This week, the Government moved to reassert Parliament’s authority over the courts. Two years ago, in Smith v Fonterra, the Supreme Court revived a climate change claim the Court of Appeal had unanimously struck out. Read more
There’s always been a tension in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. The Act’s object has two parts. Read more
A bar in a rough neighbourhood has a few viable options. It can have a strict doorman checking every patron to make sure they suit the vibe the bar is trying to create. Read more
Treasury projects public health spending will rise from 7.1 to 10 per cent of GDP by 2065. Over the same period, the ratio of working-age taxpayers to superannuitants will halve. Read more
In 2013, Scottish teacher Tom Bennett realised that his training had not well prepared him for the classroom. He had not even been taught basic classroom management skills. Read more
A German economist writing satire about New Zealand sounds like the opening line of a bad joke. The joke gets longer when you learn the plot: two Martian auditors land in the Wairarapa expecting humanity at its best, are promptly fined for parking without consent, and proceed on a reluctant tiki tour of the country in the company of a Wellington bureaucrat named Ben, who has quietly decided his career is over and he may as well help them. Read more
Any minister of finance would find this month’s Budget a challenge. The problem is chronic deficit spending. Read more
Something happened in law schools in the closing decades of the twentieth century. It did not make the headlines. Read more
Russian power has always sat on a contradiction. The country can put satellites into orbit and tanks across borders, but it cannot build a normal economy. Read more
Is it better to be a policy analyst or a plumber? In the minds of many New Zealanders, university degrees carry greater status than industry qualifications. Read more
It is hard to convince anyone they need to change when they think nothing is broken. The story of the emperor’s new clothes captures it. Read more
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans know the dangers of having a sense of proportion. Appreciating our own insignificance relative to the infinity of creation is fatal. Read more
Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan in 1651, amid the wreckage of the English Civil War. We know him for his defence of the state: without a sovereign authority to impose order, human life reverts to a “war of every man against every man”, where existence is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Read more
Each year, more than a quarter of New Zealand’s school leavers enrol at university. But around one in five new university students leave within their first year of study, without completing a degree. Read more
From mid-2020 through 2022, New Zealand women helped test whether vaccinating pregnant women against Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) could protect their newborns. It worked. Read more