over four years, including $9 billion of new spending. But without institutional reform, new money risks being absorbed into a system too slow and fragmented to deliver modern capability, a new report from The New Zealand Initiative warns. 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
New Zealand's defence investment is landing the same way it always has: slowly, bureaucratically, and after the need has already been declared. In this webinar, retired Major General John Howard presents his new report God Defend New Zealand, which argues the country must move from an industrial-age acquisition model to one that operates at the speed of technological change. Read more
The Government’s 2025 Defence Capability Plan commits $12 billion over four years, including $9 billion of new spending. But without institutional reform, new money risks being absorbed into a system too slow and fragmented to deliver modern capability, a new report from The New Zealand Initiative warns. Read more
In this episode, Michael speaks with Professor Elizabeth Rata about the history of New Zealand's school system. The conversation challenges the contemporary narrative of 19th-century schools as authoritarian and oppressive. Read more
In May 1935, as Winston Churchill later told the story, Pierre Laval travelled to Moscow to sound out Stalin about an alliance against Hitler. Late in the talks, the French foreign minister asked whether the Soviet leader might ease his persecution of Russian Catholics. 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
In 2007, then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a ‘digital education revolution.’ His government allocated A$2.4 billion (A$3.9 billion in today’s money) to the project. A large chunk of that went to providing a laptop to every senior secondary student. Read more
New Zealand has solved one of the great puzzles of modern government. A Bill currently before Parliament abolishes the census and declares its replacement to also be a census, only annual and therefore better. Read more
Last Friday, New Zealand signed its first city deal, a formal agreement between central government and Auckland, the country’s largest city. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called Auckland “New Zealand’s economic engine room” and promised to get it “firing on all cylinders.” Among the deal’s headline commitments are a plan to roof the Auckland Tennis Centre, a review of the ownership model for Eden Park, the national stadium, and $10 million to relocate Auckland Cricket to Colin Maiden Park. Read more