When Odysseus sailed the treacherous waters between the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, he just had to survive. Holding onto a fig tree, Odysseus eventually made it through. Read more
There is a real chance that Kiwis will miss out on celebrating Christmas at home, because spaces in managed isolation are booking out fast. From now on, everyone traveling back to New Zealand needs a voucher for their two-week quarantine. Read more
At the end of October, governor of the Reserve Bank Adrian Orr boldly asserted in a speech that climate change is “a key risk to global financial stability.” He made the case for urgent “transformation” as an “important, imminent, and personal” issue. Although the Reserve Bank Act does not mention climate change, the RBNZ is responsible for financial stability. Read more
Last week the Governor of the Reserve Bank Adrian Orr issued a call to action on climate change. Titled “Progressing Climate Action by Driving Transformational Change” it sounded like a political stump speech. Read more
In an opinion piece in the NZ Herald, Oliver Hartwich argued that New Zealanders are actually quite unlucky right now. He discusses this column with Jesse Mulligan on Radio NZ and explains why he thinks we are going wrong and why we don't appear to know it. Read more
In this week’s New Zealand initiative podcast, a speech by Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr touched on climate change and social transformation as part of his thinking in achieving future financial stability. But the content of the speech caught the attention of analyst Matt Burgess not necessarily for what was said, but what the governor left out. Read more
Voters rewarded the Coalition Government for saving lives as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world. Now the new Government must save livelihoods. Read more
It all finally started coming together in the 2021 Budget. The pieces existed before it, but nobody had put them together. Read more
As US military strategist John Boyd said about his “OODA loop” theory (observe, orient, decide, act), if one’s orientation is out by just a millimetre, the entire strategy fails. A new site called mediabias.co.nz measures the political bias of New Zealand news services and it shows those worried about media bias are worried about the wrong thing. Read more
All eyes are on New Zealand. In the lead-up to the election, Time magazine admired our "calmer democracy." The World Health Organisation once again praised our Covid-19 management. Read more
A distinct advantage that the bench sciences and medical sciences have over the social sciences is the ability to run experiments. If a clinician wants to run a trial to check whether a new drug might work, the regulatory hurdles can be substantial, but the trial is certainly possible. Read more
In 2018, the Labour-led Government proudly released its first wellbeing budget. It would be great if Labour uses its second term to truly focus on wellbeing. Read more
The sense of relief was palpable as the long election campaign finally ended. It is even better that the result delivered a clear mandate without the need of compromises, deal-making and brinkmanship. Read more
Winston Peters will exit politics for the third time in his career. I spotted his ghost at Parliament the other day. Read more
In this week’s New Zealand Initiative podcast, the delayed election is finally decided. But the next term for a Labour majority government will be tough as it wrestles with the consequences of Covid-19. Read more