Winston Peters’ 40-Year Political Rise
The ascension of power will be a curious one for Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters who, at times through his career, has looked like he could take the role with ease and at others…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
New Zealand Wants to Start Taxing Tourists
“New Zealand is planning to start taxing the millions of foreign visitors who flock to its shores every year,” writes Jethro Mullen in an article for CNN Money. While the…
NZ Gives BC Lesson on Proportional Representation
When New Zealand pitched a switch to proportional representation in the early 1990s, it triggered a wave of conjecture and confusion similar to what British Columbia in Canada is experiencing now. New Zealanders voted in…
NZ Plans To Invest In More Recycling Plants As It Deals With China Waste Ban
“New Zealand is planning to invest more in recycling plants and set up government-led taskforce to work out how to grapple with the fallout from China’s ban on waste imports, its associate environment minister…
Barnet Mayor Reuben Thompstone Sworn in
New Zealand-born Councillor Reuben Thompstone, a 42-year-old who represents the Golders Green ward, has become the 54th, and youngest-ever, mayor of Barnet, North London. Thompstone has a background in education and has served on the…
Sheryl Sandberg Deems Ardern a Political Prodigy
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gives her opinion on New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has been named in Time magazine’s list of 100 ‘Most Influential People’, alongside other leaders including London mayor Sadiq…
New Zealand Women Footballers Get Same Pay As Men
“New Zealand’s football body announced a new deal May 8 that gives the national women’s team the same pay and conditions as the men’s side, becoming one of the world’s first countries to do…
New Zealand Makes Biggest Leap in A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index
New Zealand has made the biggest leap of any country – up seven spots to 16th – in this year’s A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index (FDI). The USA…
New Zealand Looks To Bridge Talent Gap
“New Zealand may be experiencing economic growth fuelled by both emerging home-grown innovations and FDI that represented 38% of that nation’s GDP in 2016 and totalled NZ$101bn ($72bn) in FDI stock in 2017, but…
Ardern Joins Khan, Trudeau and Young Fans in London
In this Guardian ‘photo highlight’ of the day, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau takes a selfie with the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, at City Hall during the…
New Zealand Bans All New Offshore Oil Exploration
“The New Zealand government will grant no new offshore oil exploration permits in a move that is being hailed by conservation and environmental groups as a historic victory in the battle against climate change,”…
New Zealand Clears Historical Gay Sex Convictions
The New Zealand parliament has unanimously passed a bill that is expected to allow about 1000 men to apply to have past convictions for homosexual activity removed from their criminal records. Homosexuality was decriminalised in…
Britain’s Sunday Times Interviews Jacinda Ardern
This week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to arrive in the UK for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, and will see both Theresa May and the Queen. She knows England…
Jacinda Ardern on Life as a Leader
In a Guardian interview, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reveals how her life has changed and her ambition for a can-do country. This time last year Ardern was known as a young opposition MP…
Jacinda Ardern’s Social Laboratory for the World
“Jacinda Ardern has a list of promises for improving the lives of lower-income people.” While this is pretty standard for a fresh centre-left government”, “one of her approaches for achieving it is not,” writes…
Former PM Bill English Quits Politics
Former New Zealand prime minister Bill English, 56, has resigned as leader of the National Party, quitting politics after a 27-year career. “Now is the right time for me to step aside and embark on new professional…
Politicians Must Earn Back Trust Says Ardern
Jacinda Ardern is not your average prime minister, Times political journalist Alice Thomson quickly learns. The second prime minister after Benazir Bhutto, in 1990, to be pregnant while running a country, is down to…
PM Talks about Her Particularly Public Surprise
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern talks to Guardian contributor and Spinoff editor Toby Manhire about her surprise pregnancy and why she won’t stay quiet on sexism. “I did think about her quite a bit…
British and US Migrants Flock to New Zealand
The number of American and British residents choosing to live in far-flung New Zealand has risen sharply since the election of Donald Trump and the UK’s Brexit vote, according to new migration figures. The…
