The time is right for New Zealand to consider adopting a Committee on Standards in Public Life and a code of conduct for MPs, to ensure it remains relatively transparent and free of corruption. That was the message from Michael Macaulay, the deputy director of the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, in a...
Read more →The New Zealand media is like “a junkyard dog”, sometimes ferocious but with a short attention span, according to Otago University politics lecturer Bryce Edwards. Giving an Institute for Governance and Policy Studies lecture, Edwards discussed his report on the media for the New Zealand National Integrity Assessment, an exercise that looks at the...
Read more →A “green” economy is the only realistic way to reverse environmental damage while improving living standards, says a visiting public policy expert. Professor Daniel Fiorino, a leading writer on environmental and public policy issues at the American University in Washington, DC, was in New Zealand as the second Sir Frank Holmes Visiting Fellow. The...
Read more →“Fear and hostility” towards religious values is leaving public debate impoverished, according to Andrew Bradstock, Director of the University of Otago’s Centre for Theology and Public Issues. Professor Bradstock, who is returning shortly to Britain, said the media were often “indifferent” towards religious perspectives, and members of the public frequently feared that religious speakers...
Read more →There’s been some good news over the weekend, with the government announcing tougher penalties for people found to be exploiting migrant workers. There’s been a lot of coverage of this in recent weeks, including stories that workers in Auckland are being paid as little as $4 an hour, or exploited by the firms that...
Read more →One of the many things obscured in last night’s The Vote about children’s issues was the simple fact that incomes aren’t high enough at the lowest end for parents to give their children a decent start in life. The figure of $30,000 being ‘poverty’ for a family with four children was tossed around as...
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