Latest Posts

Inequality and poverty: A summary of the 2019 Household Incomes in New Zealand report

Opinion by Max Rashbrooke on December 11, 2019

The Ministry of Social Development’s key annual report, ‘Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2018’, by Bryan Perry, makes for depressing if not surprising reading. Economic inequality remains at the very high level the country was left with in the late 1990s following 15 years of market-based…

Green shoots of open government

Opinion by Max Rashbrooke on November 20, 2019

One of the current government’s most famous commitments was Clare Curran’s statement that it would be the “most open, most transparent” administration ever. I think this is technically true, in the sense that it hasn’t unwound any previous open-government policies, problems like abuse of the Official Information Act are probably no worse than previously, and…

Pressure for mayoral candidate transparency begins to bear fruit

Opinion by Max Rashbrooke on September 30, 2019

Transparency International’s Wellington Mayoral candidate forum last week showed contenders promising – and providing – greater transparency and citizen participation, going well beyond what the law requires. The pressure for more openness, created by many years’ work by civil society groups, was evident at the forum, held at Wellington’s Old Government Buildings on Thursday 26,…

Three decades of Rich List growth

Opinion by Max Rashbrooke on August 31, 2019

I’ve just run the numbers on the latest NBR Rich List, released earlier this month. The graph below shows how the List has grown in the three decades of its life. Very rapidly, is the short answer: from $13 billion to $84 billion (in constant 2015 dollars). It has almost doubled – increased by 95%…