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One of the most commonly held views on cities you will hear is that urban centres need to be carefully designed by town planning regulators in order to be efficient. That is to say, that without trained professionals telling private developers what to build and where, cities will descend into chaos. Read more
Wellington (4 August 2015): The New Zealand Initiative’s annual Next Generation Debate series will have high profile New Zealanders asserting their views on a range of topical political issues, as well as seeing some of the top students from Otago, Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland universities go head to head. Hon Maryan Street, who proposed and championed the End-of-Life Choice Bill and Dr Stephen Child, Chair of the New Zealand Medical Association will discuss the issue of legalising euthanasia in the first semi-final, with a question and answer session concluding their presentations. Read more
I don't think there has ever been a better time to pull out Homer Simpson's term "crisitunity". As everyone knows, the Chinese character for crisis combines danger with opportunity - hence crisitunity. Read more
This week, Local Government New Zealand launched a funding reform pitch at central government, broadly making a case that if you want the national economy to grow, you need to fund the enablers of that growth better. This is certainly not the first such pitch that the local government sector has made to officials in Wellington on the matter. Read more
Wellington (21 July 2015): If we want to fix housing affordability, we have to make sure that growing cities are in local government’s financial interest. The New Zealand Initiative today welcomed Local Government New Zealand’s Local Government Funding Review. Read more
If one wanted to summarise all of economics in just one word, what would it be? For obvious reasons it cannot be “supply and demand” (because that is three words). Read more
It’s always a bit tough reporting on the New Zealand Economics Association annual conference. Not because the papers are filled with opaque mathematical theory, or because speakers were less than lucid – neither of those are true, for the most part. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich on Radio NZ: Housing report calls for tolls, less red tape.
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Wellington (17 June 2015): The Productivity Commission’s latest report on how overly tight land supply feeds the housing affordability crisis is a pressing reminder of why the planning system and local government funding arrangements need reform, according to The New Zealand Initiative. The draft report, Using Land for Housing, notes that while New Zealand has one of the fastest population growth rates in the OECD, the supply of land for housing has not kept pace. Read more
Wellington (10 June 2015): The OECD’s recent report on New Zealand has highlighted the urgent need to untangle the Resource Management Act (RMA), which has snared the housing marketing in a spiral of ever-rising prices, according to The New Zealand Initiative. The public policy think tank said the findings of the bi-annual report resonated with much of its own research, particularly where zoning regulations have constrained the supply of new houses and pushed up prices. Read more