It would have been very interesting to see what the late Lee Kwan Yew would have made of this week’s Bali Nine executions. While we can only speculate, a retrospective glance at the hard-line stance that Singapore’s founding father took on foreigners committing crimes in his country suggests he would have sided with Indonesia’s decision to execute Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Read more

For those of you who don’t have access to the Kiwi Journalists Association’s Facebook page, a heated discussion has flared up after it was revealed Campbell Live may be axed in favour of more entertainment-focused programming. The discussion centred around whether this is symptomatic of a failed business model, where companies like MediaWorks are seen to prioritise profit over the provision of a good that has positive spill-over benefits to a democratic society. Read more

With two-fifths of the country caught in the grips of it, and the rest watching with a mix of awe, jealousy and sheer horror, it is easy to forget that Auckland’s housing market is more than an exciting exhibition. Figures like those released by Barfoot & Thompson this week do little to dispel the perception that housing in the country’s biggest city is anything but a fantastic spectacle, with March sales setting new records across a range of measures. Read more

Recently, solicitors Mark Campbell and William Findlay of Russell McVeagh responded to an editorial I had written that questioned WorkSafe’s decision to prosecute the Ministry for Social Development for a shooting in Ashburton. The case involved an individual who wordlessly walked into a Work and Income office with a shotgun, killed two people and seriously injured another, and then walked out. Read more

On Monday the Initiative launched From Red Tape to Green Gold, our second report on the mineral estate in New Zealand and the regulations that constrain it, specifically the Resource Management Act. The report makes three recommendations. Read more

In just over a week’s time we will find out whether all the work that Environment Minister Nick Smith and his team have put into the latest round of Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms will ever see the light of day. That is when voters in Northland will decide whether to let the National Party maintain its effective majority in Parliament or opt for a bit of something different in the form of Winston Peters and New Zealand First. Read more

This weekend I’m going to wash the house with a water blaster. I will probably also give the parched garden a good drenching, hose the car down, and then relax afterwards with a nice long shower. Read more

Imagine for a second that you are a small business owner, and one day while trawling through your emails, a bolt of lightning sizzles through the office window and strikes your assistant, killing him instantly. Then to compound the situation, the telephone rings, and it is the police. Read more

There are two things that the changes currently shaking up the media sector can teach us. The first is that the digital transition process is painful. Read more

Much is made of New Zealand’s savings culture, or more accurately the lack thereof, which is presumably why the government established the Commission for Financial Capability (CFC). The Crown-owned entity, formerly known as the Centre for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income (say that three times fast), is tasked with giving financially vulnerable people the skills to become money savvy. Read more

The recent announcements by Minister for the Environment Nick Smith that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is set to undergo a major overhaul is welcome news, representing the first meaningful policy change aimed at tackling the housing affordability crisis gripping New Zealand’s biggest cities. Although the detail on the changes has yet to be seen, the direction is promising as the RMA has long served as grit in the gears of the housing market, restricting sub-divisions, slowing the build rate, entrenching NIMBYism, while allowing fast growing councils to use it as an excuse to stall development and growth planning. Read more

This column is either four months too late or three months too early, depending on if you are looking at last year’s general election or this year’s government budget announcement. Nevertheless, it is always a fortuitous time to put the spotlight on the corrupt vein running through the heart of every democracy: bribing the public with its own money. Read more

In case you missed the flurry of stories surrounding the release of the latest census data, New Zealand may at some point in the foreseeable future have to give up its status as God’s Own Country. According to the data, the number of people who stated their religious affiliation as Christian dropped below the 50 per cent for the first time in 2013 census, while the number of people claiming no religion rose to just under 42 per cent. Read more