Published in Insights, The New Zealand Initiative’s newsletter, 14 December 2012

Dear Insights subscriber,

This is the last issue of Insights for 2012 before we break for the Christmas and New Year holidays, so please excuse me from deviating from the normal format of this newsletter.

Every Friday for the past six months, we have been delivering you three short opinion articles along with links to our favourite stories on the web – whether outrageous, important, interesting or just funny.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading these weekly Insights. We have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback from our readers – and look forward to continuing this newsletter in mid-January.

As you know, 2012 was an eventful year for The New Zealand Initiative, not in the least because it was our first. Following the merger of our two predecessors, The New Zealand Institute and the Business Roundtable, my team and I have worked hard to build a credible and exciting new think tank in New Zealand.

To publish a weekly newsletter was one of the first things on my to-do list. But this has been just one of our many activities.

We held successful events with international guest speakers such as ex-IMF Director, Vito Tanzi, British member of the European Parliament, Daniel Hannan, and Australian financial commentator, Satyajit Das. Our researchers commented widely in the media and spoke at events in New Zealand and abroad.

Most importantly, though, we have started working on three big research areas. This will be our main focus for 2013. Our research projects focus on housing affordability, the quality of teachers, and the openness of the New Zealand economy to international trade and investment.

To give you a better idea of what we do and what we believe in, we have produced a brochure about our mission, our work programme, and our activities. You can read it online by clicking on this link: http://tinyurl.com/nzinitiative.

The Chairmen, Board and staff of The New Zealand Initiative wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Best wishes,

Dr Oliver Hartwich
Executive Director