bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Focusing on the future: a summary and critique of the 2013 retirement income report
Authors: Stephens Robert
Published: September 2018

Every three years, under the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income is required to conduct a review of retirement incomes, to be submitted to the government. This article presents a summary and discussion of their 2013 report, entitled Focusing on the Future.
Living alone as a lifestyle of older people in New Zealand: policy implications
Authors: Koopman-Boyden Peggy , Moosa Sheena
Published: September 2018

In many societies adults of various ages are adopting a new lifestyle of living alone which is often characterised by independence, self-sufficiency, freedom and alternative living, yet is also seen as hedonistic, selfish and individualistic. No previous societies have supported so many people living alone, for living alone may not be a desired survival goal at societal level (Roseneil, 2006). In many modern societies a significant number of middleaged and older people are living alone as a result of smaller families, relationship break-ups or the death of a spouse or partner. This article examines the development of this phenomenon, including the possibility of it becoming a more dominant lifestyle for older people, while exploring the motivations of older New Zealanders (aged 65 and over) who live alone, and the strategies they adopt to make their solo lifestyle meaningful.
The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities
Authors: Davidson Joanna
Published: September 2018

The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the Victorian Charter) was enacted 16 years after the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZBORA). Like the NZBORA and the United Kingdom’s Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), the Victorian Charter is an ordinary act of Parliament which seeks to preserve parliamentary sovereignty by limiting the courts’ ability to strike down legislation. The Victorian Charter drew heavily upon the experience of New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The Victorian Charter expressly adopts some aspects of the NZBORA and the HRA (such as the interpretative rule), rejects other aspects (such as the ability to obtain damages for breach), but also includes some provisions that are quite different from either the NZBORA or the HRA.
The Lobbying Disclosure Bill: a solution for a problem that doesn't exist
Authors: Unsworth Mark
Published: September 2018

Three years ago, on 13 June 2011 Green MP Sue Kedgley launched a campaign and released a members’ bill to establish a publicly-accessible register of lobbyists. It was claimed to be ‘all part of our campaign for more open, transparent, and honest politics’ (Green Party, 2011). The Lobbying Disclosure Bill was eventually introduced into Parliament, but failed to win enough support to be passed. It is timely to investigate why an attempt to introduce rules on lobbying, which exist in many Western countries, met with little support here. What, perhaps, is unique about New Zealand society and the public’s interaction with the political world that has led to a less than enthusiastic interest in the need for regulation of those who lobby? Was the Greens’ bill a solution to a problem that didn’t exist?
Regulatory systems, institutions and practices
Authors: Bailey Steven , Kavanagh Judy
Published: September 2018

Regulation is a fact of life. It affects the food we eat, the safety of our workplace, the goods and services we buy and sell and the quality of our natural environment. It plays an important role in guarding New Zealanders from harm, protecting our rights, and ensuring that markets work fairly and efficiently. However, when regulation is badly designed or implemented it can fail to provide these protections, or place unnecessary burdens on personal freedoms and business efficiency. So is the New Zealand regulatory system as good as it should be, and how could it be improved?
A systems perspective on the natural resources framework: comment on Hearnshaw et al
Authors: Scott Rodney
Published: September 2018

The Natural Resources Framework is a new approach to policy advice developed by the multi-agency natural resource sector in New Zealand. This framework has been implemented with some success, but also some teething problems. The framework is a ‘systems’ approach to understanding the interaction between the many actors in the natural resource management system, and as such could benefit from insights and lessons from the systems sciences. This article is a rejoinder to Hearnshaw et al. (2014), and presents three suggestions for how the framework could be improved based on literature from the fields of system dynamics and systems thinking.
Distibution of pre-tax top personal incomes
Authors: Easton Brian
Published: September 2018

The purpose of this article is to present some data on top  pre-tax personal incomes in New Zealand. It updates an earlier article by a year to 2011/12 and extends the estimates in it back to 1936/37. The background to this article is the international database of incomes assembled by Facundo Alvaredo, Tony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (Alvaredo et al., 2013), which reports their estimates for New Zealand of the pre-tax personal income shares of top income groups based on published Inland Revenue (IRD) sources.
Predictive analytics for policy and practice: reflections from the criminal justice system
Authors: Hughes Tim
Published: September 2018

The current government is seeking to take the logic of an investment approach to welfare and apply it to other areas of expenditure. Like most sectors, the justice sector has a programme of work underway to improve its ability to make good investment decisions; in a justice sector context this primarily means applying resources where they can best reduce the long-term social and economic costs of crime.
Commentary on ‘global development in the twenty-first century’
Authors: Scobie Grant M
Published: September 2018

