New Zealand’s way of regulating nightlife often restricts the opportunities for night owls. This has made nights overly tedious without improving issues of public health and security. Read more
With its rate cut on 7 August 2019, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets and sent a strong signal that unorthodox or unconventional monetary policy could be on the cards. Read more
The Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) has delivered a landmark report, according to our new policy paper, When the facts change: How the ICCC saved New Zealand from a policy disaster. Read more
The government’s goal of a highly skilled and innovative workforce and an economy that delivers well-paid, decent jobs and broad-based gains from economic growth and productivity, is a laudable aim. Read more
As teachers prepare to leave the classroom on strike, The New Zealand Initiative proposes a potential solution to the seemingly impossible impasse. Dr Eric Crampton argues in his Policy Point Biting education bullets that Minister Hipkins is in a thoroughly unenviable position. He says providing a pay increase sufficient to attract and retain the best teachers would blow out the budget if offered to all 60,000 existing teachers. Read more
New Zealand deserves far better water management. Scores of newspaper articles and rigorous reports lay out the problems in the current system. Too much water is being drawn in some catchments, to the detriment of aquifers and rivers. Management of contaminants flowing into the rivers is haphazard and too-often poor. While agricultural runoff into rivers and streams has drawn much attention, urban areas are far from blameless. Read more
A comprehensive and year-long econometric analysis of data for 400,000 students undertaken by The New Zealand Initiative reveals there are no significant differences in school performance between schools of different deciles. Adjusted for the different student populations they serve, the vast majority of New Zealand’s secondary schools create the education outcomes we would expect from them. This finding calls into question the assertion of the Tomorrow’s Schools Independent Taskforce, led by Bali Haque, which claimed that “quality of our schools... Read more
The coalition government has committed New Zealand to a goal of generating 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2035.Renewables already account for 83% of our electricity, and on current trends will generate up to 97% of our electricity in 2035 without any help from policy changes.However, as Matt Burgess shows in this report, the last 3% through to 100% renewables share will be tremendously expensive, and could raise greenhouse gas emissions.New Zealand’s electricity is secure, affordable and among... Read more
The New Zealand Initiative aims to create a country that brings opportunity, prosperity and happiness to all its people. It is an overarching goal that is not left, right or centre. It is a vision all New Zealanders can unite behind. Read more
A new survey reveals that the majority of those surveyed support a move towards local services being managed and provided by local decision-makers. Read more
Tax Working Group’s proposed rate of capital gains tax one of the most penal in the world. Read more
About the authorDr Bryce Wilkinson is a Senior Fellow with The New Zealand Initiative and Director of Capital Economics Limited. Read more
New Zealand is one of a handful of countries to offer a universal non-means-tested benefit, payable from the age of 65 until death. Read more
This report looks at how good a job government is doing with all the tasks entrusted to it. The issue is important because government has come to command much of our resources.Taxes in New Zealand have risen four times faster than incomes in the 20th century. Taxes now take more of our income than in almost any country outside Europe. We have become a high tax country.We, the public, need the government to spend our tax money well.Government is a... Read more
Tobacco policy in New Zealand has traditionally neglected the needs of smokers. The good news is that youth uptake of smoking has significantly declined. The bad news is that the current approach is not as effective in helping smokers become ex-smokers. If the government wants to achieve its ‘Smokefree by 2025’ aspiration (reduce smoker prevalence to 5% of the population), more support will be needed to help smokers quit.Nicotine without smokeVaping – the action of inhaling and exhaling e-cigarette vapour... Read more