Voodoo economics guide NZ workplace relations
While Australia has now started the process of reforming its broken employment relations system, New Zealand has started to break its working one. [...]
Australia
Gotcha, Albanese
Instead of grilling would-be Prime Ministers on the price of groceries that they are unlikely to buy for themselves anyway, let’s test them on matters they would deal with in office. [...]
A torpedo to European security
For Europe, AUKUS feels like the security outcome of a bull’s run through a China shop. Only China will be happy about the weakening of Europe – and Europe’s new divisions – that AUKUS has created. [...]
Housing needs supply-side fix
Voters should ask a simple question about any new housing proposal: Will it make it easier to build more homes? If the answer is not “yes,” these are not the policies Australia or New Zealand need to fix our countries’ housing crises. [...]
The price for overcaution
New Zealand could keep its border shut regardless of whether it is possible to open it safely. But that would mean repeating the mistake it made during lockdown.
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The ghost of Kevin Rudd
First, I never want to hear another excited word about shovel-ready projects. Second, I would like to see decent cost-benefit analyses before any new spending project. And third, I wish the public service would curb any over-enthusiastic minister on their respective pet projects. [...]
Psychological lessons from Australia’s shock election result
For politicians wishing to understand how to use moral psychology to their electoral advantage, there could be no better starting point than re-reading Jonathan Haidt’s 'The Righteous Mind'. [...]
Wende in Down Under
Scott Morrison kam als Übergangs-Premier ins Amt. Mit seinem guten politischen Instinkt dürfte er dort noch lange verweilen. [...]
From localism towards localism: A personal journey of policy discovery
Nothing in my work in Germany, Britain, Australia and now New Zealand has given me reason to doubt my basic beliefs: incentives matter; councils can work effectively when given the right incentives; and decision-making removed from the people it concerns creates problems. [...]
Le cultural clash
It took the Australian Government years to decide whom to task with building its next generation submarine fleet. It was still not enough time to prepare them for the cultural clash that followed. [...]