Social Policy NZ
Publications
Flight of the Kiwi: Addressing the Brain Drain
Andrew Patterson, David Kirk, Don Turkington, Luke Malpass
27 March 2012 | PF22
In early 2009, the NZ government established the 2025 Taskforce to provide recommendations on closing the income gap with Australia, lift New Zealand’s living standards to those in Australia and to retain New Zealand talent and entice it back home. This is obviously a difficult…
Alcohol Policy and the Politics of Moral Panic
Luke Malpass
26 May 2011 | PM118
Liquor reform has become a political hot potato in New Zealand. Social problems caused by alcohol have meant successive governments have come under pressure to regulate sale and consumption of alcohol. One factor driving public outrage has been reports that give outrageously high ‘social costs’…
Ending No. 8 Wire Welfare: Why New Zealand is Lagging Behind
Luke Malpass
02 April 2009 | IA109
In the lead up to the last election, the National Party released its new welfare policy. The work-first policy received unwarranted criticism from many quarters despite New Zealand still lagging behind international best practice in welfare policy. The National Party now leads the government. Policies…
Reinventing New Zealand’s Welfare State
Peter Saunders
27 March 2007 | IA85
Government in New Zealand keeps expanding. The main driver has been the inexorable increase in spending on the welfare state. New Zealanders are much richer than when the welfare state was founded. People’s incomes should therefore be sufficient for them to buy many of the…
State of the Nation New Zealand 2003
Jennifer Buckingham
05 April 2003 | SP05
The report, State of the Nation New Zealand, traces and analyses the profound social and economic changes occurring over the past century, to paint a definitive picture of life on the island today, and show where opportunities for reform lie.
Media & Commentary
The tragedy across the Tasman
Tom Switzer
27 October 2017 | Ideas@TheCentre
The tragedy of New Zealand’s election outcome is not just that a stable and successful nine-year government has lost power, despite scoring more than 8% more votes than the Labour…
New Zealand’s spending binge
Luke Malpass
18 November 2011
Most of New Zealand’s general election campaign is being dominated by squabbling over the Crown selling a minority stake in four state-owned assets while ignoring serious issues such as the…
Why bother?
26 August 2011
Privatisation in New Zealand is a political swear-word. Its very mention is meant to invoke some scary image of marauding foreign merchant bankers, here to rip off hard working New…
New Zealand’s great regression
Luke Malpass
20 October 2010 | The American, Journal of the American Enterprise Institute
Over a year ago in Auckland, the humorist P.J. O’Rourke gave a dinner lecture for the Centre for Independent Studies titled “Invisible Hand vs. Visible Fist: Securing the Future Wealth…
Humdinger of a political argument
18 June 2010
A storm is brewing in New Zealand, casting a frostier-than-usual shroud over the nation’s capital. Last week in Wellington, the Key government’s Welfare Working Group hosted a two-day meeting of…