Benno is a Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative with a wide range of policy interests. He has worked on several ‘once in a lifetime’, ‘generational opportunity’ type reform programs across central and local government, covering the Urban Growth Agenda, the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act 2020, Three Waters reform, Resource Management reform, and Science, Innovation and Technology system reform.
Benno’s interest in policy was born after initially studying religion (BAHon), philosophy (MA) and psychology (GradDipSci) with a focus on consciousness, which culminated in a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington.
His subsequent policy career traced the problem definition of housing unaffordability to its roots, covering positions at The Treasury (urban planning and land markets), The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (infrastructure funding and financing) and Local Government New Zealand (three waters and constitutional underpinnings of alternative urban planning paradigms).
Most recently, he worked on how science, innovation and technology system reform could contribute to our global economic competitiveness and help turn around New Zealand’s long lasting productivity challenge.
One of Benno's emerging policy interests is meta-reform: reform directed not at any particular policy domain but at the architecture of government and the machinery of the public service, which are the institutional conditions that determine whether policy reform of any kind can be conceived, developed, and implemented effectively in genuine support of the government of the day.
Before anyone builds a house in New Zealand, someone must pay upfront for the pipes and the roads that connect a development to the city. Almost always, that someone is the council. Read more
New Zealand spends more on infrastructure than almost any developed country, yet still cannot build the pipes and roads new housing needs. Why? Read more
Before anyone can build a house in New Zealand, someone must pay for the pipes and the roads that connect a development to the city. While this seems like a minor detail, it is a central issue for housing affordability. Read more
Wellington (Wednesday, 17 June 2026) – New Zealand cannot build enough houses because councils cannot afford the pipes and roads that new suburbs need. That is the conclusion of a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. Read more
New Zealand cannot build enough houses because councils cannot afford the pipes and roads that new suburbs need. That is the conclusion of a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. Read more
In a meeting room on Lambton Quay, a paper is on its eleventh draft. It is about whether the public service should adopt AI. Read more
This is The New Zealand Initiative’s 2026 Prescription for Prosperity. Since 2017, the Initiative has prepared a briefing for the incoming government. Read more
In this episode, Eric talks with Dr Benno Blaschke and Chris Parker about why our current approach to housing supply, which is focused on housing targets and delivered through “predict and provide”, has consistently failed. The explore what a better system could look like by discussing Benno's proposed alternative, where an independent panel would use price-based indicators to evaluate council plans against the conditions of competitive urban land markets. Read more
Housing targets have long been a political football – and an emotional subject. Would it not be better to take some of the heat out of the housing debate and ask more systematically how we could better plan for future housing supply? Read more
Housing targets have long been a political football. They are also an emotional political subject. Read more
Wellington (Thursday, 21 May 2026) – Housing targets have long been a political football. They are also an emotional political subject. Read more
Dr Benno Blaschke talked to Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB about his research note Beyond Targets, arguing that housing targets alone are insufficient without addressing the planning rules and zoning that create artificial scarcity. Dr Blaschke proposed an independent expert panel, likening it to a financial adviser for cities, to help councils get the urban economics right rather than leaving housing affordability to political decision-making. Read more
Dr Benno Blaschke talked to Jesse Mulligan on RNZ Afternoons about his new report Beyond Targets, which argues that New Zealand's "predict and provide" approach to housing planning locks projections into rigid regulation that fails to respond to real market demand. Dr Blaschke proposes a more flexible system with an independent accountability function, similar to the Reserve Bank's role with interest rates, that monitors price signals and adjusts zoning to ensure housing is provided where people actually want to live. Read more
Housing targets have long been a political football. They are also an emotional political subject. Read more
In this episode, Nick and Benno discuss whether New Zealand's proposed planning reforms can actually deliver housing affordability or fail to escape the gravitational pull of the status quo. They unpack how our current planning system and the rules it makes are an extractive institution: one that concentrates decision-making power over land use in the hands of a few, beholden to a privileged group of incumbents. Read more