New Zealand Fourth Best Democracy in The World
New Zealand has been named the country with the fourth best democracy in the world in a new report ranking countries by how functional their political systems are. According to the report by The…
PM Jacinda Ardern Plays down Her Pregnancy News
Jacinda Ardern, who became New Zealand’s prime minister in October, attracted international attention when she denounced television interviewers who had asked whether she planned to have children if elected. Ardern, 37, told a television…
Craft Beer Makes Inflation Gauge as Tastes Change
New Zealand has added craft beer to the basket of goods it monitors to measure inflation, reflecting changing tastes and consumer spending in the country, Bloomberg reports. “New Zealand used to be called a country…
NZ’s Film Industry Worth a Billion to Economy
The International New Zealand Screen Production Grant (NZSPG) is a key contributor to the nation’s economy according to a new economic study released by the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC). The New Zealand screen industry…
More Women Needed in Politics Says Ardern
This has been a year dominated by women speaking out and fighting back. The Financial Times spotlight those who have made waves this year, from prime ministers (including New Zealander Jacinda Ardern) to World…
Benefits of Foreign Owned Property Debated
New Zealand, famous for the mountains that formed the dramatic backdrop to the film The Lord of the Rings, is now known for something else among the super rich: as a possible safe haven…
Climate Refugees to Be Welcomed in New Zealand
New Zealand has announced it will create a special refugee visa for Pacific Islanders displaced by rising seas. The country says it is preparing for the possibility of a larger evacuation of island residents…
Tax Reform New Zealand Style
“With tax-law revision now before the US Congress, matters of revenue, efficiency and fairness again occupy American minds. But as one of that country’s most celebrated political writers, T.R. Reid, notes in this passage…
Helen Clark Appointed To Global Commission On Drug Policy
Helen Clark has been appointed to the prestigious Global Commission on Drug Policy” – “one of the world’s leading think tanks on reducing drug harm on society,” reports the New…
Jacinda Ardern One of World’s Most Powerful Women
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has made the Forbes 2017 World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list, coming in at No 38. The 2017 list identifies a new generation of icons, game-changers and gate crashers who are…
Interview with Mole Valley MP Sir Paul Beresford
New Zealander Sir Paul Beresford, MP for Mole Valley in Surrey, UK, was born in Levin. He came to Britain in the “very early seventies” and worked in East London as an NHS dentist. “London…
New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern Gets Set to Govern
Describing herself as “relentlessly optimistic,” New Zealand’s newly sworn in prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, 37, will face a National opposition of 56 members clamouring at the gates – smarting from losing an election they believed…
Why Golriz Ghahraman Entered NZ Politics
New member of parliament Golriz Ghahraman is having her Twitter feed documented by the national archive as a testimony of New Zealand’s 2017 election. “It will be interesting for others to see what happens when…
Jacinda Ardern, 37, Will Be NZ’s Youngest Prime Minister
“A minor party holding the balance of power in New Zealand threw its support behind 37-year-old Jacinda Ardern’s bid to become prime minister on Thursday, ending the center-right National Party’s nine-year grip on power,”…
High Commissioner Mark Ramsden Says Fiji Farewell
The outgoing New Zealand High Commissioner Mark Ramsden says Fiji has gone through a lot of positive changes during the time he worked in the country. “The Fiji New Zealand Business Council has been a…
Lessons from New Zealand on Fiscal Discipline
“New Zealand and the UK are both regarded as pioneers in the use of a more modern system of accounting – accrual accounting, a method that records revenues and expenses when they are incurred…
New Zealand’s Tech Industry Boots Up
Majestic scenery, adventure tourism and agricultural products may be central to New Zealand’s international image, but technology and digital exports are growing fast, prompting industry calls for greater recognition, David Brooks reports for Nikkei…
The New Politics Of NZ – National Wins 46%
“New Zealand politics seldom grabs international attention. That changed six weeks ago when Jacinda Ardern, the 37-year-old female deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party, was gifted the party leadership and a mission to…
New Zealand’s Election No Longer Predictable
