OPINION

Last week Victoria University of Wellington announced that it was looking to cut some 230 to 260 jobs as part of its plan to tackle a $30 million deficit. The news followed an announcement by the University of Otago that it would shed ‘several hundred’ positions in an effort to fill a $60 million dollar hole in its budget. Read more

If there is one constant in New Zealand’s foreign policy, it is its unpredictability. But last week, Defence Minister Andrew Little asserted that New Zealand “knows which side we’re on.” Which was news to us. Read more

For many years, Germany’s Greens had a good run. They kept increasing their share of the vote in elections at the federal and state levels. Read more

Local government often finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Councils have limited sources of funding – mainly ratepayers and borrowings – which have practical limits. Read more

After spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out whether paying NZ Steel an enormous amount of money to install a new electric furnace made any kind of sense, I have finally come to a conclusion. If the subsidy does make sense, it would indicate severe problems in how industrial allocations have been handled. Read more

The eight days since last Thursday have not been kind to Minister of Finance Grant Robertson’s budget. Initial assessments flattered to deceive. Read more

Spread out over 8, 000 acres (hence ‘the Farm’), Stanford University’s campus is an impressive sight. Palms line the triumphant main drive. Read more

As we get older many of us are a bit forgetful. Keys, glasses, schools and Crown entity subsidiaries. Read more

“There is a lot of ruin in a nation.” It is one of those sayings that is easy to misinterpret. Taking Adam Smith’s famous quote literally, there are so many ways for a country to go wrong. Read more

Last week’s government Budget increased projected government operating spending over the next four years by $8.4 billion while projected revenue fell by $10.7 billion. Projected government borrowing rose by $20 billion. Read more

Let’s imagine a computer game, shall we? It is called ‘Master Lobbyist’, and your job is to play the governments of two countries off against each other. Read more

If a lot of the government’s health policy people started looking warmly at homeopathy and other kinds of medical pseudoscience and woo, we’d all recognise that as a problem, right? Maybe we would want to test our intuitions about it. Read more

Meet the new public health. Same as the old public health. Read more

It is two decades since NCEA became New Zealand’s qualification system for secondary school students. It replaced a very traditional, exam-based system – School Certificate and University Entrance-Bursary. Read more

New Zealand has just received its 2023 Budget. Our Government has a clear predilection for spending. Read more