Our people

So far in this Parliament, our fresh-faced new ministers have succumbed to a bit of over-exuberance on GST reform, some misguided Vietnamese-whispers, and some contorting parliamentary questions. But if political amateur dramatics is what you are after there has been little to see here, despite our government’s relative inexperience. Look instead to the UK Conservatives, now into their eighth year in government. First up from the UK this month came sex scandals. Read more

In the new cabinet, Phil Twyford stands out as the minister with the most challenging mandate. Combining housing and transport in one person has created a superminister in charge of all aspects of urban development.If Mr Twyford succeeds, he will not only bolster Labour’s chances of re-election. He will also shape the face of the country for decades to come.At the risk of oversimplification, New Zealand’s urban growth model at best has been a model to accommodate growth, not facilitate it. Read more

Signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new government passed its first test on the international stage. If only all policy issues could be solved by just adding the words ‘comprehensive and progressive’ to their names.The TPP, or now the CPTPP (it just rolls off the tongue), is a major step for trade. It will help New Zealand exporters as it opens markets hitherto hard to reach. The CPTPP will create growth, jobs and opportunities.But as we are celebrating this milestone in... Read more

New Zealanders do not have a welfare system we can be proud of.Wellbeing research shows that involuntary unemployment is the pits for wellbeing. Think how sapping it would be to your sense of self worth to search fruitlessly for employment for a year or more. You could easily decide your community thinks you are worthless.  Yet in June this year, over 67,000 New Zealanders had been on the Jobseekers Benefit for at least a year. Read more

On 3 November I wrote about the Manukau DHB’s refusal to entertain the idea of a Ronald McDonald house at Middlemore Hospital. On further enquiry this decision becomes even more risible. It appears that the decision was an executive decision on the advice of health professionals, not a board decision. I cannot elicit any response or explanation from the DHB. This is disappointing from an institution that needs to be engaged with its community and stakeholders. Read more

With a new government comes opportunities to shake up a long-entrenched status quo. Read more

I’ve been encouraged by several signals from the new Government around transport. Ministers appear to have given transport much thought in opposition and are, in many ways, ahead of their agencies. Read more

New Zealand has always had to run a little faster than everyone else just to keep up.Too small to rely on its own internal markets, and too distant to profit from tight integration with larger neighbours, New Zealand has had to compete by being nimble. And so it has developed some of the world’s best policy settings.New Zealand is consistently at or near the top of the rankings for overall economic freedom and ease of doing business.But where the internet’s... Read more

Which moves faster: technology, or the regulation that tries to keep up with it? New Zealand’s ability to adapt to new technology depends on whether our regulations can keep pace. We have always faced the twin tyrannies of size and distance. We are small and remote.  If our rules hold back adoption of new technology, we can add a third tyranny to the list: being out of date. Read more

My dad just refitted his small cottage kitchen. He is over 6ft tall, so wanted the worktops raised 6 inches, precluding his need to bend. However, his circumstances may change. Aside from his possible shrinking, he might one day want to sell the house, or even welcome a ‘lady-friend’ who is less than 6ft tall. Needless to say, after acknowledging the trade-offs, a worktop compromise has been made. Read more

As House of Cards is ending in sad circumstances, the TV series has a real-life successor. It is the New Zealand House of Representatives. The theatre on our 52nd Parliament’s opening day was highly entertaining. And it made for better TV than any fictional stories about US Presidents ever could. The plot was genius: An opposition pretending it had a majority in the House due to absences on the government benches. To be clear, it was a legitimate try. Read more

During the election campaign, newly sworn-in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern named climate change as the challenge of her generation. If it is, lifting labour productivity is a close second.Productivity growth has been low over the past decade and a half. Therefore, growth in real wages has also been modest. If future generations are to share New Zealand’s enviable prosperity, that must change.The first response to this challenge from Ms Ardern’s government has been a promise to lift the minimum wage... Read more

To put it mildly, the three parties forming the new government are diverse. Their philosophies do not always overlap. Their electorates have little in common. Their histories are not without tension.Yet there is one area on which Labour, NZ First and the Greens are not only in alignment. It is also an issue which differentiates them from National.I am talking about subsidiarity.Subsidiarity means that problems should be solved at the lowest possible level. Read more

Idiocy comes in many forms. Some people choose not to vaccinate their children.   Others think it better to extract multiple teeth from school children rather than have them drink fluoridated water. In some American states disturbed fantasists may openly carry loaded assault rifles in public, near schools and playgrounds.In New Zealand, our latest idiocy is to deny gravely ill children and their stressed parents the succour and respite of special accommodation and rest at the hospital. Read more

Why did the libertarian chicken cross the road?None of your business! Am I being detained?With jokes like these, it really is a mystery why libertarians do not have more friends.Indeed, a recent Washington Post article even included ‘befriend a libertarian’ in a compilation of ideas on how to fix American democracy.Sure, that piece was written by a libertarian. But in an age of deep political divisions in the United States, and creeping talk of anti-immigrant sentiment on home soil, maybe... Read more