The Chatham Islands flag waves above the New Zealand one. Perhaps the Chathams offer insights on to how to govern New Zealand better. It is said that our first minister of regional development – in ...

The public service is suffering from the downgrading of the role of professionals, experts and those at the workface with the public. There is a management fashion that believes that by imposing ...

The ACT party election manifesto will propose to introduce a Regulatory Standards Act to set a higher bar for new regulation, and test regulations against the key principles of the Regulatory ...

The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look ...

This review of ‘Conversations about our country with Jim Bolger’ by David Cohen was first published in the ‘NZ International Review’ (September/October 2021) p.29-31. James Brendan Bolger presents a ...

Healthcare sector management needs to break away from its obsession with financial information and focus on funding for access. Health New Zealand recently ‘proactively released’ 454 pages about its ...

Labour’s overwhelming victory at the election has been greeted with rousing cheers on the left of New Zealand politics and the start of transformational demands. It’s a multi-generational win for ...

Apply the golden fiscal rule and invest prudently. A lender is greatly disadvantaged compared to a borrower. The borrower gets the cash immediately. In exchange, the lender gets a promise that the ...

How to run a successful pressure group. In 2013 a group of idealists, led by Jordan Williams and David Farrar, established the Taxpayers’ Union. To celebrate its first decade as surely New Zealand’s ...

The American evidence is that they frequently do not. For over a century there was a separate Department of Labour, which was amalgamated into that vast miscellaneous department, the Ministry of ...

Today’s mañana strategy will lead to a crisis for the oldest elderly. It is said that the only certainties are death and taxes, but a lack of each causes uncertainties. As longevity increases, the ...

Do we treat the government finances with the common sense that household’s manage theirs? It is a commonly held view that we should treat the government as if it is a prudent household. We don’t when ...