A government that relies too much on anecdote, doesn’t have enough specialists in top positions and isn’t properly held to account. That was the disagnosis from Len Cook, who used to be head of statistics for both the New Zealand and the UK governments, and who gave a very entertaining – but also worrying –...
Read more →In one of life’s great ironies, it’s just come to my attention that Talent 2, the company behind Novopay, was the sponsor last year of an award for ‘public sector communications’. The award itself was well-deserved: it went to the Department of Corrections for making prisons smokefree and the way they got staff and...
Read more →A rather disturbing report on Wellington’s health services shows that central government policies have led directly to people already in poor health getting even lower priority. ‘From Great to Good’, by professor Don Matheson, explains how – under pressure from central government targets – the Capital Coast District Health Board (C&CDHB) has increased spending...
Read more →Another day, another study showing how an unfair tax system is helping widen the gap between the rich and the rest. It’s a US study this time, which finds that the biggest reason for widening wealth gaps 1991-2006 is the capital gains and dividends going to the top 1%. These kind of windfalls are...
Read more →The Treasury has just released a paper outlining its thoughts on inequality (as part of its wider work on Living Standards). Now, it’s great to see the Treasury acknowledging that it matters how income is distributed – not just how much of it we generate. Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite faced up to the full reality...
Read more →Vicious reviews of amateur singers, ambushing Robert Muldoon and interviewing gnome collectors … Wellington magazines have done all this, and more, over the years. “This magazine … is made to sell.” Such was the philosophy of the flamboyant Charles Nalder Baeyertz, editor of the literary, musical and cultural magazine the Triad, which he ran...
Read more →