The Danish physicist Neils Bohr wryly observed: ‘Prediction is very difficult especially if it’s about the future.’ In that sense, Professor Garnaut set himself a very challenging task. However, reflecting the depth of his scholarship, he has not fallen into the trap of prediction. Rather, he has offered nuanced projections; the difference is more than semantic.
The policy worker and the professor: understanding how New Zealand policy workers utilise academic research
Authors: Lofgren Karl , Cavagnoli Dona
Published: September 2018

How do policy workers actually use academic research and advice? While there are several recent studies regarding this question from other Westminster jurisdictions (e.g. Talbot and Talbot, 2014, for the UK; Head et al., 2014, for Australia; Amara, Ouimet and Landry, 2004 and Ouimet et al., 2010, Canada), similar academic studies have been rare in New Zealand. So far, most of the local research in this field has been conducted by the prime minister’s chief science advisor and the Office of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee, with the particular instrumental purpose of improving the government’s ministries and agencies’ ‘use of evidence in both the formation and evaluation of policy’. However, none of these studies have asked how, and to what extent, policy workers in government are utilising academic research  in their everyday work.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide: good or bad public policy?
Authors: Kleinsman John
Published: September 2018

A quote from Baroness Butler-Sloss, a former president of the Family Division of the High Court in the United Kingdom, provides a useful description of what is involved in the debate about whether or not to legalise euthanasia and/or assisted suicide. It is a debate about the merits of staying with a long-established boundary which provides a bright line and that is ‘natural’, versus the merits of exchanging that boundary for one that is ‘arbitrary … easily crossed and hard to defend’.
The role universities can play in supporting the state sector
Authors: Whelan Chris
Published: September 2018

Over recent decades most of the developed world has invested significantly in lifting the proportion of the population that has a tertiary education, with a view to increasing what is commonly referred to as human capital. The OECD defines human capital as ‘the knowledge, skills, competencies and attributes embodied in individuals that facilitate the creation of personal, social and economic well-being’. New Zealand spends around 1% of its GDP on tertiary education (OECD, 2014) and has seen a significant rise in the proportion of the population with a tertiary qualification over the past couple of decades.
Aid in dying in the High Court: Seales v Attorney General
Authors: Geddis Andrew
Published: September 2018

As her inevitable death from brain cancer approached, a 42-year-old lawyer named Lecretia Seales wanted the option of receiving aid in dying from her (unnamed) general practitioner, who in turn was willing to provide that aid. Seales’ own actions would not breach the law; it has not been an offence in New Zealand for anyone to attempt to end her or his own life since 1961. However, should a doctor aid Seales to do so, she or he ran the risk of arrest and prosecution for breaching the Crimes Act 1961. A doctor who directly administers a lethal dose of medication at Seales’ request for the purpose of ending her life might be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter under section 160 of the Crimes Act. Providing Seales with a lethal dose of medication in the knowledge she may self-administer it to end her life some time in the future might lead to a prosecution for aiding or abetting suicide under section 179.
Climate change and New Zealand: is it doom or can we hope?
Authors: Palmer Sir Geoffrey
Published: September 2018

Climate change is a wickedly difficult problem. It involves a complex matrix of scientific, political, social, economic and ethical considerations. While these many different intellectual perspectives are important, they also pose problems in arriving at appropriate solutions. In order to solve the issue of climate change it is necessary to draw on many academic disciplines. Virtually all the sciences are engaged: biology, chemistry, geology, and physics and atmospheric science, ecology, genetics, mathematics and meteorology; also geography, a discipline that spans both natural and social sciences.
Global development in the Twenty-first Century: the maturation of global development – responses to three critiques
Authors: Garnaut Ross
Published: September 2018

Modern economic development does not travel for long in a straight line. Making sense of the periodic changes in direction is the never-ending challenge of economic analysis. My 2015 Holmes Lecture took up the challenge of explaining new twists and turns in the 21st century. Productivity and output growth are markedly lower in the developed countries, especially but not only since the great crash of 2008.  The populations of the developed countries are ageing rapidly and the labour forces declining or growing slowly. Global savings are high and investment low, giving rise to historically low real interest rates.
Different meanings of ‘nature’ for New Zealand’s conservation institutions
Authors: McNeill Jeffrey
Published: September 2018

