When land use planning is wrong, it is hard for anything to be right – from housing to supermarkets. Labour and National jointly support legislation allowing people to build more housing. Read more

The Ministry of Health’s approach to Covid testing is going to kill people. For all of the past year, the Ministry has been horribly wrong about Covid testing systems. It has ignored substantial reviews of testing policy. Read more

Would you believe that the old story of Hansel and Gretel was based in fact? In 1963, Hans Trexler published a book I’m surprised that Oliver Hartwich hasn’t read: Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel. Read more

We are going to miss central bank independence when it is gone. It was hard-fought. Read more

Watching government agencies scramble to find solutions to problems they or other government agencies caused is darkly amusing. They rarely notice the root cause of the problem they are trying to solve, or that their proposed solutions only set the stage for the next round of problems to come. Read more

James Michael Curley, Mayor of Boston four times between 1914 and 1950, knew how to win an election. Curley’s key to victory? Read more

Trolley problems are fun thought experiments in the philosophy and economics classroom. A trolley is hurtling down the track and will run over 10 people, unless you pull the lever. Read more

Those of us whose families are far away across wide oceans found a bit of hope this week. Entering New Zealand will really be rather simple. Read more

In 1996, Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash highlighted the political importance of speed in the 1980s reform agenda. Drawing on an earlier speech by Sir Roger Douglas, he noted that “opponents’ fire is much less accurate if they have to shoot at a rapidly moving target.” Policy over the past two years have moved at similar pace, but rather less coherently, and in the middle of a global pandemic that also requires at least some minor attention from the ministries. Read more