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MYTH 1: Foreign investment means loss of control Parliament remains the supreme law-making body, inwards foreign investment must comply with New Zealand laws, and foreigners don't get to vote. Land use and business activity is extensively regulated in New Zealand, for overseas and local investors alike. Read more

This week, The New Zealand Initiative releases its third and final report in the foreign direct investment (FDI) series, Open for Business: Removing the barriers to foreign investment. The report focuses on New Zealand's policies towards inwards overseas investment, the centrepiece of which is the Overseas Investment Act 2005 (OIA). Read more

This week we published the last in our series of three reports on New Zealand’s external financial links. Our report, Open for business: Removing the barriers to foreign investment, co-authored by the writer and Research Assistant Khyaati Acharya, examines New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Act 2005 and associated regulations. Read more

When Labour announced its so-called “Monetary Policy Upgrade” this week, their finance spokesperson David Parker was aware of what a radical departure from conventional monetary practice it was. When asked whether one of its key proposals, a compulsory variable savings rate (VSR), was in place anywhere else in the world, Parker had to admit that “nowhere currently” was such a scheme practised. Read more

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