‘Conservation matters’, New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) briefed its new minister in 2014, because ‘New Zealand’s natural heritage shapes the country’s cultural identity and … New Zealanders identify strongly with conservation lands and waters’ (Department of Conservation, 2014, p.4). It further explained that the benefits of conservation are much more than improving health and well-being and contributing to a sense of personal achievement. Conservation protects natural capital, delivers infrastructure, and underpins New Zealand’s primary production sector and tourism. In short, the country’s national and conservation parks and native biodiversity benefit the country’s economy, prosperity and future wellbeing.
Protected areas: how will they contribute to third millennium challenges?
Authors: Dinica Valentina
Published: September 2018

Biodiversity is valued for its intrinsic worth and for its role in generating ecosystem services, such as soil fertility, clean air, renewable bio-resources, and water quality and availability. While biodiversity outcomes are generally pursued by nations for land in various types of ownership, this article focuses on protected areas on publicly owned lands. Currently, the internationally agreed protected area classification used by the United Nation’s Convention on Biological Diversity differentiates them in terms of nature conservation objectives and ‘compatible’ human uses. This suggests that protected areas can be arranged along a spectrum of protection stringency, from reserves and wilderness areas at one end, to so-called ‘sustainable use lands’ at the other.
South Island high country land reform 1992-2015
Authors: Brower Ann
Published: September 2018

As young as New Zealand is, conflicts about land and its uses have been fought about multiple values, only a few of which are tangible and locatable on a map. Land conflicts have arisen over sovereignty, cultural identity, and control of a resource located in, on or under land. Resources under contention have changed over time, from hectarage, to timber, to pasturage, to hard-rock and energy-producing minerals, to water. Recently, conflicts have started to feature a resource with new-found value in the New Zealand real estate market: beauty.
The quasi-market approach: the answer for social housing in New Zealand?
Authors: Dykes Peter
Published: September 2018

One of the major current policy initiatives of the New Zealand government is the introduction of the quasi-market approach for the delivery of social housing under the Social Housing Reform Programme. The Social Housing Reform Programme seeks to increase the participation of third-party not-for-profit community housing providers in delivering social housing in competition with Housing New Zealand Corporation (Minister of Housing, 2012). What has become known as the ‘quasi-market’ approach in social policy is based on the idea of creating competition and using market-based incentives. The rationale of this approach is that if prices are based more on supply and demand, then resource allocation will be more efficient.
Citizenship education in New Zealand: policy and practice
Authors: Wood Bronwyn E , Mulligan Andrea
Published: September 2018

The desire to mould citizens through curricula and educational initiatives is reflected in government policy around the world. Schools can be thought of as an aggregation of the values, aspirations and ideals held by society and sites where a range of strategies are employed to attempt to shape young citizens in certain ways (Staeheli, 2011). New Zealand is no exception. From the first Education Act in 1877 through to the latest New Zealand curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007), successive governments have attempted to engender the dispositions, skills and understandings perceived as constituting responsible, ‘good’ citizens through a variety of citizenship education initiatives.
Advancing better tax policy: the role of wealth taxes in New Zealand
Authors: Marriott Lisa
Published: September 2018

Most OECD countries have seen increasing gaps between the wealthy and the less wealthy in recent decades (OECD, 2008). Most OECD countries are also increasingly concerned about inequality. The measures and impacts of inequality are highlighted in a range of well-known publications (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010; Corak, 2013; Stiglitz, 2013, 2015; Dorling, 2014; Piketty, 2014; Rashbrooke, 2014b). Suggestions for the causes of inequality are numerous and varied. While the tax system cannot directly address many of the contributing factors, wealth taxes such as capital gains taxes can assist with the unequal treatment of taxes on income and capital, and taxes such as estate duties or gift duties may help with redistribution of wealth.
Managing and communicating risk and uncertainty in macroeconomic policymaking
Authors: Kirby Robert , Fukac Martin
Published: September 2018

In policymaking, as in life, we often must make decisions without knowing how the future will play out. Taking uncertainty into account when making macroeconomic policy allows policymakers to help improve economic outcomes. This article considers three aspects of improving outcomes for fiscal and monetary policymaking: considering risk and uncertainty in decision-making; communicating risk and uncertainty; and designing better tools to communicate risk.
Declining towns and rapidly growing cities in New Zealand: developing an empirically-based model that can inform policy
Authors: Brabyn Lars
Published: September 2018

Understanding and predicting spatial patterns in population change has significant implications for infrastructure, property investments, and national spatial planning. It is also at the core of understanding what motivates people to move to different places, and the underlying geographical conditions that are important to people. During recent times, the population growth of large cities in New Zealand (particularly Auckland, but Tauranga has had faster growth) has resulted in severe social and infrastructural problems, such as sky-rocketing house prices, homelessness, and congestion of roads. At the same time, many small towns have had significant population decline, with no proposed solutions apart from acceptance or undertaking so-called “managed decline” (McMillan 2016; Wood 2017). As will be described in this article, net migration has been a significant component of the spatial variation in population change, while natural change does not have a significant spatial variation and has been generally positive for all urban places.
Governing the global commons: an ethical-legal framework
Authors: Taylor Prue
Published: September 2018

