UK Reaches Agreement on New Zealand Trade Deal
The UK has brokered a trade agreement with New Zealand that will cut tariffs on clothing, buses and wine, and, it hopes, lay a foundation for joining a trans-Pacific economic bloc of 11 countries,…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
New Zealanders Struggling to Find a Home
New rules to curb investment took effect this month, but our Human Rights Commission says successive governments have failed us. Sasha Borissenko spoke to some New Zealanders about their experience of finding a home…
John Edwards Named UK’s Information Commissioner
British MPs have approved New Zealander John Edwards as next Information Commissioner for the UK, Jamie Harris reports for the Evening Standard. Edwards faced questions from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee early in…
RBNZ Turning Heads Around the Globe
“New Zealand is tiny by economic standards, but it’s a giant in central banking circles,” Forbes senior contributor William Pesek writes. “While working in Washington in the mid-to-late 1990s, I was struck by how…
We Show Australia How to Tackle Housing Dilemmas
“While the debate about house prices is stuck in a holding pattern in Australia (with governments too scared to do anything too radical for fear of upsetting homeowners, and regulators averse to dealing with…
Economist Adulation Has Auckland Residents Puzzled
It boasts beautiful beaches, a temperate climate and a multicultural population that has fostered an eclectic mix of food, music and arts. But is Auckland, a remote outpost in the South Pacific, really the world’s…
New Zealanders Flock Home to the Edge
More than 50,000 New Zealanders who have returned home during the pandemic, offering the country a rare opportunity to win back some of its best and brightest, Charlotte Graham-McClay writes in a feature published…
PM Tops Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders List
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, 40, takes the number one spot on Fortune magazine’s annual world’s greatest leaders list. The magazine’s editors write: “Jacinda Ardern had already sealed her position as a great leader early in her…
Biden Backs NZ’s Stance Against Online Extremism
The United States “will join the Christchurch Call to Action” to stamp out violent extremism online, the White House has said, two years after the Trump administration declined to do so. The Biden administration spokeswoman…
Ottawa Could Use a Leader like Jacinda Ardern
“Jacinda Ardern just keeps getting it right. Since being elected as New Zealand’s prime minister almost four years ago, the young politician has been leading a progressive policy with an impressive combination of determination,…
New Zealand Approves Paid Leave After Miscarriage
New Zealand’s Parliament has unanimously approved legislation that would give couples who suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth three days of paid leave, putting the country in the vanguard of those providing such benefits, journalist…
German Publication Has High Praise for PM
For its January 2021 issue, the German magazine View has declared Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern the “best politician in the world” and features the 39-year-old on the cover, with the words: “She defeated coronavirus…
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta Charts a Course
The first Māori woman to be foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta is an experienced lawmaker known for her deep roots in Māori tribal diplomacy, Charlotte Graham-McLay writes for The Washington Post. Mahuta has her work…
Harvard Activist Award for PM Jacinda Ardern
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has received a Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership Gleitsman International Activist Award, which was presented at a virtual ceremony on 1 December. According to the Harvard Kennedy School, the…
With Pandemic Australia Has New Lens on NZ
“New Zealand’s response to the coronavirus is just the latest reason Australians have sometimes looked wistfully, or at least with interest, across the Tasman,” ABC-TV’s 7.30 chief political correspondent Laura Tingle writes in Quarterly…
New Zealand emerges as global leader and “beacon of light” in era of Covid-19
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand has emerged as a global leader. However there’s more to this leadership than New Zealand’s efforts in developing a world-renowned best-practice pandemic response, says London-based…
Gender Pay Equity an Experiment for an Entire Society
“New Zealand is pursuing a century-old idea to close the gender pay gap: not equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value,” American journalist Anna Louie Sussman writes in…
New Zealand Inc Reaps Benefit of Lockdown Response
When Covid-19 struck New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern’s government quickly closed the nation’s borders and imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in a bid to eliminate the spread of the virus. Jamie Smyth, a…
Economist Writes on Our “Islands of Liberality”
“More notable than the appearance of Ardern’s cabinet is how voters answered one question on their ballot paper: should New Zealand legalise assisted dying for those with a terminal illness?” The Economist asks….
