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On 6 May, it will be three years since the United Kingdom elected its first coalition government since World War II. The Cameron government has made rescuing public finances its most important goal – with the Coalition Agreement giving deficit reduction precedence over all other measures. Read more
As readers of Insights will no doubt be aware Baroness Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, died this week at 87. Amid generous tributes, and rotten and distasteful rallies celebrating her passing, it is worth remembering her achievements and failings as prime minister. Read more
Last Thursday night, former Australian Prime Minister Hon John Howard spoke at The New Zealand Initiative's inaugural retreat in Auckland. Below is an edited excerpt of his speech in which shared his views on think tanks and how they influenced him during his time as a politician. Read more
Manufacturers and exporters have been complaining about the high Kiwi dollar for a long time. Opposition politicians are openly toying with the idea of changing the Reserve Bank’s mandate to manipulate the exchange rate downwards. Read more
Last night, former Australian Prime Minister Hon John Howard OM AC spoke to guests of the Initiative on 'Trans-Tasman Relations in the Pacific Century'. Today we have an excerpt from our chairman's welcome speech, and next week we will publish an excerpt from Mr Howard's speech. Read more
If you filled in your census forms last week, you would have had to answer question number 13: "In which language(s) could you have a conversation about a lot of everyday things?" The wording of the question is clumsy. I wonder how our statisticians define ‘a lot of’, what they mean by ‘everyday’, and whether ‘things’ could have been more specific. Read more
Driving around Houston, Texas, several things strike you immediately: the number of pickup trucks, the proliferation of ‘Nobama’ bumper stickers, and the widest freeways. Houston is in many ways a typical post-War city. Read more
Germany is Europe’s model economy. It is a prosperous, well-governed, and efficient country. Read more
As we hear the litany of doom and gloom about manufacturing in New Zealand, it would be easy to assume that manufacturing is in crisis; that everyone is shutting down, packing up and leaving; and that no new jobs are being created or industries expanded. However, this week there was a positive story in this space – the Chinese-owned Yashili Dairy Company has announced two substantial investments in New Zealand, pending approval from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO). Read more
As the opposition’s parliamentary inquiry into manufacturing gathers pace, it is worth taking another look at manufacturing and the chief culprit blamed for its troubles: the high dollar and the monetary regime. First, the recent decline of manufacturing has been grossly overstated. Read more