Governance of the Earth’s global ecological commons creates unprecedented challenges for humanity. Our traditional Westphalian state system was not designed to respond to these global challenges and thus far it has failed to transform. Climate change is the current headline issue; 30 years on and we still swing between hope and despair about our collective ability to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Related issues are beginning to vie for our response: ocean acidification, mass species extinction, land use change and freshwater scarcity.
Reviewing the global economy: the UN and Bretton Woods systems
Authors: Oram Rod
Published: September 2018

Humankind has been searching for millennia for ways to govern itself at large scale and over great distances. Overwhelmingly, the dominant solution had been the creation of empires, defined as multi-ethnic or multinational states with political and/or military dominion over populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from the ruling imperial ethnic group and its culture. In the modern Westphalian era of the past several centuries, a hybrid system of governance around the world emerged, comprising the nation state (in Europe and the Americas) and international empires (across Africa, Asia and Oceania).
The atmosphere, the Paris Agreement and global governance
Authors: Macey Adrian
Published: September 2018

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change set a remarkable precedent for speed of entry into force of a global treaty. With the threshold of 55 parties and 55% of greenhouse gas emissions being reached within a year of its adoption, the agreement entered into force before the following Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakech (November 2016). By the end of COP22 there were over a hundred ratifications. This was both a vote of confidence in the agreement and a sign of the strong international commitment to tackle climate change. Less obvious is the fact that the agreement reflects a new model of international governance of climate change, in which the role of the central legal instrument has changed. It is yet to be tested, but these early signs of confidence augur well.
Injecting carbon beneath the seabed: dumping, pollution, waste ... or something else?
Authors: Severinsen Greg
Published: September 2018

In a tiny fraction of Earth’s history, humanity has induced climate change on an unprecedented scale. Despite widespread consensus that a changing climate threatens the very existence of the human species, even now effective measures are not in place to prevent it. Reducing CO2 emissions to safe levels, bringing with it real or perceived reductions in development capacity, is proving extremely difficult to achieve. It is in this context that people are increasingly turning to technology and science for solutions that soften the impact of the carbon-intensive activities seen to be crucial to continued economic growth.
A ‘sea change’ in marine planning: the development of New Zealand’s first marine spatial plan
Authors: Peart Raewyn
Published: September 2018

Marine spatial planning is a well-established approach internationally, and has been used to assist in the application of an ecosystem-based management approach to the marine environment (Ehler and Douvere, 2009; Ehler, 2014). New Zealand’s first marine spatial plan was completed in December 2016. It was the result of a three-year Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari project which focused on addressing the growing spatial resource conflicts and ecological degradation associated with the Hauraki Gulf. The project was innovative in a number of respects, including: establishing a cogovernance structure; tasking a group of Mana Whenua (Hauraki Gulf iwi) and stakeholder representatives with producing the plan on a collaborative basis; addressing both catchment and marine issues in an integrated manner; and integrating mätauranga Māori and Western  science.
The Kermadecs conundrum: marine protected areas and democratic process
Authors: Love Toni
Published: September 2018

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are on the increase. Their creation is heralded as a significant response to severe marine degradation caused by fishing, mining, pollution and climate change. However, MPAs are highly controversial as they can override other competing interests, and their creation has become fraught. Sometimes this is about historic or ongoing disenfranchisement; often it has to do with a lack of transparency in the development processes (Warne, 2016).
A ride on the Ridgeway bus
Authors: Gregory Bob
Published: September 2018

My father was a government tradesman (for all of his working life). As it happens, a next-door neighbour was one of the three public service commissioners. It was the late 1950s, and after work my father and the commissioner would often ride home together on a Wellington Tramways bus, departing from Courtenay Place and winding upwards through the steep streets of Vogeltown towards the Ridgeway terminus. They were both happy to be called ‘public servants’, though carrying out entirely different roles in New Zealand’s  ‘homely state’, as described by Janet Fraser, wife of former Labour prime minister Peter Fraser.
New Zealand Productivity Commission internship: social sector productivity
Authors: Tavich Danijela
Published: September 2018

