Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014, after 16 yea
Salmond calls for open minds. On this point she is right. But an open mind is not one that refuses to evaluate claims. It is one that is willing to have its own claims evaluated. It is not one that protects ideas from criticism, but one that welcomes criticism as the price of progress.
New Zealand’s education establishment is fighting because these reforms expose that their romantic ideology – the idea that kids learn naturally without explicit teaching – has systematically failed. And the ones who paid were the children who needed school most.
When bank capital requirements are excessive, the real victims are New Zealand borrowers. The banks themselves will adapt. But borrowers will face higher costs and constrained credit.
Even parliament’s clearest words no longer anchor the law.
Roger Partridge nzinitiative.org.nz In mid-April, German sewerage experts were allowed through New Zealand’s tightly controlled border with the country still locked down at Alert Level 4. At the time, Wellington ratepayers were paying nearly $100,000 a day to ferry wastewater by truck from the city’s