New Zealand’s Political Debates Show What Changes When Two Women Lead
“New Zealand’s recent election, which ended up with an electoral landslide for the incumbent Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, says something about women in leadership roles. With the leaders of New Zealand’s two biggest parties…
Morrinsville’s World Famous Takeaway Worker
It’s Friday night in the small town of Morrinsville and a handful of locals are waiting at the Golden Kiwi on the main street for a greasy parcel of fish and chips, Julia Hollingsworth…
Global Media Outlets React to Jacinda Ardern’s Win
Jacinda Ardern will serve a second term as New Zealand prime minister following Labour’s landslide victory in an election on 17 October, which delivered a major shift towards progressive parties, Jamie Smith reports for…
OECD Nominee Liddell Helms White House Transition Planning
Whoever wins the U.S. Presidential race – Trump or Biden – New Zealand-born Chris Liddell will be holding the keys to the front door of the White House in his role as head of…
Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan Proud of Roots
In an exclusive interview with Indian news magazine, The Week, Labour list MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan, 41, talks about how the New Zealand Government is handling the pandemic and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s chances of…
Chlöe Swarbrick Makes Fortune’s 40-Under-40 List
In a year of “monumental challenges and change”, Fortune magazine has released its 40 Under 40 lists for 2020, the Government and Politics list of which features Aucklander Chlöe Swarbrick alongside iHeartMedia’s Jalisa Washington-Price…
How New Zealand Is Beating the Coronavirus Pandemic
“The United States is a pandemic-policy mess, and the whole world is watching the meltdown,” Markos Kounalakis writes for the Washington Monthly. “How did such a small place take on such…
Judith Collins Named National Party’s New Leader
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, widely known for her exhortations to kindness and compassion, will face Judith Collins – a combative, tough-talking conservative lawmaker who styled herself after Margaret Thatcher – in the country’s general…
Todd Muller Plots Downfall of Jacinda Ardern
Todd Muller’s launch last week in the Te Puna rugby clubrooms was not flashy or digital; in one sense it was politics of the old school. But for those who listened to the long,…
New Zealand “the New Leader of the Free World”
“When I say ‘new leader of the free world’, I don’t just mean Jacinda Ardern. I mean New Zealand. As a society,” London-based consultant, leading thinker and author Umair Haque writes in a feature…
Why is New Zealand so Progressive?
She wasn’t the only mother checking in with their whānau that evening. But this woman was Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, and the one who had decided – on expert advice – to…
James Shaw on Our Economic Climate Post-COVID-19
Cheap, renewable electricity is one way of reviving economies and preserving New Zealand’s natural environment, Climate Change Minister and co-leader of the Green Party James Shaw argues in an opinion piece for The Guardian. Shaw…
What Next for New Zealand’s Economy?
“In New Zealand, a country of five million people, new COVID-19 cases have been in the single digits for most of the past week. Australia reported just seven new infections on 23 April. That…
Jacinda Ardern “May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet”
Influential U.S. news journal The Atlantic says “Jacinda Ardern’s leadership style, focused on empathy, isn’t just resonating with her people; it’s putting the country on track for success against the coronavirus.” Uri Friedman, staff…
New Zealand One of World’s Most Resilient Economies
Experts have already begun assessing how a recovery might look once the COVID-19 virus is contained, and which countries stand to bounce back best. According to the 2019 Global Resilience Index, New Zealand sits…
PM Jacinda Ardern Inspires Across Planet
March is National Women’s History Month in the US and Washington state newspaper, the Chinook Observer, salutes several outstanding women, including our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. The Observer’s Robert Brake writes: “I extend kudos to 39-year-old New…
New Zealand Eases Abortion Restrictions
Lawmakers have voted to liberalise New Zealand’s abortion law and allow unrestricted access during the first half of pregnancy, ending the country’s status as one of the few wealthy nations to limit the grounds…
Jacinda Ardern Has the World’s Attention
History came fast at Jacinda Ardern. Just a few years ago, in 2017, having been a local Member of Parliament for a matter of months, she became a Hail Mary candidate for Prime Minister,…
Helen Clark Discusses Global Cooperation
