Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He is a regular commentator in the media on public policy and constitutional law. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014, after 16 years as a commercial litigation partner. He is an honorary fellow of the Legal Research Foundation, a charitable foundation associated with the University of Auckland and was its executive director from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the editorial board of the New Zealand Law Review and was a member of the Council of the New Zealand Law Society, the governing body of the legal profession in New Zealand, from 2011 to 2015. He is a former chartered member of the Institute of Directors, a member of the University of Auckland Business School advisory board, and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
The Reserve Bank keeps inflation in check, oversees the financial system, regulates banks and issues the country’s currency. These are important jobs, defined by Parliament. Read more
Critics of judicial overreach face an odd challenge. The most sophisticated response is not to defend the decisions – it is to deny that the constitutional limits exist at all. Read more
Winston Peters was in Westport on Sunday, announcing that a future NZ First government would return 50 per cent of all mining royalties to the regions where mining occurs. It is one of the more sensible growth ideas to emerge from this election campaign so far. Read more
Peter Smith asks a fair question. In Trump and the Paradox of American Power, I wrote that I had long favoured taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities – but not like this. Read more
When a story recently emerged about the government getting advice on carless days under the Petroleum Demand Restraint Act, older New Zealanders will have felt a warm flush of nostalgia. The 1979 restrictions brought coloured windscreen stickers announcing the weekday car owners had promised not to drive. Read more
Imagine a system in which those who understand it best see a problem developing – slowly, incrementally, case by case – but choose not to say so publicly. Not because they are forbidden to speak. Read more
Donald Trump promised the Iranian people their hour of freedom had arrived. Ten days later, the dead Supreme Leader’s son sits in his father’s chair, the Revolutionary Guard is still fighting, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, oil spiked above $100 a barrel and seven Americans are dead. Read more
Anyone who has visited Sydney recently will have seen what asset recycling built. New metro lines that transformed commuter rail. Read more
Last week, the Government confirmed it would spend up to $200 million buying new Genesis Energy shares. Three ministers lined up to explain the decision. Read more
Roger Partridge talks to Peter Williams on Taxpayer Talk discussing his new report arguing New Zealand could unlock more than $24 billion for essential infrastructure by recycling mature Crown-owned commercial assets. Listen here Read more
A principal who runs a school well does not get to tell parents what to cook for dinner. The authority is real – but it is specific. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to Roger Partridge about his new report, Renovating the Nation, which proposes selling around $25 billion worth of government-owned commercial assets and reinvesting the proceeds into critical public infrastructure. Drawing on the success of New South Wales's asset recycling programme, Roger argues the Crown has too much capital tied up in businesses it doesn't need to own, and that ring-fencing sale proceeds in an independently governed fund could deliver the roads, hospitals, and public transport New Zealand desperately needs. Read more
Wellington (Monday, 2 March 2026) - New Zealand could unlock more than $24 billion for essential infrastructure by recycling mature Crown-owned commercial assets, according to a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. Renovating the Nation: How Asset Recycling Can Help Solve the Infrastructure Deficit, by the Initiative chair Roger Partridge, argues the government should redirect capital tied up in commercial enterprises into hospitals, schools, roads and water systems — without raising taxes or increasing public debt. Read more
Report author Roger Partridge will also discuss his report on a webinar with Fran O'Sullivan and Fraser Whineray on 2 March at 2:30 pm. You can register for that webinar here. Read more
This webinar launches Renovating the Nation: How Asset Recycling Can Help Solve the Infrastructure Deficit, a report by Roger Partridge arguing New Zealand can fund new infrastructure by recycling Crown-owned commercial assets the government does not need to own. Hosted by Dr Oliver Hartwich and featuring Fran O’Sullivan and Fraser Whineray (former CEO of Mercury), the discussion unpacks the New South Wales model and why New Zealand’s past asset sales failed to build trust. Read more