Revenue-neutral process

“Killing the lowly was a painless, revenue-neutral adventure for New Zealand, according to a finance official from that country,” Bryn Weese writes for the Toronto…

Economical happiness

New Zealand has retained third place in a world economic freedom report carried out by Canada’s leading public policy think-tank, the Fraser Institute. The 21 report takes data from…

Constitution Conundrum

Former Labour deputy Prime Minister Dr Michael Cullen is calling for an end to the British monarchy. This month Cullen, who stepped down from Parliament when Labour lost power…

Smiling Assassin Woos Investors

John Key, nicknamed “the smiling assassin” during his time at global exchange in London, is now using his trademark beam to woo billionaire immigrants, foreign investors and high-end tourists…

On Race and Harawira

Senior Lecturer at Victoria University’s School of English Film Theatre and Media Studies Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville discusses Maori party MP Hone Harawira’s recent comments about intermarriage in…

UAE presence strengthens

New Zealand will open an embassy in Abu Dhabi, its first in the UAE and second in the Gulf region, where it is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Minister…

Anniversary of sinking

Twenty-five years ago two French agents coordinated the bombing of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior in Waitemata Harbour, a tragedy in which Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira drowned. The attack…

Tokyo Strategies

Anti-whaling activist Pete Bethune, 45, has been convicted by a Tokyo court of assault and obstruction of Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean, receiving a suspended two-year prison…

Against the grain

“An act of real political courage by the National Party would be to increase its commitment in the dangerous areas of Afghanistan and to announce that New Zealand was…

Peace reigns supreme

New Zealand has been named the most peaceful nation for the second year running in the fourth annual Global Peace Index (GPI). Compiled by global think tank Institute for…

Making a stand

The trial of anti-whaler Pete Bethune, 45, of the Sea Shepherd marine conservation group, who was arrested after clambering aboard a Japanese whaling ship in February, has begun in…

All in Good Time

New Zealand switched to proportional representation in 1993 and since then no single political party has been able to command a majority. New Zealanders have come to regard elections…

Under the Garden

New Zealand’s $30 million pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is expecting 400,000 visitors through its doors over the next six months. New Zealand Commissioner-General Phillip Gibson…

Controversial Precision

“New Zealand is joining the global race to meet a surging demand for energy and minerals, with a plan to open up highly protected conservation areas to mining,” writes…

Happy Birthday

“New Zealand has marked the Queen’s 84th birthday by rejecting an attempt to abolish the monarchy,” writes Paul Chapman for The Telegraph. A bill that would have set up a…

Shared Heritage

“Canada and New Zealand may lie at opposite ends of the earth, but we are bound together by a common history,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared during John…

Pure Tax

In a CNN article titled, ‘Why the US can learn from New Zealand when it comes to taxes,” Dody Tsiantar writes that American tax experts and economists are pointing…

Division Debate

“There has always been sense in New Zealand and Australia being one country,” writes the Anthony Mason Professor of Law at the University of NSW George Williams in an…

Irish Influx

Thousands of Irish are flocking to New Zealand shores for a “less hectic” yet familiar way of life, though a simultaneously exotic one too. In the past 10 years…

We’ve Got a Problem

The three men responsible for the 2008 attack on the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) base at Waihopai — a schoolteacher, a Catholic priest and a farmer, who openly…

Maori Across the Tasman

More Maori live in Australia than in New Zealand according to leading population expert Australian Professor Peter McDonald. Studies show there are about 110,000 Maori in Australia, representing about…

Missing the Boat

“New Zealand was a 1980s-era beacon of economic reform and rising prosperity,” writes Luke Malpass, an analyst in the New Zealand policy unit of the Centre for Independent Studies…

Referendum in Sight

New Zealand is due to hold an election referendum in 2011 to enable the population to decide between using AV or the current ‘first-past-the-post’ system. Ken Ritchie, the chief…

Attention to Change

Former prime minister Helen Clark, now head of the United Nation’s Development Agency, was recently at Sydney’s Lowy Institute calling for climate change to be put at the centre…

To Scrap or not to Scrap

The New Zealand Herald has called for the country’s 108-year-old-flag to be scrapped. Under the banner headline “It’s time for a change”, The New Zealand Herald, the country’s largest circulating…

Place for NZ in Chile

The New Zealand government has gifted the Chilean capital Santiago a new plaza in the municipality of Providencia. Plaza Nueva Zelandia aims to represent New Zealand culture, landscape, flora…

Miniature by might

A 25-hectare replica New Zealand city, dubbed “Little New Zealand” is being constructed in the northern Chinese city of Qufu. The $4 million New Zealand Gardens initiative will come…

Arguing the Green

“Sometime in the 2020s, New Zealand will become responsible for a massive surge in emissions from its forests,” writes Fred Pearce in his Guardian series ‘Greenwash’. “The central problem…

