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
A fortnight is an eternity in the bewildering Covid-19 world. Two weeks ago, this column argued for a more coherent coronavirus strategy. Read more
If the Government’s decision to suspend most of the economy and send most Kiwis home for a month is successful, I will be one of the first to applaud. Covid-19 has cast me in the role of a vulnerable New Zealander. Read more
Professor Sir David Skegg raised the 64-thousand-dollar (or perhaps 64 billion-dollar) question in his testimony before Parliament’s Epidemic Response Committee this week. He asked whether the government had a clear the strategic objective for its unprecedented level-four lockdown. Read more
The coronavirus lockdown is a challenge for every one of us. Every worker, family, charity, public institution and firm. Read more
In times of war, parts of the every-day rulebook for liberal democracies must be suspended. To protect personal and economic freedoms, in wartime governments must temporarily curb some of them. Read more
A paradox exists within the personal grievance provisions of the Employment Relations Act 2000. By prohibiting “unjustified dismissal,” the provisions were designed to guard the jobs of ordinary workers. Read more
Counting by the number of times the phrases “gig economy” and “future of work” are mentioned by the news media, you could be forgiven for thinking full-time employment was a thing of the past. Yet last year the Productivity Commission reported the so-called gig economy was both small and showed no signs of rapid growth, either in New Zealand or in the 30 other countries for which data was available. Read more
Read our submission, written by Roger Partridge, to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), on Better protections for contractors: Discussion document for public feedback. In this submission we draw upon the research and recommendations from our July 2019 report, Work in Progress: Why Fair Pay Agreements would be bad for labour. Read more
Problem identification is the first step toward good public policy development. Is there a concern that needs solving? Read more
Recent New Zealand elections have revealed a 21st-century paradox. Election year should be a time when politicians talk with the voting public about whether the country’s current policy settings are improving wellbeing, or whether changes are needed. Read more
Standard organisational theory explains the differences between an organisation’s objective (or its goal) and the strategies and tactics it adopts to achieve its objective. If an organisation confuses these concepts, it risks jeopardising its goal. Read more
The more things change, the more they stay the same -- or so the saying goes. The expression could not be a more apt description of what we are witnessing at the Reserve Bank. Read more
It can take courage to champion what you believe in. Especially when your views are at odds with those of the crowd. Read more
The Ministry of Business’ Fair Pay Agreement discussion paper released last month took a long time coming. The ministry sat on it for 10 months following the release of the Bolger-led Fair Pay Agreement Working Group’s report last December. Read more
When the government presses ahead with incomprehensible proposals, you have to ask “Why?” A classic example is the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Discussion Paper, Designing a Fair Pay Agreements System. Submissions in response to the Discussion Paper were due earlier this week. Read more