No one had expected New Zealand’s 23 September election to be much of a contest. The conservatives were expected to win, again. But that was before Jacinda Ardern and a wave of support that’s…
Crawford Falconer UK’s Top Trade Negotiator
The New Zealander in charge of negotiating the UK’s trade deals once Brexit is finalised, has begun his tenure. Crawford Falconer has taken up the post of chief trade negotiation adviser at the Department…
Jacinda Ardern Shames TV Dinosaurs
Hours after taking office, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern, 37, faced down pundits asking if she planned on starting a family, a question rarely asked of men in politics. The Guardian takes a look at…
Darren Hughes UK’s New Electoral Reform Society CE
New Zealander Darren Hughes, who has just been named chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), the UK’s leading democratic reform group, discusses his new role in a piece for the Huffington Post. “I…
Politician Jacinda Ardern Enjoys Rapid Rise
Jacinda Ardern took over as New Zealand’s opposition leader just last week, but already she has prompted a flood of donations, taken a stance for women in the workplace and transformed what had been…
John Key Awarded Order of Australia
“Former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has been awarded Australia’s highest honour in a ceremony in Canberra.” “Sir John, who led his country between 2008 and 2016, was appointed an Honorary Companion in…
UN Chief Appoints Jan Beagle Of New Zealand As Under-Secretary-General For Management
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Jan Beagle of New Zealand as the new Under-Secretary-General for Management. She was sworn in on July 13. She “brings to the position more than 35 years of…
Bonds Forged By Times Says Gerry Brownlee
In an opinion piece for The Australian, New Zealand Minister for Foreign Affairs Gerry Brownlee discusses “the truly unique” trans-Tasman relationship and the new pathways to Australian citizenship opening this month which New Zealanders…
NZ Lawmakers Apologise for 100s of Gay Convictions
New Zealand lawmakers have unanimously apologised for the “tremendous hurt and suffering” of hundreds of men who were convicted of homosexuality during the years it was treated as a crime. Parliament took the rare step…
Helen Clark Hit Her First Glass Ceiling at the UN
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark says the rejection of her bid to become the next UN secretary general was a blow for women, but the security council weren’t looking for an “independent-minded…
Kingi Snelgar on Spending Time at Standing Rock
Lawyer Kingi Snelgar, 29, who has worked as a crown prosecutor in New Zealand and overseas as a human rights observer, joined the Standing Rock movement in South Dakota in late-2016. Snelgar, who completed…
Mayoral Candidate Chlöe Swarbrick Talks to VICE
Auckland’s youngest mayoral candidate, independent Chlöe Swarbrick, 22, came third in a field of 19, but even this was an achievement, according to VICE who interviewed the politician for a feature as part of…
White House Open to Chris Liddell’s Ideas
Nearly 300 executives have visited the White House this year, according to a New York Times tabulation, an open-door policy that is a sharp break with the Obama administration and puts corporate chieftains on…
NZ and UK Talk Meat Deals Post-Brexit
New Zealand’s powerful meat promotional body Beef and Lamb New Zealand (BLNZ) has begun discussions with UK producer groups about the possibility of collaborating on post-Brexit lamb deals to third countries, Nancy Nicholson writes…
Populism Is The New Black – Chris Gilson
Last year was not a great one for mainstream politics, according to Chris Gilson, Managing Editor of the London School of Economics’ daily blog on US politics and policy. In a recent…
“The Road Starts Here” New Zealand Comes Aboard China’s OBOR Initiative
“To many in New Zealand, the country looks like an isolated outpost on a map girdled by economic powerhouses a hemisphere away. It’s the end of a trail that snakes through Southeast Asia and…
China Honours the Spirit of Rewi Alley
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s just-concluded visit to New Zealand has charted the future of the two countries’ “special” relations, with the spirit of New Zealander Rewi Alley their guide towards an even stronger friendship,…
UBI Has Benefits Argues Scholar Max Harris
Aucklander Max Harris wants you to change your mind, according to Impolitikal co-founder Sarah Illingworth. Currently based in Oxford, United Kingdom, Harris is completing a PhD in Law at All Souls College, and has…
More Americans than Ever Moving to NZ
Forget Canada. In the wake of the election, the Associated Press reports, Americans are applying in droves for citizenship in New Zealand, a country as far away as physically possible from the United States,…
