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Chris Bishop asked an excellent question during last week’s Select Committee hearings into the government’s proposed Natural and Built Environment Act. “Where does local democracy stop and the legitimate …national interest kick in?” The question cuts to the heart of one of the debates around resource management reform. Read more

Bad constitutional processes are necessarily worse than bad policy processes. Constitutions, whether written or unwritten, are our basic rules about how we make laws and elect representatives. Read more

Perhaps the timing was simply a coincidence. But not long after central government firmed up its intention to take water infrastructure away from local government, and its intention to shift planning up from local councils to regional bodies, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta opened a review of local government. Read more

A rowboat drifts at sea, water seeping in from a hole in its side. Its captain has engineered all kinds of ingenious devices to bail out the boat and to dry sodden things. Read more

In Douglas Adams’s classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, Wonko the Sane realised that the world had gone mad. He had seen the instructions on the side of a packet of toothpicks. Read more

In 2010, the National-led government launched a rather substantial experiment. Auckland City’s smaller councils were forced to amalgamate into a supercity structure. Read more

As an exemplar of the purest form of Kiwi anti-growth, anti-development orientation, it is hard to beat. If New Zealand doesn’t beat this particular habit, it is very hard to be optimistic about anything other than emigration. Read more

On 4 June, The Dominion Post published a lengthy and disturbing article highlighting the woes and dilemmas of earthquake safety regulation in Wellington. It highlighted the arbitrariness of current building standards and decisions. Read more