Feature and news articles by Max Rashbrooke
Progress on a new global treaty on climate change will happen through countries making voluntary pledges instead of signing up to mandated emissions cuts, according to Dr Christina Hood of the International Energy Agency. Giving a lecture to the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Hood said the next big step in international climate...
Read more →The British government’s decision to sweep away the ethics framework for local councils has left the country without an adequate system for ensuring that corrupt and inappropriate behaviour is dealt with, according to a visiting academic. Gary Hickey, who had formerly worked for the UK’s Standards Board and is now an academic at Kingston...
Read more →The New Zealand government spends more than most OECD countries – but with a smaller number of public sector workers than its counterparts, according to the OECD’s Szuzsanna Lonti. Giving an Institute for Governance and Policy Studies lecture earlier this week, she said general government expenditure as a proportion of GDP was 49% in...
Read more →It’s sometimes said that people living in poverty just need to try harder, but I’m not sure how much more Amy Scott, profiled today in The Press, could be doing: Amy Scott and her two children have moved houses five times since the earthquakes. Scott lost her job after work as a bartender “dwindled...
Read more →The price of unhealthy processed food needs to rise by at least a fifth, if New Zealand is to tackle diet-related problems that threaten to be just as bad for our health as smoking, Gareth Morgan says. Morgan, an economist, public policy analyst and philanthropist, was giving a lecture to the Institute for Governance...
Read more →The diminished power of local councillors, election booklets that have “passed their use-by date” and uncertainty over amalgamation all helped drive turnout to a record low in this year’s local council elections. That was the verdict of Mike Reid, Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ)’s principal policy advisor, in a lecture given to the Institute...
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