Letter to my MP on the End of Life Choice Bill and a Referendum*
My idealistic position on the role of MPs was articulated by Edmund Burke: ‘Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he...
View ArticleMuddling Over Methane
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from...
View ArticleHow Important Is Local Knowledge?
The discussion on the quality of economic advice, which we reported last week, has spilled over into a discussion about whether so many senior appointments should be of non-New Zealanders. Recall I...
View ArticleDoubts and Hopes About The Treasury
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more
View ArticleInequality and Mental Health
International research shows that there is a socioeconomic status (or class) gradient, in which those with low SES experience higher morbidity from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, ulcers,...
View ArticleHow to Reduce Accountability: Downgrade the Chief Archivist!
One of the major issues which face a democratic nation is the challenge of keeping its bureaucracy accountable and responsive to the public. Over the years a variety of arrangements have developed with...
View ArticleShirley Smith: In Her Own Right
There are a number of ways of reading Sarah Gaitanos’s biography Shirley Smith: An Examined Life. In my view – I knew Shirley a little – she would want to you to read it as her struggle to be...
View ArticleWas it Really a Wellbeing Budget?
On the Friday morning previous to Budget Thursday, the Prime Minister gave what amounted to a pre-budget speech. It was not welcomed by the listeners, even though most New Zealanders may have found it...
View ArticleNew Zealand’s Living Fossil
The Chatham Islands (Rekou in Moriori, Wharekauri in Maori) lie about 800kms to the east of New Zealand but given they are on the other side of the 180-degree meridian one might think of them as New...
View ArticlePlundering the Planet
Over two centuries ago, the first-ever professor of economics, Thomas Malthus, predicted that levels of personal income would stagnate. He argued that there was a limited supply of land and that, given...
View ArticleWhat Do We Mean by Wellbeing?
There is a story of a little old lady who woke up after a close election and was told that the result was a ‘hung parliament’. She responded that she did not know what that meant, but it sounded like a...
View ArticleHubbard Bubble: Toil and Trouble
At the core of a successful economy is ‘trust’. Buy a can of beans and your decision depends on trusting a whole chain of suppliers. Admittedly, you also trust that the law is working in your favour...
View ArticleToo Near a Third Rail?
The focus of this column is what we can learn from the government’s handling of the capital gains tax issue. However, let me first say something about the case for it.read more
View ArticleThe Cult of the Generic Manager
A senior official in the State Services Commission once told me that they thought that they got only about 60 percent of their appointments of their chief executives right. Some closer observers of the...
View ArticleA Taxing and Spending Matter.
The power to tax and spend is at the heart of our constitutional democracy. In 1649 the English beheaded their monarch; one of their grievances was that he was levying taxes without parliamentary...
View ArticleHave We Abandoned the Egalitarian Society?
Eighty years ago, the First Labour Government imbedded New Zealanders’ aspirations for an egalitarian society in the welfare state it created. Thirty years ago, both the Labour and National Governments...
View ArticleDo Regions Matter?
Economic theory is not strong on spatial issues. There have been the occasional brilliant contributions – those by Paul Krugman and Gunnar Myrdal come immediately to mind – but most economists are...
View ArticleAre We Too Slack?
It was political genius to establish a royal commission to consider the role of the security agencies in the mosque massacres. I did not know that Simon Bridges, who first proposed it, had it in...
View ArticleKinds of Protests
On the Ides of March 2019, thousands of New Zealand school students – and hundreds of thousands of the world’s – marched to say that not enough was being done to stop global warming.read more
View ArticleUp in the Clouds
Still winter nights without rain clouds are usually followed by a frost. The clouds reflect back the heat coming off the earth maintaining higher ambient temperatures, thereby reducing the risk of...
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