OPINION

“First and foremost, there is the need to maintain fiscal space for fiscal policy to play a shock-absorber role. That means paying our debt down during normal economic times.” With these words, Treasury Secretary Iain Rennie signalled a welcome return to sound economic principles in his speech launching the draft Te Ara Mokopuna 2025, the Treasury’s Long-term Insights Briefing on how to manage government finances sustainably. Read more

Easter is here, a rare four-day weekend when many of us will travel for getaways, see family and friends, or host those who have travelled to us. Yet Easter can be a trap for the unwary. Read more

Worries about social cohesion are on the rise. Initiative Chair Roger Partridge aired his concerns in the Herald last month, and this month saw the launch of a report on the subject by the Helen Clark Foundation. Read more

As chairman of a business-funded think tank, I have been called many things — neoliberal, libertarian, right-wing, and even (indirectly) one of “Hayek’s Bastards.” But never left-wing. And certainly not “left of Jacinda Ardern.” That is, until I started writing about Donald Trump. Read more

Two ships passing in the night might share the same destination yet follow very different courses. So it seems with David Harvey’s latest response to my report for The New Zealand Initiative, Who Makes the Law? Read more

There is a devil in European literature who claims an unexpected virtue: he intends evil but accomplishes good. In Goethe’s masterpiece “Faust,” Mephistopheles – essentially the devil – tells us: “I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.” This paradox from German literature’s greatest work perfectly captures a surprising phenomenon unfolding today: Donald Trump may be the Mephistopheles that Europe did not know it needed. Read more

There is something tragic about watching the United States deliberately harm itself – especially when the damage spills over to everyone else. President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ trade tariffs are a disaster for America and the world. Read more

The Reserve Bank has finally acknowledged it must review its controversial 2019 bank capital decision requiring large banks to increase their capital reserves from 10.5% to 18% by 2028. The timing is revealing. Read more

Many economists make international trade seem more complicated than it needs to be. Stephen Landsburg had a simple way of explaining it all. Read more

The primary care package recently announced by Health Minister Simeon Brown tackles our GP shortage with overseas doctor placements, more GP trainees and digital healthcare. These welcome initiatives recognise the critical challenges facing general practitioners nationwide. Read more

One of the pleasures of my job as Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative is hosting events with Ministers explaining their new policies to our members. Last week, we hosted Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden at our annual retreat. Read more

About a quarter century ago, my to-be wife introduced me to a card game called Flux. It was popular among the computer science and engineering students in Pittsburgh. Read more

I am always glad that I am not an economic forecaster. Most people’s exposure to economists is radio or newspaper bits from bank economists making their best guesses about economic growth, the unemployment rate, or the track for interest rates. Read more

My previous columns critiquing President Donald Trump’s constitutional overreach and foreign policy blunders prompted some readers to suggest I had failed to grasp the President’s strategic brilliance. Trump, they insisted, was playing four-dimensional chess while the rest of us fumbled with checkers. Read more

Health Minister Brown's primary care package takes aim at the country's critical GP shortage. He is right to be concerned. Read more