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Science has it that you are more likely to remember the minute details of losing money, losing friends, and receiving criticism than you are about winning money, making friends, and receiving praise. This may explain recent editorial furore and media commentaries recounting all the failures of the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, following her announcement that she will not be contesting in the 2017 elections. Read more

The public is constantly told income inequality is rising and the government should do something. A recent NZ Listener article asserted inequality had risen faster “in recent years” than in almost any other developed country. Read more

Later this week the official results of the local body elections will be released, but even before the first vote was cast many were predicting who the biggest loser would be: local democracy. It looks like that prediction is paying off. Read more

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the tyrannical state develops an artificial language called Newspeak to align thought and action with the ideology of the Party. Its aim is to entrench the tyranny of the Party by making other modes of thought impossible. Read more

Thomas Hobbes told us the State is necessary to protect us. The war of all against all that would ensue without a State to protect us from each other would be worse than even a terrible despot. Read more

A motto I live by is to hope for the best but expect the worst. As such, I was disappointed but not surprised to hear immigration minister Michael Woodhouse announce this week that the government is getting tougher on immigration policy. Read more

Perched in the high vantage of a think tank it is easy to spot a politician who by accident stumbles on a major problem in our society simply by opining on one or other of the issues of the day. Most recently it was the turn of ACT Party Leader David Seymour to perform this accidental but vital service to society. Read more

When you are running out of ideas on how to spoil a party, just invite a German. That must have been the idea when Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler asked me to speak at the Auckland launch of their book, Constitution of Aotearoa New Zealand. Read more

Having attended a couple of conferences in Miami last week, it was time to fly back to New Zealand on Monday night (US Eastern Standard Time). The in-flight entertainment on our domestic flight to LA was excellent: we had live TV, and the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was on. Read more

Dr Andrew Butler and Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s new book, A Written Constitution for Aotearoa New Zealand, proposes radical changes. This is not entirely a surprise. Read more