Cast your mind back to mid-December. A new Prime Minister had just been sworn in, the new Government started its 100-day programme, and Christmas was only days away. Read more
Social media use is ubiquitous. Young people, especially, are relying on it for social interaction, sometimes to the near exclusion of offline friendships. Read more
The New Zealand Initiative has taken advantage of the tumultuous media landscape and branched out this week into news coverage. Your faithful reporter’s first task was covering the approval of the Wellington City District plan by the Minister for RMA Reform. Read more
New Zealand has an infrastructure deficit of at least $100 billion, a huge amount for a small country and a significant drag on productivity and economic growth. Not all of this can be financed from within New Zealand, meaning a need for overseas investment. Read more
Even today’s sharpest critics of economics should give economists credit for two substantial wins for liberalism over the past couple of centuries. In 1849, Thomas Carlyle called economics ‘the Dismal Science.” The name stuck, but most people using the term have forgotten why Carlyle gave us that name. Read more
They say that denial is the first stage of grief and that overcoming it matters if you want anything to get better. There has been an awful lot of denial of the serious fiscal problem that the government must start addressing in May’s budget. Read more
Spare a thought for New Zealand’s Finance Minister, Nicola Willis as she prepares to deliver her first Budget later this month. The economic circumstances she has inherited from her predecessor, Grant Robertson, are the worst any Kiwi finance minister has faced since the tumultuous days of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson in the 1980s and early 1990s. Read more
History often helps put current controversies in context. In 1968, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Ira Glasser defended racist Alabama Governor George Wallace’s right to speak at a city-owned stadium in New York. Read more
New Zealand has an infrastructure deficit of at least $100 billion, a significant drag on productivity and economic growth. Not all this deficit can be financed from within New Zealand, meaning we will need overseas investment. Read more
As your Vice-Chancellor here at He Waka Kore Hoe (once known as Elizabeth University), I’m excited to announce the 17th consultation period (Round 3A) for our public panel on free speech, which will kick off next Monday, November 12th, 2031. I am grateful to all the groups who made submissions during the last round, including Anti-Racists for Climate Justice, Students Against Education, Queers for Palestine, Vegans Anonymous, Anonymous, the Philistine Society, Debating Debate Club, and More Mao Now! Read more
It is fashionable to see climate as the main threat to the future quality of life of young people today. The word “climate” is commonly followed by “crisis” or “emergency”. Read more
The Education and Training Act enshrines academic freedom in law. It distinguishes aspects of academic freedom over which the university itself has jurisdiction, from aspects that protect its students and academic staff from institutional interference. Read more
More than two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shattered the continent’s illusion of perpetual peace, Europe finds itself confronting a once-unthinkable question: is it time to bring back the draft? For decades, conscription seemed like a relic of a bygone era. Read more
I may have been the only New Zealander to raise a glass on Monday to the 300th birthday of Immanuel Kant. In our age of unreason, conspiracy theories and disinformation, we would do well to rediscover this Enlightenment philosopher. Read more
It is time we liberalised our Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) regulations. Benefits to New Zealand would include pest-resistant crops, more productive crops and fruit, sterile pines for forestry, reduced carbon emissions, reduced agricultural methane, better healthcare products, cheaper medication, and pest control. Read more