Nearly a decade ago, historian Niall Ferguson coined the term “Chimerica” to describe what he saw as the obvious and symbiotic relationship emerging between China and America. Most people would laugh today at the idea of the two Pacific heavyweights as economic and political partners. Read more
What happened in Italy this week could tempt us to feel smug. Surely, the decision to put the whole country into lockdown must be an exaggeration. Read more
What if the principal and chair of trustees of each of New Zealand’s 500 secondary schools received a report every year that cut through the noise to show exactly how their school was performing? Crucially, this report would be objective, data-driven and fair, because it adjusts for the unique community of students each school serves. Read more
Some of us have been training for a scenario like this our entire lives! Coronavirus has hit and in the early public reaction to the outbreak, there are already talks of a possible nation-wide quarantine or “self-isolation” policy. Read more
If your school has strong NCEA results, is it because it’s performing well, or because it serves a lot of children from more privileged backgrounds? Schools with identical NCEA outcomes could have wildly different performance if one of them got there through extraordinary efforts to overcome the disadvantages that its students brought with them to class. Read more
To start with a disclaimer, I am not a medical expert. I have no degree in epidemiology, nor can I claim any expertise in public health management. Read more
Travel bans bought New Zealand a little time, nothing more. We hope the Government is using this time well to prepare for the more widespread Covid-19 outbreak that seems likely to arrive, sometime. Read more
Since 2008, a contagion spread through the developed world: people felt that elites and politicians were looking out for each other and forgetting them. With this new coronavirus, murmurings about a travel ban has begun since Christmas as the virus jumped beyond China. Read more
Social norms can persist well past their use-by date because they can be so hard to change. Nobody wants to move first, lest they be considered the weirdo. Read more
New Zealand is vulnerable to the same threats to their freedoms Australia is struggling with – and arguably the risk has already arrived. The worst assault across the ditch comes initially out of US and UK universities where a hybrid utopian movement of the most dangerous aspects of postmodernism and collectivism has been rebooted in the form of social justice, intersectionality and identity politics. Read more
The government has crossed a bright-line rule in its proposed changes to Kiwisaver. Its proposal to require default funds to divest of any fossil fuel stocks is incredibly unlikely to have any direct effect on greenhouse gas emissions. 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
One wonders what French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire would have made of the Free Speech Union (FSU). Set up by British journalist Toby Young, the FSU presents itself as a “non-partisan, mass-membership organisation that stands up for the speech rights of its members.” An organisation to promote free speech – what nobler cause could there be? Read more
I skived off last Friday afternoon for the first day of the cricket test at the Basin Reserve. Relaxing on the grass there really is one of the good things. Read more
Like so much of value in life, education is oblique. Unfortunately, NCEA’s reviewers have yet to appreciate this. Read more
