What are the economic and political implications if the New Zealand economy stagnates for five and more years? Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Morning Report that ‘We've got the worst recession* ...

This review of ‘Conversations about our country with Jim Bolger’ by David Cohen was first published in the ‘NZ International Review’ .

Once upon a time many of us said ‘beware the smiling assassin’ when we talked about John Key. These days, the warning should be ‘beware the smiling clown’. David Seymour’s chirpy countenance masks a ...

Do we need bigger multipurpose government mega-departments? Restructuring seems to be the fashionable management practice whenever faced with a challenge. (Eminent health economist Alan Maynard’s ...

We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is ...

This column started out to explain how the proposed structural outsourcing of public surgery was partly a consequence of the peculiarities of our fiscal borrowing practices. In summary, the ...

Winning office is not the same as achieving change. A recent Economist columnist divided politicians and their political advisers into either ‘jock wankers’ or ‘nerd wankers’. It’s a distinction which ...

Our current fiscal settings promise that we will eventually face a public debt explosion. A major cause would arise from the aging population. Is there anything we can do? It has long been known that ...

While we may not always have quality political leadership, a couple of recently published autobiographies indicate sometimes we strike it lucky. When ranking our prime ministers, retired professor of ...

Following the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families ...

The proposal to organise fresh water, storm water and waste water into four entities reflects the contempt that New Zealand’s central government has for local communities. It is not the only example ...

We do not go to war for free; we need to factor its economic costs and its consequences into public discussions. Wars are costly. People die, life is disrupted while wars divert resources to war use ...