Economist Eric Crampton is appalled by the suggestion that there be any government money put into Joseph Parker's next fight. He joins the panel to express his digust on the matter. Read more
John Steinbeck once said that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses had it coming. While a novice fisher might find this saying humorous, a veteran likely won’t, since much can be said about the challenges of fishing for sport. Read more
If income inequality is not rising in New Zealand, but enough voters think it is, do inequality concerns still matter? This week The New Zealand Initiative released The Inequality Paradox: Why inequality matters even though it has barely changed. Read more
Equipping today’s students with the skills needed for tomorrow’s jobs is perhaps the 21st century’s greatest challenge. But how confident are we that our tertiary education sector can innovate to meet the future needs of students? Read more
The public is constantly told income inequality is rising and the government should do something. A recent NZ Listener article asserted inequality had risen faster “in recent years” than in almost any other developed country. Read more
There is an inequality paradox in New Zealand. Despite increasingly frequent newspaper headlines on inequality, the data shows that inequality in income and inequality in consumption have not changed substantially for at least a decade. Read more
Wellington (18 October 2016): New Zealand’s inequality crisis is actually a housing crisis, a new report by The New Zealand Initiative says. Launched today, ‘The Inequality Paradox: Why inequality matters even though it has barely changed’ finds that too many New Zealanders are suffering real hardship, and this is largely due to very high housing costs. Read more
Co-author Jenesa Jeram discusses the Initiative's new report, The Inequality Paradox: Why inequality matters even though it has barely changed There is an inequality paradox in New Zealand. Despite increasingly frequent newspaper headlines on inequality, the data shows that inequality in income and inequality in consumption have not changed substantially for at least a decade. Read more
Later this week the official results of the local body elections will be released, but even before the first vote was cast many were predicting who the biggest loser would be: local democracy. It looks like that prediction is paying off. Read more
In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the tyrannical state develops an artificial language called Newspeak to align thought and action with the ideology of the Party. Its aim is to entrench the tyranny of the Party by making other modes of thought impossible. Read more
Thomas Hobbes told us the State is necessary to protect us. The war of all against all that would ensue without a State to protect us from each other would be worse than even a terrible despot. Read more
A motto I live by is to hope for the best but expect the worst. As such, I was disappointed but not surprised to hear immigration minister Michael Woodhouse announce this week that the government is getting tougher on immigration policy. Read more
The future is uncertain but that technology’s role will become more important is as safe a prediction as any. This was the key message in a talk by renowned futurologist Peter Cochrane to the Initiative this week. Read more
“In a connected world no man is an island and neither is his country” Economies and workforces are now globalised with wealth generation determined by the connectivity of national infrastructures, industrial investment and workforce adaptability. Unfortunately, history gives us little guidance to our future as we have never before enjoyed such technological riches or endured the accelerating rates of change! Read more
There is a fishing saying, ‘When in doubt, exaggerate.’ At least that is what comes to mind when the fishing industry repeatedly refers to the quota management system (QMS) as world leading. In some respects, the QMS may well have maintained world leading status after 30 years, but certainly not with respect to holding commercial fishers accountable for their catches. Read more