For my internship I prepared a short paper on social sector productivity for the Productivity Commission. The objective was to consider the implications of introducing productivity measurement in the social sector, given some of the complexities of observing outputs and outcomes for certain sector tasks. To do this I selected one typology, James Q. Wilson’s matrix of government tasks in Gregory (1995b), and attempted to apply this to a set of tasks within one organisation in the social sector, namely the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). The tasks were drawn from MSD’s annual report for 2015/16.
Lessons from an internship at Waipā: District Council motivations and incentives
Authors: Denne Alice
Published: September 2018

Creating change through policy interventions relies most often on changing individuals’ behaviour. To create effective change, it is important for policymakers to understand the attitudes and motivations of the people most affected. I learned how important this is while spending my summer interning at the Waipä District Council in Waikato as part of Victoria University’s Master of Public Policy graduate pathway programme.
Beyond the pay gap: The retirement disadvantage of being female
Authors: Groom Merewyn
Published: September 2018

The gender pay gap in New Zealand is often discussed in terms of hourly wages or represented by the idea that women effectively work for free from 14 November until the New Year (Lawless, 2017). What isn’t often considered is how the disparities in earning, promotion opportunities and time out of the workforce for family can compound into an exponential affect on retirement savings, like so much interest never received. According to the ANZ bank, the average woman retiring in 2017 will have $80,000 less in her KiwiSaver account than if she were male (Edmunds, 2017b), and the gap is growing: back in 2015 it was $60,000 (Parker, 2017; ANZ, 2015).
Deep-Sea fisheries: the lessons of experience
Authors: Wallace Cath , Weeber Barry
Published: September 2018

This article draws on a comprehensive research paper “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” which we presented to the Deep Sea 2003 Conference in Queenstown. In that paper we set out to examine the New Zealand Fisheries Quota Management System (QMS) and its issue of property rights to commercial fishers in the deep-water fisheries within adjustable catch limits.
How to treat policy whiplash
Authors: Baehler Karen
Published: September 2018

Election day approaches, and conversations around Wellington are turning to what I will call policy whiplash. Opinion polls indicate that New Zealand voters may replace their current centre-left coalition government with a new centre-right government, in which case public servants would be asked to reverse policy direction once again in areas such as employment relations, resource management, the bulk funding of schools, school zoning, and work for- the-dole. Over the last two decades, New Zealand has become known for its frequent changes in policy direction, epitomes of which include four major health sector restructurings, alternating models of public and private accident compensation, and alternating approaches to housing assistance based on income-related v market-based rents.
Policy and politics: expectations of the next three years
Authors: James Colin
Published: September 2018

What to do in a third term? The platform of six years ago is almost all legislated for and under way – or out of reach. So is it time to rest or retire the policy wonks? Not if the policy wonks are in the public service. A third term is when they come into their own. As one senior minister puts it: “By the third term we have become experienced at government”. A loose translation might be: a government really only gets to know the machinery and demands and techniques of government after two terms.
Diversity and public policy
Authors: Boston Jonathan , Callister Paul
Published: September 2018

The issues surrounding the nature and impact of diversity – and especially ethnic and social diversity – have attracted growing interest in many countries during the past decade. For the purposes of this discussion the term ‘social diversity’ is used to embrace diversity in values, religious beliefs, life circumstances, lifestyles and other aspects of the human condition.
Strong families: a key to social and economic success in the 21st century
Authors: LauziÃ¨re Marcel
Published: September 2018

Let me start by saying that if New Zealand is to compete globally in the future, I profoundly believe that we need to succeed socially. In the years ahead, the international labour market is going to become increasingly competitive because of population ageing and because the global workforce continues to be more mobile. A key challenge for New Zealand – and this is the case for many other OECD countries – will be to retain and attract the best skills and the best talent. We need to be thinking now about the best ways and means of ensuring that New Zealand is seen as one of the best places to work and live, and simply enjoy life.
E-government: what is it, and will it transform government?
Authors: Gauld Robin
Published: September 2018

Like many trends that influence public policy and administration, ‘e-government’ is a multifaceted and nebulous idea, easily applied to a range of different situations, across the entire gamut of government and society, and with differing intentions. There are wide-ranging claims made for e-government, considerable hopes pinned on it, and substantial commitments – financial and otherwise – made to it. The concept has been embraced by political leaders; it is being used to drive changes to the public sector, and to legitimise investment of public money in information and communications technology (ICT). An important question, however, is what ‘e-government’ is, and what shape an ‘e’ government might have. This article overviews the concept, the developmental phases of e-government and some international and local policy developments, and speculates on the impact of ICT on the future shape of government.
Factors influencing departmental responses to the development goals for the state services
Authors: McAdam Gary
Published: September 2018

