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Nutrient load is too high in too many New Zealand lakes and rivers. Cleaning up the mess featured prominently in last year’s election. Read more

“Productivity isn’t everything but in the long run it is almost everything,” observed economist Paul Krugman. “A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise output per worker.” This is bad news for New Zealand. Read more

In his latest 'Spotlight on Europe' column for Newsroom, Dr Oliver Hartwich explains just how undemocratic the European Union is, while at the same time it keeps trying to tell its members to be democratic. “I’d never join a club that would accept me as a member,” says Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall. Read more

Every two years, Treasury surveys stakeholders about Treasury’s performance. The 2015 survey was up on Treasury’s website about two months after it was completed. Read more

“Siri, give me directions to the airport.” After a long couple of days of meetings in Auckland it was time to head home. The reply from my smartphone was immediate. Read more

“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck.” This is how the late Donald Horne once described the West Island in The Lucky Country (1964). Half a century later, Horne’s double characterisation of the country and its political leadership applies more than ever. Read more

New Zealanders have come to rely a great deal on government. The proportion of national income taken by taxes more than quadrupled in the 20th century and the number of Parliamentary Acts increased 50-fold. Read more