Academic debates are rarely high stakes. Compared with the kind of work the Climate Change Commission is doing, debates among academics are of almost no consequence at all. Read more
The Government’s announcement of a review into Pharmac declares that its budget, and the total amount allocated to pharmaceuticals, will be out of scope. This ignores the most serious weakness with current arrangements: that no one really knows whether they are improving health outcomes, let alone the well-being of New Zealanders, according to a substantial report, Pharmac: The right prescription? Read more
A well-functioning education system is vital to equip our children for life. Educational Performance and Funding in New Zealand: Are our children getting the education they deserve? Read more
A well-functioning education system is vital to equip our children for life. However, a new report from The New Zealand Initiative says it is not clear whether the education system is serving our children as well as it should. Read more
The New Zealand Initiative welcomes today’s call from business leaders for greater clarity about the border. The Initiative also urges the government to further strengthen the testing regime at the border. Read more
It is 2035, and the Government’s new BBQ buyback scheme has begun. It is now illegal to cook with gas, and the police are cracking down on underground Weber parties. Read more
Last week’s Covid cases in Auckland delayed Finance Minister Robertson’s housing policy announcements. The housing shortage has been at crisis levels for a long time, but the delay in this case is not likely to make any difference. Read more
On Tuesday, the Climate Change Commission extended the deadline for submissions on its draft recommendations by two weeks. The short extension would give the extra bit of time needed to receive crucial information from the Commission before submissions close. Read more
Eric Crampton talks to Bryan Crump on Radio NZ Nights about urban land use planning systems and if they are fit for purpose. Eric would like to see more localised planning powers and points to a report by a UK think tank Policy Exchange called Strong Suburbs: Enabling streets to control their own development. Read more
In his new report, The Need to Build: The demographic drivers of housing demand, Leonard Hong highlights New Zealand's housing crisis and explains why it is imperative to build now and to build fast. He spoke on Radio New Zealand's Morning Report about how demographic changes (such as population growth, ageing, and birth rates) mean that New Zealand will need far more dwellings than are currently being built. Read more
“Demography is destiny”, as French sociologist Auguste Comte once put it. Few developments shape our society more than the composition, the age and size of our population. Read more
The political ‘buck passing’ of the responsibility for unaffordable housing by successive governments in New Zealand has created extremely expensive housing markets in cities such as Auckland and Wellington – and a national housing crisis. Auckland is the sixth least affordable city among 92 major global housing markets, according to the 2020 Demographia housing survey. Read more
Wellington, 22 February 2021 – If New Zealand politicians thought the housing crisis in 2020 was bad, the worst is yet to come, warns a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. In The Need to Build: The demographic drivers of housing demand, Research Assistant Leonard Hong modelled 36 scenarios and found that New Zealand’s population gets older and larger by 2038. Read more
Leonard Hong discusses the findings of his new report "The Need to build - the demographic drivers of housing demand" with Kate Hawkesby on Newstalk ZB. He explains that with New Zealand's population changes, we need to be build close to 20,000 dwellings annually for the next 20 years (even with zero net migration). Read more
We are not building enough to meet the looming demographic changes and demands. In his interview on The AM Show, Leonard Hong highlighted findings from his report, The Need to Build: The demographic drivers of housing demand, which says policymakers should stop blaming the housing crisis on migration and speculation and instead find policy solutions to free up urban development and housing supply. Read more