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| Dr Michael Johnston | Senior Fellow | michael.johnston@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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This unfortunate attitude was on display last week after Education Minister Erica Stanford announced the list of subjects to be included in the new school curriculum for Years 11-13. Outdoor education and tourism, which are part of the current curriculum, will not be in the new one. Instead, they will most likely be listed in a new category of vocational subjects. Neither Education Outdoors NZ (EONZ) nor Tourism Teachers Aotearoa New Zealand (TTANZ) is happy about the change. According to RNZ, both organisations believe their subjects are “being relegated to filler status for struggling students, rather than being seen as serious options for teenagers.” This framing exemplifies the dismal attitude that has held back vocational education in New Zealand. It contributes to a downward spiral. The more vocational education is seen as a repository for students who can’t handle ‘serious options,’ the less students see it as a valid pathway on par with university. Contrary to the fears of EONZ and TTANZ, the new vocational subjects could be a circuit breaker. Until now, vocational education has been a mere add-on to the ‘academic’ curriculum. Under the new approach, Industry Skills Boards (ISBs) will develop a curriculum of its own for each vocational subject. Vocational subjects could start to build more esteem for vocational education, but schools will need support to make the most of them. The ongoing involvement of ISBs will be crucial. They cannot just develop the vocational subjects and walk away. Schools will need help to organise learning-through-work opportunities for students. Often, they will need partnerships with tertiary providers to teach aspects of vocational subjects they are not resourced to teach themselves. ISBs could assist with both of these things. The tertiary training system is in disarray following the merger of the polytechnics into Te Pūkenga, and its swift demise. That will have to be sorted out, so students who take vocational subjects at school have strong tertiary programmes to go to. There is a way to go before New Zealand has a vocational education system that rivals universities as a destination of choice. But vocational subjects are a great start. |
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| Nick Clark | Senior Fellow | nick.clark@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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That is how long New Zealanders waited to know the outcome of the 2023 election. While coalition talks were delayed pending the declaration of results, most comparable democracies can declare theirs within hours or days and promptly begin to form their governments. Vote counting is getting slower because more people are casting ‘special votes’. These are ballots from voters who cannot vote normally – because they are voting outside their electorate, enrolling or updating their details late, are overseas, or in hospital or prison. Special votes require time-consuming processing and verification. Special votes made up 12% of total votes in 2011 but jumped to 21% in 2023. If this trend continues, they could reach 30% by 2032, meaning election results take even longer to finalise. The Electoral Amendment Bill offers sensible medicine. Closing the electoral rolls before advance voting begins directly tackles the problem of special votes by people enrolling or updating their details late. Most comparable democracies, including Australia and Britain, do this. While making it harder for young people and those who move frequently, it creates a cleaner, more secure voting process overall. The Bill allows people turning 18 during the voting period to pre-enrol. The Bill sets a 12-day advance voting period. But a shorter seven-day period could provide two full weekends for voting while keeping policy fresher in voters’ minds. Parties increasingly time their policy announcements to land just before advance voting begins. While addressing the special votes problem, the Bill ignores a glaring inconsistency: Advertising, organised campaigning, news coverage, and social media posts are allowed during advance voting, yet election day itself imposes strict prohibitions. This creates a bizarre two-tier system in which democracy's rules change at the eleventh hour – after most people have voted. The Electoral Commission and Justice Select Committee have both raised this anomaly and recommended a review. But nothing has changed. Consistent rules should apply throughout a shortened voting period. Advertising and organised campaigning could be restricted, while news coverage and individual expression allowed. Democratic institutions require public confidence to function effectively. When results take weeks and rules are inconsistent, citizens lose faith and uncertainty corrodes stability. Parties cannot begin coalition negotiations, and the country looks amateurish. New Zealanders deserve swift election results — no more agonising waits that leave us in the dark about our future. Nick Clark's submission, Electoral Amendment Bill, was lodged on 11 September 2025. |
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| Roger Partridge | Chair and Senior Fellow | roger.partridge@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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The equation is precise: current number (N) plus one equals salvation. This is the Rule of N – count the competitors, declare the number insufficient, and pronounce the market broken. It is beautifully simple, and completely backwards. No one ever asks why three supermarkets would be perfect when four banks remain inadequate. Or if four gentailers are too few, why are three telcos enough? The Rule of N never explains why the magic number varies by industry, or why it always happens to be exactly one more than we currently have. Perhaps the mathematics of competition is more mysterious than advertised. Recent signals from the government suggest this mystical thinking may be fading. Politicians are slowly learning to get out of their own way. Ministers are discovering that if they want to attract a supermarket chain, removing the barriers they created – zoning mazes and planning consents that drag on for decades – is more useful than bashing incumbents. A Parliamentary inquiry has gently suggested banking regulators might be guilty of keeping competitors at bay with requirements that would intimidate the bravest new bank. The revelation is dawning: competition comes from opening gates, not counting players. The transformation matters because New Zealand’s realities make the Rule of N especially delusional. We are 5.3 million people scattered across two islands – the size of Japan with the population of Sydney. That scale will never support endless addition. Markets are not arithmetic, where competition equals addition and the solution is always plus one. Competition is a process where the threat of a rival – real or imagined – can be almost as good for competition as the rival itself. Remove the barriers and competitors emerge naturally – or incumbents sharpen their pencils in fear that they might. The Rule of N deserves recognition as policymaking’s most persistent counting error. It thrives in minds that mistake arithmetic for economics. The real lesson is simple: competition is not a headcount. It is a process disciplined by the possibility of entry. Open the gates and the numbers will count themselves. Keep them shut, and no arithmetic will save you. |
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