Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He is a regular commentator in the media on public policy and constitutional law. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014, after 16 years as a commercial litigation partner. He is an honorary fellow of the Legal Research Foundation, a charitable foundation associated with the University of Auckland and was its executive director from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the editorial board of the New Zealand Law Review and was a member of the Council of the New Zealand Law Society, the governing body of the legal profession in New Zealand, from 2011 to 2015. He is a former chartered member of the Institute of Directors, a member of the University of Auckland Business School advisory board, and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
1. INTRODUCTION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 1.1 This submission to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) on its 2025 Review of Bank Capital Requirements (the Review) and accompanying consultation paper (the Consultation paper)1 is made by The New Zealand Initiative, an independent think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. Read more
Roger Partridge talked to Sean Plunket on The Platform about his analysis of how New Zealand judges are returning gang patches to offenders despite Parliament's clear intention to ban them through the Gangs Act 2024. He argued that courts are overstepping their constitutional role by using judicial tools like the "principle of legality" and tikanga considerations to sidestep Parliament's democratically expressed will, undermining both the rule of law and democratic legitimacy. Read more
Roger Partridge talked to Francesca Rudkin on Newstalk ZB about the NZ Herald's Mood of the Boardroom survey, describing business leaders' sentiment as "grim" due to New Zealand's struggling economy and high cost of living. He called for greater bipartisanship on long-term economic issues like retirement savings and infrastructure, while noting that Trump's tariffs have significantly impacted CEO confidence despite the global community underestimating the reality of his trade policies. Read more
When Parliament says gang insignia “is forfeited to the Crown,” citizens are entitled to assume those words mean what they say. Yet on 11 August the District Court ruled otherwise. Read more
In New Zealand economics, numbers have personalities. Two supermarkets are a duopoly. Read more
Wellington (Tuesday, 16 September 2025) – The New Zealand Initiative welcomes the Government’s decision to strengthen the governance of the Commerce Commission, describing it as an important step towards world-class regulatory practice. The Initiative’s 2018 report Who Guards the Guards? Read more
Every day, New Zealand workers clock longer hours than their peers in most developed nations yet produce far less value per hour worked. This productivity paradox has haunted our economy for decades, condemning workers to lower wages and longer working days. Read more
Who is responsible for defending liberal democracy when its norms come under attack? Karl Popper, writing as fascist armies swept Europe, understood this was not an abstract question. Read more
When housing policy is split among more than six ministers, who is responsible when the affordability crisis drags on year after year? The Minister of Housing? Read more
Roger Partridge talked to Sean Plunket on The Platform about The New Zealand Initiative's report proposing consolidating New Zealand's fragmented public service structure. Partridge outlined a three-step plan to streamline government by reducing ministerial portfolios from 81 to 15-20, creating junior minister roles, and consolidating departments from 43 to around 20, similar to peer nations like Ireland and Norway. Read more
New Zealand has built one of the most complex executive governments in the developed world. With 81 ministerial portfolios spread across 28 ministers and 43 departments, we operate with more than three times as many ministerial portfolios and nearly twice as many departments as peer nations like Ireland, Norway and Singapore. Read more
Roger Partridge talked to Wallace Chapman on RNZ's "The Panel" about his report "Unscrambling Government" which calls for reducing New Zealand's 81 ministerial portfolios to improve government efficiency. He argued that New Zealand's fragmented structure, with three times as many portfolios as comparable countries like Norway, creates accountability issues and inefficient decision-making compared to more streamlined international models. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to Roger Partridge about his new report "Unscrambling Government," which proposes consolidating New Zealand's extraordinarily complex government structure from 81 ministerial portfolios, 28 ministers, and 43 departments down to a more manageable 15-20 portfolios with corresponding departmental consolidation. They discuss how New Zealand's fragmented ministerial system creates accountability problems, increases fiscal costs, and hampers effective decision-making on critical issues like housing affordability, comparing unfavourably to other small advanced economies that operate with far simpler structures. Read more
Nick Mills discussed Roger Partridge's report "Unscrambling Government: Less confusion, more efficiency" on Newstalk ZB, criticising New Zealand's bloated public service structure of 81 ministerial portfolios and 43 departments. Mills argued that The New Zealand Initiative's recommendations to consolidate portfolios and create mega-ministries represent common sense reforms that the government should have implemented already. Read more
Roger Partridge's report on New Zealand's ministerial portfolios was featured in Newstalk ZB's news bulletin. His research found that New Zealand has 81 ministerial portfolios compared to just 17 in Norway and 16 in Singapore, with The Initiative calling for a culling of ministers and the creation of junior ministerial roles to improve decision-making efficiency. Read more