OPINION

In April 1901, a Bavarian immigrant baker named Joseph Lochner was arrested in Utica, New York. Unlike the larger bakeries, which worked two shifts, Lochner employed a single crew: his bakers arrived in the evening, prepared the dough, slept a few hours on the premises and baked before dawn. Read more

What is politics? According to Max Weber’s classic definition, politics is “a strong and slow boring of hard boards.” Having worked around politics for over two decades has given me a good idea of what Weber meant by that. Read more

For practical purposes, not emitting a tonne of carbon dioxide is equivalent to pulling a tonne of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and securely sequestering it, so long as the accounting is sound. The Zero Carbon Act consequently requires net zero for greenhouse gases other than biogenic methane. Read more

Most news clips from Parliament are from Question Time. It is at least as much performance theatre as a mechanism for holding government to account. Read more

In November 2018, officials at Immigration New Zealand began work on replacing the ageing biometric systems that verify identities and manage immigration risk. Seven years later it was dead, having delivered no measurable benefit. Read more

I have always liked Iceland. My first visit was on a cruise ship in the mid-1990s. Read more

A fortnight ago, the government agreed a sale worth $702 million. Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop sold the loans the Crown made to Chorus to help build the ultrafast broadband network, for $60 million above book value. Read more