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New Zealand affords itself the luxury of treating overseas investment as a privilege rather than as a necessary and desirable means of better integrating ourselves with the world, so as to make the most of what it has to offer. That blinkered attitude permeates our regulatory regime, which the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development assesses to be more restrictive than the regimes of 47 other countries out of a total of 53 countries. Read more

Since the Living Wage Aotearoa's campaign launched in March last year, there has been no shortage of talk about the feasibility of its implementation, and how it will affect the business of employers and the livelihood of workers. Last week, Jesse Chalmers - treasurer for the Auckland division of the Green Party - waxed lyrical about the positive impact the living wage allegedly had on her small-to-medium enterprise. Read more

Consistency is regarded by some as a hallmark of a good politician, so by this logic Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce should be commended for steadfastly fronting the government's apparent commitment to ensuring that expensive recreational pastimes get well-rewarded. The latest beneficiary of the taxpayers’ purse is the New Zealand Open pro-am, an annual golf tournament which takes place at The Hills and Millbrook course in Queenstown. Read more

It’s tough for parties in the opposition benches. They have been stripped of a major rod with which to beat National in an election year. Read more

Inequality is the buzzword this election year. The usual vernacular is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Read more

The first management book I ever read, back in the late 1980s, was the sequel to In Search of Excellence, the book that established Tom Peters as the world’s leading management guru. A friend had given it to me. Read more

The Prime Minister visited Europe this week. After meetings with European Union leaders, John Key announced that – finally – a free trade deal between New Zealand and the EU was on the table. Read more

The good news about New Zealand's economy just keeps on coming. Business confidence is at a record high, employment is increasing, as are wages. Read more

Fiscal surpluses are in sight, export prices are extraordinarily high relative to import prices, national income growth prospects look brighter than for many years, and this is a general election year. This sets the stage for unsustainable increases in government spending - or for tax cuts or some combination of the two. Read more