Is it really true that the High Court is (partly) to blame for the recent decision to allow COVID-19 infected travellers out of quarantine? No. No it isn’t.
Read MoreThe Christiansen case, compassion and the constitutional role of the courts
Who controls the present now?
The rebranding of the Government’s “Unite Against COVID-19” campaign into “Unite for the Recovery” is probably unfair to the opposition. Does that matter, and what could be done about it?
Read MoreThe Wobbly Bicycle
The Government is spending like it was trying to win the election. The Opposition is trying to outbid it
Read More
Oliver Twist dominates too much of social policy.
Oliver Twist, famously asked for ‘more’. He did not challenge the system of workhouses – Dickens did – nor the authority of Beadle Bumble. He was only nine.
Read MoreA lot has happened in the last month – now we have to find a way out.
Last month I noted that the public policy debate was all about how we deal with covid-19. That’s changing now, and will change more over the next couple of months as the buffering impact of the wage subsidy disappears and we see starkly the economic hole out of which we are now going to have to climb. It is a deep hole for sure but not impossible.
Read MoreTodd Muller: National's new dad who forgot to build the cot
Todd Muller’s first week as National’s leader made you want to look away in discomfort and raised the question whether National is entering the Shearer/Cunliffe phase of Opposition.
Read MoreWhither the Media?
The ownership of newspapers and televison channels is in turmoil, and they want to redisorganise public broadcasting.
Read MoreLabour betrays its traditions - and the most vulnerable - with two-tier welfare payments
With popular support, a willing partner and many New Zealanders facing unemployment, now is the time for Labour to overhaul welfare. Instead, it has divided beneficiaries into the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’
Read MoreOur response to mosque attacks honours lessons learned 75 years ago
VE Day is 75 years ago this month; a victory in Europe that had profound implications for Africa. But we are still learning to grapple with ideas of racial superiority
Read MoreGuest post: So, just who is Todd Muller?
Todd Muller was National’s inevitable leader who never was, until he became it, writes National Party insider Hamish Price.
Read MoreGuest Post: So that’s the leadership sorted. What now for National?
A leadership coup so close to a general election isn’t the ideal situation for a party in freefall but by electing Todd Muller as its new leader the National party may see a positive turnabout in fortune writes John Elliot.
Read MoreWhat the 2020 Budget Forecasts Mean
The media treat budgets as bit of a circus: lots of theatre and soon forgotten. For a serious economist they show how a team of economists is thinking about the wider economy.
Read MorePharaoh Bridges swamped by pestilence and poor polls
Simon Bridges was never likely to be National’s next Prime Minister, but he had scrapped his way to within inches of a campaign. Then came a plague and he hadn’t built any political immunity
Read MoreA pandemic parable
And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof (unless they want to go to a strip club, ‘cause that is OK).
Read MoreGrant 'Mr Lucky' Robertson gets to be the ultimate big spender, keeping NZ on life support
Today’s Budget 2020 was nothing like the one Finance Minister Grant Robertson was expecting to give two months ago. It’s a life-support budget, which in any normal year would guarantee an election loss, but instead could help shore up a Labour win
Read MoreNZ's economy has been on ice, but it's about to unfreeze and it will hurt
As we come out of lockdown. so does the economic freeze ray holding our economy in place wear off. Budget 2020 will be all about finding ways to minimise the brutal economic damage that is only just beginning
Read MoreIf it Takes Too Long to Produce a Covid Vaccine.
I wrote this note to sort out my ideas on the significance of a covid-19 vaccine for the return to economic ‘normalcy’. I am sharing it but expect readers to recognise there are judgements in areas for which I have no expertise.
Read MoreThe lockdown and the law – where are we now?
One way of examining the government’s actions in response to COVID-19 – by no means the most important way, but still of moment – is through a legal lens. Where are we at with that examination?
Read MoreGagging order is double dumb: Disrespecting public sacrifice & damaging Brand Ardern
The email from the 9th floor telling ministers to ‘dismiss’ interview requests about thousands of pages of Covid-19 related decisions wasn’t just bad for government transparency, it was politically stupid
Read MoreDistribution and the Budget
It is too easy to stick to conventional thinking when we are in a totally new economic environment. Thinking about distributional issues allows us to think deeper.
Read More