Since the mid 1990s significant effort has been put into addressing the fragmentation effects of the state sector reforms of the 1980s. Several attempts have been made under different governments to reduce fragmentation and ensure alignment and integration of activity across the public service and, more recently, the broader state services. These efforts have increasingly sought to use non-structural means to improve collaboration and coordination. Over recent years they have had a significant focus on improving the outcomes experienced by the community and improving service delivery to citizens.
Muddying the waters: managing agricultural water quality in New Zealand
Authors: Harding Russell
Published: September 2018

Despite heightened public opinion over a number of years, considerable expenditure of money and concerted effort, freshwater pollution continues to be a public problem in New Zealand. For many years New Zealanders seem to have believed that they were immune from this, confident in their ‘clean green’ image, and that rain and snow melt flush unwanted substances and organisms out of lakes and rivers. New Zealand’s ‘clean green’ image continues to work well as a marketing slogan for New Zealand products internationally, but is often belied by conditions in the environment.
Misleading statistical studies
Authors: Wolf Amanda
Published: September 2018

Large statistical studies in the social sciences, including one-off or repeated cross-sectional surveys, time-series surveys and cohort longitudinal research, offer important numeric evidence for policy making. Although single studies rarely occasion dramatic policy shifts, statistical research findings can affect policy debate, even if not always directly or openly. At best, these studies reveal shapes and patterns in the social fabric relevant to health, safety, education and other social goals. Numerical measures of many social phenomena, such as unreported crime, illicit drug use, child-rearing practices or family composition, enter into a policy-making milieu crowded with competing numbers and qualitative information, as well as non-evidential values and power-based influences.
Tenure review, property rights and public policy
Authors: Quigley Neil
Published: September 2018

Large tracts of the South Island high country are farmed under leases that are perpetually renewable at the discretion of the lessee. Changes in views about the optimal use of the high country have resulted in the government instituting a tenure review process, under which the Crown is negotiating with the owners of South Island pastoral leases to redefine the property rights associated with those leases. As a result of tenure review, the portions of these pastoral estates that have high conservation and/ or low farming value are being returning to the Crown under management of the Department of Conservation (DOC), while those portions of the estates that have high value in farming or other uses are transferred to the freehold ownership of the former lessee.
Skin colour: does it matter in New Zealand?
Authors: Callister Paul
Published: September 2018

Pick up any official New Zealand publication which includes photographs representing the population and it is highly likely that the people featured will have visible characteristics, including skin colour, that are stereotypically associated with the main ethnic groups living in this country. Equally, examine official reports which consider differences in outcomes between groups of people, such as in health and education, and it is very likely that ethnicity will be a key variable in the analysis. But it is extremely unlikely that skin colour will be explicitly mentioned in either type of report.
Response to Quigley
Authors: Brower Ann
Published: September 2018

I warmly thank the editor for the opportunity to reply. I shall highlight three technical differences between Professor Quigley’s and my positions, then conclude with the major theoretical difference.
After the reforms: some questions about the state of the state in New Zealand
Authors: Scott Graham
Published: September 2018

This article comments on some of the current challenges facing the New Zealand public sector. I reflect mostly on the change relating to the core state services, to some Crown entities and some state-owned enterprises. I will also make brief comments regarding the relevance of possible constitutional change to the state sector.
Forecasting and reporting performance: the search for the holy grail?
Authors: Brady Kevin
Published: September 2018

More than 500 public entities in New Zealand are required to publicly report prospective and actual performance information. Most of the requirements have been in place for more than 15 years, their origins lying in the public sector reforms of the 1980s. There is strong theoretical logic supporting the usefulness of publicly disclosed performance information, with disclosure of non-financial performance information a growing phenomenon internationally. Indeed, last year I attended an international gathering of auditors-general at which it was clear that the demand for such information is growing.
A framework for a post-2012 global climate agreement
Authors: Garnaut Ross , Jotzo Frank , Howes Stephen
Published: September 2018

Global greenhouse gas emissions are on a steeper growth trajectory than assumed in most scenarios that underlie current international policy discussions and negotiations. Effective global climate change mitigation action will require speed, depth and breadth well beyond any efforts seen to date, and will need to involve all major emitters, including developing countries (Garnaut et al., 2008). To achieve a comprehensive global agreement at or after the Copenhagen climate conference, a principles-based framework for mitigation is needed. Here we outline a system that adds up to a global solution, and that could be broadly acceptable. It involves internationally tradable emissions rights allocated across countries, with allocations moving over time to equal per capita allocations. Developing countries would receive increasing emissions entitlements, linked to their GDP growth, for a transitional period. Binding emissions targets would apply to all developed and high-income countries plus China from the outset.
Social policies in the recession
Authors: Fletcher Michael
Published: September 2018

