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At its heart, Kiwibuild was a promise to end the housing crisis. The set of reforms Minister Twyford is overseeing can fulfil that promise, if he has the chance to see them through. Read more
“Nothing good happens after 3 am,” Auckland’s top-ranking police officer once said. “Facts tend to be overanalysed,” his Wellingtonian counterpart claimed. Read more
Complaining about a housing crisis in New Zealand has become a national sport, spawning all sorts of wrong policy remedies. New Zealand’s housing issue is a supply problem: The country’s rules and institutions are not conducive to a thriving building industry. Read more
When Housing Minister Phil Twyford spoke at the Initiative’s retreat last week, I had only one regret about having invited him: Our event is held under Chatham House rules. You see, under Chatham House rules you cannot report or attribute anything that is said at the conference. Read more
“Few ways are guaranteed to make yourself unpopular in New Zealand: try claiming that pavlova was an Australian invention; hating the All Blacks; or maybe expressing sympathy for local government.” This is the opening paragraph in our new publication #localismNZ: Bringing power to the people. We launched it yesterday at a joint symposium with Local Government New Zealand. Read more
Oliver Hartwich introduces his new report #localismNZ: Bringing power to the people on Mike Hosking Breakfast. He also discusses the results of a new UMR poll that reveals the majority of those surveyed support shifting power from central government to local communities. Read more
Wellington (27 February 2019): A joint LGNZ/New Zealand Initiative conference held in Wellington tomorrow will explore the results of a new survey that reveals the majority of those surveyed support a move towards local services being managed and provided by local decision-makers. With New Zealanders’ attitudes towards devolved government shifting, many believe now is the time to explore localism. Read more
Some folks take the wrong lesson from intermediate microeconomics – or never took the course in the first place. I worry that too many of them staff Wellington’s bureaus. Read more
“When equality is given to unequal things, the resultant will be unequal,” Plato once said. The ancient Greek philosopher would then have certainly condemned our local governance rules. Read more
Anybody even remotely connected with housing, housing research, the building industry – or with the ability to fog a mirror by breathing on it – had to know it was near-impossible for the government to meet its KiwiBuild promises on its 10-year schedule. Our current planning rules, infrastructure financing mechanisms, building materials supply regulations, council incentives, zoning, training of construction workers, rules around letting more construction workers into the country, rules around foreign builders being able to build here, rules around foreign financing of building projects, Resource Management Act processes – all of it made any non-trivial KiwiBuild impossible. Read more