Last week, just as I was about to board my early morning flight to Auckland, I ran into the US Ambassador to New Zealand. An ex-commercial lawyer, he is a witty and clever man who usually does not mind a joke. Read more
Businesses know the value of diversity in the workplace, but this potential is hard to realise when some minority groups are grossly under-represented in successful endeavour. Why are some minority groups the majority when it comes to educational failure, unemployment, and crime, to name a few? Read more
Fire the over-priced policy analysts, number crunchers and economics whizzes, because I’ve solved the housing affordability crisis. The solution is obvious: we need to ban home improvement shows. Read more
This week a friend attended a parent-teacher interview to discuss her 6-year-old daughter’s progress in school. The teacher started off not with reading, writing, or maths, but with a comment on her character that would puff up any parent’s chest with pride: her daughter is a delight to have in the classroom. Read more
It is unreasonable to ask investors to risk their capital on start-up or research and development funding without offering them a return commensurate with that risk. And yet, this is precisely how the current government framework for funding start-ups and research grants is structured. Read more
When it became known that the US secret service successfully tapped the mobile phone of German chancellor Angela Merkel, this made international headlines last week. Rightly so – but not just because this is the latest revelation in the wake of Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing on the activities of the National Security Agency. Read more
When people meet under Chatham House rules, you cannot disclose afterwards who said what. That's the drawback. Read more
Can representative democracy survive the 21st century? According to Leon de Winter, the Dutch novelist and intellectual, the chances are not too good. Read more
Can representative democracy survive in the 21st century? According to Leon de Winter, the Dutch novelist and intellectual, the chances are not too good. Read more
It was disappointing to see the New Zealand Wind Energy Association fire a broadside at the government this week, claiming pro-fossil fuel policy settings are leaving our economy behind in a world increasingly dominated by renewables. The opinion piece suggested we need to look to countries like Germany, which is on track to generate 30 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Read more
This week the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) released their report Benefit Sanctions: Creating an Invisible Underclass of Children, which focussed on the sanctions on beneficiaries who failed to meet certain obligations. The report was critical of the National Party’s ‘ideologically driven’ policy of forcing parents into paid employment (among other social obligations). Read more
On Monday Europe’s statistical agency, Eurostat, published its official annual data for the European Union’s public finances. Superficially, there is at least some good news in the figures: the eurozone deficit for 2012 was 3.7 per cent of GDP. Read more
An obvious synonym for the United States is the word 'big'. Big cars, big houses and big business all spring to mind when you think of the country, but it is also big on drama. Read more