Warning not to count chickens, despite lots of eggs
Six weeks before the election, the Treasury always publishes a Pre-election Fiscal and Economic Update (PREFU) that describes the state that the government's books are in and the likely risks to our economic performance over the coming five years.
Read more
Recent years have shown us the potential dark side of a free market economy as banks and businesses fail, unemployment numbers rise, and entire countries teeter on the edge of full economic collapse. Yet we also know that freedom is a necessary condition for human flourishing. How can we ensure that our freedoms build a healthy society rather than destruction?
During November, George Weigel, from the Ethics and Public Policy Centre in Washington DC, addressed this topic at lecture events in Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland.
Listen to a recording of the Auckland lecture
On 28 November New Zealanders decided to keep MMP as our voting system. The plan has been laid for MMP to undergo a review in order to strengthen it and remove some of its current drawbacks. Prior to the referendum being held we released a paper looking at ways MMP could be improved, titled Enhancing MMP: Ways to improve New Zealand's current voting system.
Read the paper examining ways that MMP could be improved
Untangling Religion and Politics
We need to instead recover an understanding of the importance and difference of both religious and political institutions, and allow both to contribute to the common good.
Read Hands On or Hands Off?
At the 2011 Annual Sir John Graham Lecture, Iain Duncan Smith shared with us his vision for the future of welfare—a future in which dignity, hope and aspiration are open to all.
Listen to the lecture
In 2012 New Zealand will undergo a constitutional review and will also look at ways to improve MMP. One important question to consider alongside these is whether or not New Zealand would benefit from an Upper House of Parliament?
Read A Tale of Two Houses
Our Foreign Aid Policy paper recommends that New Zealand's aid programme should stop scattering tiny bits of aid across the world and should more tightly focus its money on the Pacific
Read Being Better Neighbours
