Local Government in crisis
As we stare down another election this month, Paula Southgate warns that constant criticism and bad behaviour are undermining local government. Councils are under siege...
Category : Political Commentary
Improving Government asset management
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop spoke at the 2025 Infrastructure Asset Management Professionals Association (Apopo) congress in Christchurch about our infrastructure asset management challenge. “We need...
Parliamentary game-playing
A tense and intriguing political chess game is currently being played in Parliament’s Privileges Committee, explains Peter Dunne. On the face of it, the issue...
The case for a smaller government executive
Based on a speech David Seymour gave to the Tauranga Business Chamber last month where he floated an idea about how we could transform government...
A political perspective on 2024
As a turbulent political year drew to a close in 2024, some observations can be made about the state of the various parties and some...
Electoral Integrity Act is unfit for purpose
Image source: New Zealand Parliament Peter Dunne reflects on what he considers an anti-democratic Act that turns MPs into mere slaves to the dictates of...
Removing well-being responsibility from local government
By Peter Dunne. The water pipe, which burst beneath Wellington’s Cambridge Terrace on Wednesday morning [21 August], could not have chosen a better moment to...
Scandinavian ambitions with a US attitude to tax
Political commentator and analyst Bryce Edwards comments on the 2024 Budget. To understand the Budget, it’s worth returning to a statement made in 2020 by...
A Perspective on the 2024 Budget
Notwithstanding all the usual pre-Budget media hype it is worth remembering that Budgets seldom defeat governments. By Peter Dunne. Game-changing Budgets, like Sir Roger Douglas’s...