National Business Review

London’s Michaela School is an inspiration for all

Michaela School’s approach may not be easily replicated. Nor would it be suited to every community. But its very success should be reason enough to ask if there are some lessons we might learn. [...]

A blueprint for opposition politics

If National accepts the challenge to be a creative opposition, the next three years will be a contest for the best ideas rather than a war of attrition. And that would be good: for National, for Labour – and for New Zealand. [...]

Challenges stack up for super minister

There is no more challenging task than making New Zealand’s cities thrive in the global era of urbanisation. Quite appropriately, we now have a superminister to deal with it. [...]

MMP for beginners

If New Zealand wants to run under MMP, get used to its machinations. And if that is too Machiavellian for your taste, return to first-past-the-post. [...]

To end the short-termism of politics, we need to end short terms

Even those civic-minded idealists among us who still believe in democracy must admit that election times are the worst for sound and creative policy thinking. [...]

The power of ideas

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.” [...]