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A newspaper recently asked if the average Kiwi can live on a Covid-19 wage subsidy of $585 a week. Unsurprisingly, it found this would be difficult, particularly in Auckland where the average weekly expense for a couple with two children is about $2000. Read more

Over the past fortnight the border issue troubling politicians and the media has been whether Kiwis returning from overseas should contribute to the costs of their managed isolation. But even with its half-billion-dollar price-tag, the cost of quarantining returning Kiwis is the least of the country's border concerns. Read more

A good project manager knows that unnecessary bells and whistles endanger a project's aims. Gold-plating a specification wastes resources and threatens a venture’s viability. The same is also true of public policy. Read more

It could have all been so nice. At their meeting last Thursday, Eurogroup finance ministers should have elected Spain’s economy minister Nadia Calviño the group’s new head. Read more

The proverb “All that glitters is not gold” is a line from William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Any doubts about the Bard’s wisdom were dispelled this month when New Zealand’s “gold standard” quarantining was shown to be fool’s gold. Read more

We all know the analogy about barring gates after the horse has bolted from the barn. It speaks to the futility of doing something too late solve a problem. Read more

Minister for Climate Change James Shaw this week announced substantial strengthening of New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Total emissions will be capped, and carbon prices allowed to increase to help reduce New Zealand’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. Read more

Time flies. Was it only a year ago that New Zealand’s ban on disposable plastic bags at the supermarket came in? Read more

Minerals never mined cannot benefit New Zealanders. They might as well not exist. Read more