Work = Wellbeing

By Danielle van Dalen

“Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” This cliché was printed on a…

Alex’s op-ed on the End of Life Choice Bill featured on the Spinoff

By Alex Penk

Alex Penk’s op-ed highlighting flaws of David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill featured on the Spinoff. Read the article: …

Budget reveals Wellbeing will cost more than Rules allow

By Julian Wood

The figures announced in last week’s Wellbeing Budget stretches the Government’s self-imposed Budget Responsibility Rules (keeping the level of net…

Government needs to give answers on “wellbeing”

By Alex Penk

This week the Government will unveil the first-ever Wellbeing Budget, somewhat breathlessly described by the New York Times as “New…

Creating poverty-busting opportunites that work for people with disabilities

By Alex Penk

by Alex Penk and Danielle van Dalen This week there’s been a lot of coverage about employment opportunities for people…

MEDIA RELEASE: Creating work opportunities for people with disabilities to get out of poverty

Thursday, 23 May In New Zealand people with disabilities earn just half of the average income of people without disabilities….

Creating better opportunities for work

By Danielle van Dalen

New Zealand is in the middle of a national conversation on poverty, and yet, despite being over-represented in the poverty…

Policy Paper: Creating Opportunity

By Danielle van Dalen

People with disabilities are overlooked in the national conversation on poverty and overrepresented in New Zealand’s poverty statistics. They face…

The “yeah, nah” government

By Kieran Madden

That gutting feeling of unfulfilled expectations is hard to shake, and the bigger the promise, the bigger the disappointment. The…

Making New Zealand “sexy”

By Julian Wood

In contrast with our apparently “sexy” accent, New Zealand is struggling when it comes to being attractive as a long-term…

Raising resilient children through healthy relationships

By Kieran Madden

When we hear of the overwhelming, and often heart-breaking challenges that some families face it can be easy to feel…

Dom Post feature Alex Penk’s op-ed on the End of Life Choice Bill

By Alex Penk

With the End of Life Choice Bill facing its second reading, Alex releases an op-ed printed by The Dominion Post…

Life and death consequences of shoddy legislation

By Danielle van Dalen

Now that the Justice Select Committee have reported back to Parliament on the End of Life Choice Bill, our MPs…

Hate-speech review risks being too hasty

By Alex Penk

The Justice Minister put the cart before the horse when he spoke about hate speech recently. In the shadow of…

Offering the best of “real” New Zealand

By Julian Wood

We’ve been rightly proud of our country’s unity in response to the Christchurch mosque attacks. But in the weeks following…

This is our home

By Kieran Madden

Vibrant flowers gild the gates of the Christchurch mosques, each bouquet laid with trembling hands, representing a beautiful solidarity amidst…

Keeping an eye on transparency

By Danielle van Dalen

“Constant vigilance!” I’m finding that Professor Mad-Eye Moody’s childhood encouragement to be ever watchful still applies now to the way…

Countering our fear of dying

By Alex Penk

Last week, I was struck by the fear of dying. Not my own, mind you. I was chairing a panel…

Now is the time to take our changing future seriously

By Kieran Madden

The Government is dead-set on improving “wellbeing” as the mark of their leadership, and “long-term intergenerational wellbeing” in particular. This…

Think Big 2.0: The Provincial Growth Fund risks turning into a fiasco

By Alex Penk

This article was written by Alex Penk and Julian Wood, and first published on The Spinoff on 26 February, on…