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark is unequivocal when challenged on the pervading doom and gloom about the world. Can she really remain an optimist? “Of course,” she said enthusiastically, when former UK…
New Zealand Least Corrupt Country in the World
New Zealand is seen as the least corrupt country in the world, according to a new report by the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which shows New Zealand and Denmark tied for the top…
Jacinda Ardern is Pacific Person of the Year
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is Fiji-based publication, Islands Business 2019 Pacific Person of the Year, the second person of non-Pacific heritage to ever be awarded the title. “Just over two years since she…
UK Ambassador Laura Clarke’s Aim in Office
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Laura Clarke, the British high commissioner to New Zealand, writes about why the UK wants to strengthen its relationship with Māori. “The connections between the UK and New…
Jacinda Ardern Makes Annual Bloomberg 50 List
“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern banned military-style semiautomatic and assault rifles six days after 51 people died in the worst mass shooting in the country’s modern history … and rallied the leaders of…
Labour Elects Hungarian-Kiwi Claire Szabó
“A truly surprising story from New Zealand. The ruling Labour Party has elected Claire Szabó as its new president. New Zealand-born Szabó is also a Hungarian citizen, her father served as Hungary’s Honorary Consul…
Tackling Hot-Button Liberal Issues in One Swoop
Next year, our country will hold public referendums to decide whether to legalise assisted suicide and recreational marijuana, and separately, lawmakers will consider a bill that would decriminalise abortion. Conflict-averse New Zealanders may be…
Housing Crisis Bites in Northland
A 30 per cent rise in people waiting for state housing in Northland is fuelling New Zealand’s “desperate” shortage in affordable homes, resulting in some families living in the woods, and in huts built…
New Zealand Passes Zero Carbon Law
New Zealand has passed a law to reduce its emissions in a bid to become mostly carbon neutral by 2050, Britain’s Independent newspaper reports. The zero-carbon bill aims to tackle climate change by setting a…
Clues for Brexit Future May Be Found Here
There may be insights for the UK on leaving the European Union without a deal from a long time ago on the other side of the world, Bloomberg economic writer Eddie Spence says. Britain would…
Young Māori Women Stand up for Their Land
Five years ago, law graduate Pania Newton and her cousins got together around a kitchen table and agreed to do everything in their power to prevent a housing development at Ihumātao, the south Auckland…
“The Maori Model” Hailed As Investment Blueprint For Reconciliation
Bloomberg reports from Wellington on the investment record of South Island Maori tribe Ngai Tahu https://www.ngaitahuholdings.co.nz/, turning a $170 million government compensation payment into a $2 billion asset base with an average annual…
Edmund Hillary Fellows Encourage Bold and Humble Leaders
“A verdant Burning Man with lots more global utopianism” is how American business columnist and Elon Musk biographer Ashlee Vance describes on Bloomberg.com the experimental New Zealand Global Impact Visa. Helmed by Illinois…
Review: Marilyn Waring The Political Years
Marilyn Waring’s forensic record of her Parliamentary career (Marilyn Waring: The Political Years Bridget Williams Books) is a layered work, a primer in the travails of Aotearoa’s parliamentary democracy. It…
Jacinda Ardern Popular In Australia
Jacinda Arden’s “empathy and grace” in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings has been applauded in a recent New York Times opinion piece by Sisonke Msimang, an author who divides her time between Australia…
Government Switch for Gabriel Makhlouf
The New Zealand government’s chief economic and financial advisor Gabriel Makhlouf has landed the role of new Central Bank Governor in Ireland. The Irish Independent reports on the appointment. The Central Bank of Ireland will…
Liddell Says U.S. Government Digital Assets Vital for Unleashing Innovation
The U.S. government has a critical role in working with the private sector to harness emergent technologies such as 5G, quantum computing, AI, advanced manufacturing and synthetic biology, says Chris Liddell, White House Deputy…
Kiwis Among World’s Worst Savers while NZ Banks Deliver Highest Profits
Newly released household income data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that New Zealanders ranked among the world’s worst savers. The study forecasted that by 2020, Kiwis would be in…
NZ Passes Law Banning Most Semiautomatic Weapons
“Less than a month after 50 Muslim worshipers in the city of Christchurch were fatally shot in terrorist attacks on two mosques, New Zealand passed a law banning most semiautomatic weapons on Wednesday —…