While we cannot prevent many of the current recession’s impacts, there are real social policy choices open to policy makers –choices that can reduce its severity, influence who bears what costs, and, importantly, have an impact on the longer-term, post recession outcomes. How well New Zealand performs economically and socially in the years after the current recession is over will depend in part on how well we manage the distributional consequences of the recession and on the social policies implemented during the recession.
The 20 hours (free) programme: important choices ahead for New Zealand’s new government
Authors: Bushouse Brenda K
Published: September 2018

The 20 Hours Free programme was implemented in July 2007 after having been one of three new education policies announced in the Labour Party’s 2005 election manifesto. The new programme was the brainchild of Education Minister Trevor Mallard and provided 20 hours of government-funded early childhood education (ECE) for all three and four year olds, regardless of family income. When the Free ECE programme began, participation was large enough to affect the Consumer Price Index: ‘Education prices fell 5.2 percent [for the September quarter], due to lower prices for early childhood education as a result of changes to government funding’ (Statistics New  Zealand, 2007). The most recent data indicate that 86%of eligible services participate and 93% of eligible children participate (Ministry of Education, 2008). With its tremendous success, the 20 Hours Free ECE programme has become the biggest, most expensive early education programme in the country.
Back to Churchill: an old vision for prisoner reintegration
Authors: Workman Kim
Published: September 2018

During his brief reign as Liberal home secretary in 1910, Winston Churchill embarked upon an ambitious reform of the English prison system. His first principle of prison reform was ‘to prevent as many people as possible getting there at all’. He believed that there should be a just proportion between crime and punishment, and that even convicted criminals had rights against the state. Underlying Churchill’s prison reforms was a real understanding of the nature of imprisonment from the perspective of the prisoner, which drew from his having been a prisoner during the Boer War.
Implementing government strategies for complex social problems
Authors: Herbert Ruth
Published: September 2018

Addressing complex social problems that are rooted in multiple causes is difficult. These issues often interact in unpredictable ways with numerous contributing factors, and they do not run along traditional departmental boundaries. For example, family violence is one of the most complex, multifaceted and poorly understood issues in Western society. Addressing family violence requires major social change in individual attitudes and relationships, cultural and religious belief systems and society's opinions, as well as comprehensive government strategies and a comprehensive range of services to support families and individuals affected by family violence. In this respect, it provided a useful case study through which to examine the implementation of complex social policy in New Zealand.
Changing gears on the Millennium Development Goals in Oceania
Authors: Naidu Vijay
Published: September 2018

Even before the onset of the global economic recession in late 2008, Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania were deemed to be seriously lagging behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and there was concern that many of the goals will not be met by 2015. While the challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa are seen to be of a much higher magnitude than those in Oceania, for the latter to achieve all the goals in the next seven years requires significant new policy initiatives and their more effective implementation, as well as renewed partnerships which will drive sustainable actions towards MDGs.
The Copenhagen Climate conference: it still takes two to tango
Authors: Neilson Peter
Published: September 2018

At Copenhagen most of the countries present had a better offer for emission reductions to table, but it needed the United States and China to go onto the dance floor to really get the party going. The US, while offering to help contribute to $100 billion a year in assistance from 2020 for least developed countries facing the full impact of climate change, did not move beyond an emissions reduction target of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. This reduction is in the Waxman Markey Bill passed by the House of Representatives in 2009.
The regulatory responsibility bill and the constitution
Authors: Ekins Richard
Published: September 2018

The Regulatory Responsibility Taskforce has recommended that Parliament enact its proposed Regulatory Responsibility Bill. The bill aims to rule out certain statutes and regulations as ‘unconstitutional’ by specifying principles of responsible regulation and by introducing three mechanisms – certification, judicial declarations of incompatibility and interpretation – to ensure that legislation conforms to those principles. I argue that the bill itself is unconstitutional: Parliament should not enact it. Many of the principles are contentious and affirming them would distort law making and democratic politics. Authorising judges to police conformity compounds the problem. The content of the principles is likely to be settled by judicial decision, which means Parliament will face improper political pressure to do as the courts direct and the validity of much delegated legislation will be called into question.
Regulatory lessons from the leaky home experience
Authors: Easton Brian
Published: September 2018

