Speak your mind
We need less nice and more candour. It is pointless holding conferences where delegates censor their own presentations without being told to. [...]
Insights
‘Insights’ is the weekly newsletter of The New Zealand Initiative. Every Friday it provides comment pieces on domestic and global policy issues and the state of the world as such. It is a newsletter serious enough for a think tank – and lighthearted enough for an enjoyable Friday afternoon read. Please subscribe to ‘Insights’ by visiting the website of The New Zealand Initiative: www.nzinitiative.org.nz
The Unreserved Bank
The RBNZ needs urgent clarification that the Monetary Policy Committee will only pursue monetary goals, even under conditions of quantitative easing. [...]
The open society needs open minds
Let us celebrate the relative civility of our domestic politics and defend robust and constructive debates. [...]
Trans-Tasman monitoring
Given the past and current closeness of Treasury and the Reserve Bank, should not a monitoring agent be more removed from the object it is supervising? [...]
Boris, a Cicero reincarnate
He famously claimed his chances of becoming Prime Minister were “about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive”. It probably means Boris Johnson will be a pizza topping in his next life. [...]
Danish lessons
Whatever Denmark does, it can only do so because it is backed by impressive productivity. If New Zealand wants to improve its wellbeing, it needs to lift its abysmally low productivity first. [...]
Learning by comparison
Next week, The New Zealand Initiative will be taking a delegation of more than three dozen senior business leaders to Copenhagen. Our members want to study and experience first-hand what makes Denmark one of the world’s most successful small countries. [...]
Always look on the bright side of Brexit
Monty Python prepared me for the absurdities of British life. Without Monty Python, I would be even more hard-pressed to make sense of Brexit. [...]
Kudos to Winston Peters
Winston Peters’ comments on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre were candid. Where Western politicians have turned not upsetting China over its human rights record into an art form, the Foreign Minister left diplomatic niceties behind. [...]
Why Huawei?
No wonder Donald Trump is worried about the technological and commercial threat Huawei’s poses to US companies. [...]