Least bent

New Zealand is the least corrupt country in the world according to the annual Transparency International index which ranked 180 countries on a scale of zero to 10 with…

Green Mirage

The Guardian newspaper’s ‘greenwashing exposer’ Fred Pearce uncovers a number of offending countries who have succeeded in raising their emissions from 1990 levels despite signing up to reduce them. “Step…

Slump looks likely

New Zealand economist Robert Wade, a professor at the London School of Economics, predicts a further slump into global recession in 2010 or 2011. Wade, who made his…

Compensation comparisons

New Zealand “has some good ideas” when it comes to tort reform writes Newsweek blogger Katie Connolly, who uses this country’s government-operated Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) as an example…

Looking at Labour

Former New Zealand Rhodes Scholar and Vice Chancellor of Waikato University Bryan Gould writes in the Guardian that “barring a miracle, and miracles seem likely to be in short…

Seoul mates

New Zealand’s trade commissioner in Seoul Graeme Solloway, who is responsible for promoting bilateral trade and investment, has been in the South Korean capital promoting technological ties between the…

Wall Street Suggestions

“The findings of the ‘Emissions Trading Review Committee’ … is green PR gone wild,” writes the Wall Street Journal. “New Zealand already boasted one of the world’s most pristine environments…

Liquidity rules

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has “become the first authority to pass hard-and-fast rules for liquidity since the crisis”, writes The Economist in an article called ‘Lord of…

Strengthening Relations

New Zealand’s outgoing ambassador to Vietnam James Kember has received a medal from the Vietnamese government for his contributions to relations between the two countries. Speaking at the award…

Hands Up For A Smack

New Zealanders have voted overwhelmingly to overturn a law that prohibits parents from hitting children, according to the results of a nationwide referendum, but the government says the law…

Same but Different

On the eve of talks between Australian and New Zealand cabinets in Sydney last week, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Andrew Tink looks back to 1840 – when New Zealand…

Tasman Union Imminent

Flights between New Zealand and Australia will soon be as cheap as domestic flights under new efforts to streamline trans-Tasman travel. Following talks between New Zealand Prime Minister John…

Clark enjoys anonymity

Head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) former Prime Minister Helen Clark, 59, has told the Dominion Post that “New Zealand is just not quite big enough…

New Zealander in NY

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark, now in the role of administrator for the United Nation’s Development Programme (UNDP), talks candidly to TV1’s Breakfast show host Paul Henry in New…

Sustainability Ninja Exits

UK Green party member, adviser and Treasury antagonist Jonathan Porritt, 59, has left his post as chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) after nine years “trying to crash the…

Sustainability ninja exits

UK Green party member, adviser and Treasury antagonist Jonathan Porritt, 59, has left his post as chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) after nine years “trying to…

Arrivals Soar

New Zealand saw the number of Australian tourists exceed the one million mark for the first time and the total annual immigration increase to a two year high, Statistics…

It’s All Turned Sour

Federated Farmers President Don Nicolson has lashed out against President Barack Obama and US milk subsidies in an opinion piece for the latest issue of The Wall Street Journal….

Madcap genius

What were the 1949 “leading thinkers at the London School of Economics” to make of New Zealand inventor Bill Phillips’ hydraulic water system used to predict the economy, wonders…

On Women in Yemen

Former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley has been in Yemen lecturing in a workshop promoting local women’s political participation with a special emphasis on New Zealand women and their role…

Not Much on Television

Birth rates in New Zealand are the highest since 1991 with the average number per woman at 2.2 births. In the 12 months to March 31 this year, 64,160…

Fatter But Happier

New Zealand men are a little shorter than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development average and New Zealand women are quite a bit shorter according to the latest report…

Leading negotiant

New Zealand’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Dr David Walker has been appointed as the new Chair of the WTO Doha Round Agriculture Negotiations. Walker replaces fellow…

Symphony ire

New Zealand anti-apartheid activist John Minto recently flew to Capetown to lend his support to 127 families who for the past 14 months have lived in makeshift homes on…

To Save the Queen or Not

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark, 59, who has given her valedictory speech to the House after 27 years as an MP, said the country’s institutions had “evolved a long…

Questioning change

New Zealander Bob Rigg has published an extensive analysis of the Obama administration’s initial approach to foreign policy in a paper for the South Asia Strategic Forum, a recently…

Stormy Outlook Ahead

New Zealand’s economy contracted in the fourth quarter at its fastest pace in 16 years as the global turmoil worsened a domestic slump, putting interest rate cuts back on…

Clark’s UN role confirmed

26 March 2009 – Helen Clark’s nomination to lead the United Nations Development Program has been officially announced by Michele Montas, spokeswoman for the UN secretary general, in New…