I begin this paper with a manufacturer’s warning: that I use the term ‘regulation’ slightly differently from the way it is used in some other papers presented in this symposium, coming as I do as an economist from the tradition of mathematical systems analysis. By that tradition’s standards, a market is a regulatory system, so it finds limiting the use of the term ‘regulation’ to just statutes and the regulations that are derived from them. It also recognises that some administrative practices are regulatory. The legal framework for regulation may be quite adequate but the administrators may fail to implement it effectively. So when I write about the global financial crisis being a result of regulatory failure I am allowing that the law, the market and the administration may all have had a role in that failure.
The Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill
Authors: Geddis Andrew
Published: September 2018

While debates over what role money should play in electoral politics – a topic New Zealand follows the United States in calling ‘campaign finance’ – have occurred spasmodically in this country, it has received an unprecedented amount of attention since 2005. Although this article is not intended to be a general history of the topic (see instead Geddis, 2010b), some contextual background nevertheless is important to understanding the current proposals for reform contained in the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill.
A culture of lead infrastructure
Authors: Crampton Colin
Published: September 2018

In a time of global economic downturn, such as the one we are living through, it is important to ensure that we do everything we can to make ourselves as competitive as we can in the global market. The government’s priority for transport is to invest in land transport to increase economic productivity and growth in New Zealand. Quality land transport infrastructure and services are recognised as being an essential part of a successful and resilient economy. Good quality land transport enables people to access employment and businesses to get their goods to markets across the country, and is the first link in the ‘logistics chain’ to international markets, through our ports and airports. Therefore, investing in quality infrastructure, as John F. Kennedy so eloquently put it, contributes to our economic growth and productivity.
Empty talk? University voices on the Global Financial Crisis
Authors: Bridgman Todd
Published: September 2018

The global financial crisis (GFC) which began in 2007 with a liquidity squeeze in the US banking system and which continues to play out today has affected us all, whether through the collapse of the finance company sector, rising unemployment, falling housing prices or the recession which followed the initial market crash. The speed and scope of the crisis surprised most experts – policy makers included. Specialists from a myriad of disciplines, from economics and finance to risk management, corporate governance and property, are trying to make sense of what happened, why it happened and what it means for us now and into the future. Members of the public rely on the news media to keep them informed of the crisis as it unfolds and they rely on experts to translate these complex events into a language which they can understand. The GFC is educating us all, and it is important that we all learn from it to avoid making the same mistakes again.
The political economy of child care policy: contradictons in New Zealand and Canada
Authors: Baker Maureen
Published: September 2018

In countries like New Zealand and Canada, often classified as ‘liberal’ welfare regimes, child care was historically viewed as a private matter of little concern to governments or employers. Nevertheless, early in the 20th century governments supported maternal care at home by providing tax relief to male-breadwinner families, but also established care and protection programmes for disadvantaged children. In the 1940s, both countries developed universal child allowances to help parents with childrearing costs. By the 1970s they were providing subsidies for early childhood education and care while continuing to offer income support programmes for disadvantaged parents caring for children at home (Baker, 2006; Kedgley, 1996; May, 1997; McClure, 1998).
Reforming welfare: a look backwards
Authors: O'Brien Michael
Published: September 2018

In its final report the Welfare Working Group (WWG) asserts that ‘Our welfare system has major deficiencies that need to be corrected if we are to achieve the outcomes New Zealanders expect from the welfare system. Addressing these issues requires innovation and fundamental change to the welfare system, rather than further piecemeal change’ (WWG, 2011, p.i). The report fails to meet all these aims because of: (1) its imprecision and lack of clarity about key terminology; (2) the agenda which it set, including the terms of reference under which it worked; and (3) the assumptions it made about the purpose and role of income support systems and the values on which those systems should be based.
Lessons for welfare reform from the United Kingdom
Authors: Nolan Patrick
Published: September 2018

Welfare reform is high on the political agenda in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In New Zealand an independent welfare working group has released its final report and the prime minister, John Key, signalled that the government would consider its findings. In the United Kingdom the secretary of state for work and pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has outlined plans to radically reduce the cost and complexity of working-aged benefits and to increase the involvement of the private sector in the delivery of services. This article compares welfare reform in New Zealand and the UK. Such a comparison is of interest given the similar social policy traditions in the two countries and similarities and differences in the approaches taken to their welfare reforms. There are also important lessons – on what to do and on what not to do – that the countries can learn from each other.
Residential sorting and social mobility in New Zealand
Authors: Morrison Philip S
Published: September 2018

This article argues that the residential sorting process which confers advantages on those who can choose their residential environments may also deny such advantages to others. The policy question therefore is the degree to which residing in neighbourhoods with relatively high levels of deprivation lowers people’s prospects of social mobility.