Trans-Tasman wakeup call
Last year the Australia New Zealand Business Forum promised a big celebration this year to mark forty years of the Closer Economic Relationship between...
Labour’s secret tax plans
The release of the Budget papers yesterday shows that from late last year, Treasury and two Cabinet Ministers spent six months working in secret...
No more sheep jokes
It’s time to stop the sheep jokes; a Government report out this morning confirms what many have begun to realise over the past few...
Orr v Willis; a credibility battle
The Reserve Bank Governor and the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee yesterday ended up at odds with National's Finance spokesperson, Nicola Willis, over whether the...
Robertson dares National to cut deeper
What is most surprising about yesterday's Budget is how apparently painless it was to find $4 billion in reprioritisation savings. That begs the question as...
Today’s Budget is only Part One
Today’s Budget will be only Part One of Labour’s two-part pitch for re-election. Robertson is calling it a "no frills" Budget with the big vote...
Seymour and Luxon’s war on Wellington
The two main centre-right parties yesterday launched Budget Week, agreeing that it was time to cut Government spending. There was much that was near enough...
Bureaucrats spend $50 million on consultants and hold meetings for three years and find...
The Ministry of Health has now spent $50 million on consultants and held three years of meetings while it watched its liability for an...
The big money up against Parker
The most intriguing question left after yesterday's unveiling of the Inland Revenue study of the tax paid by the ultra-wealthy is who refused to...
Pay bungle to cost Government $2 billion (and counting)
A miscalculation of holiday pay by the Ministries of Health and Education looks likely to cost the Government at least $2.1 billion. And it seems...
How much is that warship really worth
In a world first with what is being described as "groundbreaking research", a New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) study has set out...
Speed limits hit potholes
The Government’s decision to back peddle on lowering speed limits is hitting potholes. At this stage, although it is part of the Government’s reprioritisation efforts...
Orr: Raise taxes or I will raise interest rates
Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr could not have been more clear. If the Government includes raising taxes in its plans to pay for the Cyclone...
Minister changes one word and threatens an industry
New Zealand's mining industry says it is battling for its continued existence as Parliament considers a new piece of legislation which would change the...
Why Nicola Willis doorknocks
Sometime before the new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced that this year would be about "bread and butter issues", National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis...