Category: Economic Issues

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Activist Capture

New Zealand is suffering from ‘activist capture’. As a nation, we’ve allowed this to happen because some at the top of the political pyramid have themselves been activists, while others have lacked the backbone and focus to say "enough is enough".


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Statement by Sir Russell Coutts Sail GP CEO

Unfortunately yesterday was another example of there being almost no balance in the decision making – another example of New Zealand being handcuffed by unprecedented layers of bureaucracy and red tape.


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A “Global Warmer” Against the Polluters 

It is crucial to the administration of justice that all judges approach the cases before them with open minds and setting aside all pre-conceived views and beliefs. Once that corner stone is eroded then our court system rapidly descends to one of patronage, and who you know. 


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A Media Reset

Democracy is undoubtedly enhanced by a strong media landscape. But if New Zealand is to return to having that, there needs to be a reset. The media needs to commit to their own principles to “be bound at all times by accuracy, fairness and balance." A balanced approach to climate change may well have prevented the damaging policies that are now in place.


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RCP 8.5: A recipe for endless waste

Too often, New Zealand planners and engineers ignore the core requirement to select one of the opposing scenarios and ignore the rest. Instead, they bundle them all together and then base their analysis on the “worst case” of 8.5.  Consequently, there is a better than 99% chance that their forecasts will turn out to be completely and expensively wrong.


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Moratorium on Coastal Claims

If the Marine and Coastal Area Act is not fixed Maori will become the legal owners of virtually of the entire coastline and Territorial Sea of New Zealand - including vast reserves of the invaluable minerals such as rare earths in the seabed.


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Investigating Covid

There's no question that NZ, like many other countries that used lockdowns and mRNA vaccines, has experienced “excess” deaths following the pandemic. Waikato University’s Economics Professor John Gibson has just published new research showing that in 2023, “the excess mortality rate corresponds to about 3,000 more deaths than would be expected.”


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PM Speech at Ratana

The Government will honour the Treaty. But unlike the Labour government, we will honour it without moving away from equal voting rights, without creating complex co-governance bodies and bureaucracies in Wellington to decide how central services should be delivered in the regions, and we will honour it while upholding the equality of all New Zealanders before the law.


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I, Pencil

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me.


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Coalition Deals

We are witnessing a remarkable turnaround in New Zealand politics. The Coalition agreement entered into by National, ACT and New Zealand First reflects the first three-party coalition deal in our country’s history. Democracy can be seen to have prevailed, with MMP delivering what a majority of New Zealanders want.