No straight thing can be built of our crooked timber. We can and will err, even with best efforts and intentions. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 This submission on the Department of Internal Affairs’ draft proposal ‘Simplifying Local Government’ is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative). Read more
In this episode, Oliver Hartwich speaks with retired Major General John Howard, whose 40-year military career included a senior executive role at the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Howard explains New Zealand is strategically underprepared for a more contested world, lacking clear national security and intelligence strategies, modern capability and sustained investment to protect a trading nation's interests. Read more
Few policies manage to unite the left, the right and the Taxpayers' Union in opposition. The Government's billion-dollar LNG import terminal in Taranaki managed it inside 24 hours. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich talked to Damien Grant on Different Matters about whether Donald Trump is driving the decline of the liberal rules-based order or is merely a symptom of deeper geopolitical shifts, drawing parallels between Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II as leaders whose recklessness and disregard for the systems they found set the stage for crisis. The discussion also covered the corruption they both see as a systemic risk to American democracy and its institutions, what the erosion of the rules-based order means for small trading nations like New Zealand, and why the trust being destroyed — both domestically and internationally — could take decades to rebuild. Read more
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 furore over immigration settings in the trade deal with India provides an excellent reminder about a basic policy principle. You’ll have a hard time getting a policy right if you’ve misdiagnosed the problem. Read more
In this episode, Michael Johnston speaks with Kaaryn Cater of MindWise Connection about sensitivity – a temperamental trait that makes some people more affected by their environment. They explore why open-plan classrooms can overwhelm highly sensitive children, how social cues and sensory stimuli shape learning, and practical strategies teachers and workplaces can use to reduce overload and better support highly sensitive people. Read more
The coalition agreements that formed the government promised an important change to the Commerce Act. The Commerce Commission has always been able to take on traditional cartel arrangements: secret agreements where businesses divvy up a market, restrict output, and raise prices. Read more
I have spent more than two decades involved in education research and policy, focusing on New Zealand’s school system. Yet even I struggle to understand my primary-aged daughters’ school reports. Read more
The Planning Bill 2025, introduced to Parliament on 9 December 2025, represents the most significant reform of New Zealand’s resource management framework since the Resource Management Act 1991. Among its stated objectives is the enablement of “competitive urban land markets”, which signals a conceptual shift in how the planning system conceives of its relationship to housing supply and affordability. Read more
PART 1 – HIGH-LEVEL VIEWS ON THE OVERALL REFORM PACKAGE 1. Introduction and support for reform intent 1.1 The New Zealand Initiative welcomes the opportunity to submit on the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill. Read more
Samuel Colt invented the revolver and a slogan to go with it. “God created men, Col. 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
New Zealanders once took pride in being a resilient “do-it-yourself” (DIY) people. Working city fathers, like mine, would spend much of their weekends working on their houses, gardens, fruit trees or sheds. Read more