Articles by Dr Oliver Hartwich

New Zealand has made remarkable progress in areas such as road safety, health and life expectancy over the past five decades. But according to economist Dr Oliver Hartwich, the country's biggest economic challenges now require bold structural reform rather than incremental change. Report by elocal · Progress built over decades · New Zealand has achieved significant long-term improvements across many aspects of national life. · Writing in the…

Across the Tasman, anger has propelled Pauline Hanson’s One Nation from a fringe outfit to the most popular party, on 31 percent in a recent poll, ahead of both Labor and the Coalition. Yet Australia’s preferential voting, which redistributes losing candidates’ votes, could still return a Labor government. By Dr Oliver Hartwich · The same anger is loose across the democratic world, the product of a decade of crises that squeezed household…

This week’s Budget confirmed what most New Zealanders already suspected. The government’s finances are tight, the deficit persists, and there is no pot of money waiting to be spent on the country’s problems. Dr Oliver Hartwich | Executive Director | oliver.hartwich@nzinitiative.org.nz · Just as well, because government spending never delivers growth or prosperity. The question is, what will? · While the reformers of the mid-1980s faced an…

A German economist writing satire about New Zealand sounds like the opening line of a bad joke. · The joke gets longer when you learn the plot: two Martian auditors land in the Wairarapa expecting humanity at its best, are promptly fined for parking without consent, and proceed on a reluctant tiki tour of the country in the company of a Wellington bureaucrat named Ben, who has quietly decided his career is over and he may as well help them. What…

It is hard to convince anyone they need to change when they think nothing is broken. The story of the emperor’s new clothes captures it. The whole court agreed the emperor was splendidly dressed. A child had to say he was naked. New Zealand’s public service has the same problem. My recent report Who runs the country? argues that ministers should appoint their chief executives, with statutory protections for the career service below. · The…

New Zealand’s ministers answer to Parliament for departments they cannot control. They cannot choose, direct or remove the chief executives who run those departments. The Public Service Commissioner makes those appointments. The New Zealand Initiative argues this arrangement is broken. It recommends that New Zealand adopt a version of Germany’s model, where ministers appoint their top officials while a protected career service operates below. ·…

The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Flights through the Middle East have been cancelled. Petrol has surged well past $3 a litre. · Four thousand shipping containers of New Zealand meat and dairy sit stranded on rerouted vessels. Tourism operators are fielding mass cancellations. The Reserve Bank Governor gave an emergency speech to business leaders on Tuesday. · The national conversation, understandably, is about issues such as fuel prices,…