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Wellington (25 August 2015): Improving compensation for live organ donors is a rare opportunity to save both lives and healthcare dollars, according to a report released today by The New Zealand Initiative. Author Elizabeth Prasad found that every transplant provides recipients with longer and better lives, while being much cheaper than dialysis – saving the government money over the longer term. Read more

Wellington (26 June 2015): The country needs to change its tune on inequality, according to The New Zealand Initiative, with a recently published report by Treasury showing that the gap between rich and poor has been stable or falling over the past 20 years. The Treasury working paper by Christopher Ball and John Creedy analysed annual income and expenditure since 1984. Read more

Wellington (1 June 2015): The Government should be commended for the introduction of a social bond in the mental health sector, as announced today by Finance Minister Bill English and Minister of Health Jonathan Coleman. It is the first of four social bonds the government aims to introduce. Read more

Wellington (18 May 2015): Government needs to set clearer rules, provide greater transparency and remove the tax advantage enjoyed by for-profit arms of charity groups if it wants to promote the work of the charitable sector, according to The New Zealand Initiative. The public policy think tank’s latest report, Giving Charities a Helping Hand, analysed over a decade of regulatory change in the sector, and found that the current rules are stacked against smaller operators while allowing commercial arms of large charities to claim income tax exemptions with little oversight. Read more