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Insights 9: 21 March 2025
Webinar on new Dual Training report available to watch now
 
Research Report: Trade Routes by Dr Michael Johnston
 
Newsroom: Dr Oliver Hartwich on Putin's dangerous war games
Completing the apprenticeship jigsaw
Dr Michael Johnston | Senior Fellow | michael.johnston@nzinitiative.org.nz
Each year, between 60 and 65 thousand young New Zealanders leave school. Around a third go to university. Most of the rest find employment, but about 11% become unemployed. Only 6% enter apprenticeships. 

In contrast, under Germany’s world-renowned ‘dual training’ system, around half of school leavers enter apprenticeships. The term,‘dual training’ refers to the joint responsibility of employers and technical education institutions to train apprentices. 

What accounts for the stark difference between apprenticeship participation in New Zealand and Germany? I explore this question in my new report, Trade Routes, launched this week.  

Trade Routes makes recommendations to improve apprenticeship pathways through secondary and tertiary education, and to enhance work-integrated learning. In this column, I focus on the recommendations for secondary school. 

Germany has a two-track high school system. After age ten, students either attend a Gymnasium (Grammar school) to prepare for university or a Realschule to prepare for an apprenticeship. 

In contrast, New Zealand’s unitary secondary school system is geared towards university preparation. Most schools focus less on vocational education, which is typically cast as a second-tier alternative. We need to work towards apprenticeships enjoying equal status with university education. 

Tracking children at the age of ten would be unthinkable here. However, schools specialising in either university-track or vocational-track education at the senior secondary level would make students’ options clearer to them. 

Schools specialising in vocational education could concentrate on preparing students for apprenticeships. They could gear their timetables and programmes to integrate learning in workplaces and tertiary institutions.  

Youth Guarantee comprises a bundle of existing initiatives supporting secondary pathways into apprenticeships. These are individually useful, but they are not joined up. Each has different eligibility criteria and funding arrangements. 

The Trades Academies programme enables students to undertake dual enrolment in secondary and tertiary education. The Gateway fund supports schools and employers to deliver structured workplace-based education. STAR funding supports students’ transition from school to work or further study. 

The elements of Youth Guarantee should be brought together to form the core of a coherent pathway from school into apprenticeships. This would make the option of apprenticeships more appealing to young people and better prepare those who select that option. 

The pieces of a high-quality apprenticeship-track secondary pathway already exist but as a fragmented jigsaw. We should combine them to form a picture that both inspires and delivers for our young people. 

Dr Michael Johnston’s research report, Trade Routes, was published 19 March.
Time for ANZAC 2.0
Dr Oliver Hartwich | Executive Director | oliver.hartwich@nzinitiative.org.nz
Last week, I had the opportunity to interview Michael Pezzullo, former Secretary of the Australian Department of Home Affairs, for The New Zealand Initiative’s podcast. 

 Pezzullo gave a stark assessment of the security challenges facing Australia and New Zealand in the Indo-Pacific region. He made a compelling case for something we urgently need to consider: an integrated ANZAC military force. 

The timing of our discussion could not have been more relevant. Just last month, a Chinese naval cruiser conducted exercises in the Tasman Sea, equipped with 112 missile cells capable of precision strikes against targets in both our countries. 

This was not merely a routine exercise. Pezzullo described it as “both a strategic diplomatic purpose to project power and to seek to intimidate, but also a military rehearsal.” 

“The defence of New Zealand actually starts at the outer edge of the Australian territorial sphere,” Pezzullo told me. His assessment was blunt: “If Australia goes down, if Australia is militarily defeated or has its sovereignty severely impacted by military coercion, then New Zealand is next.” 

New Zealand’s current defence position is precarious. We spend just 1.2% of GDP on defence compared to Australia’s 2% and maintain minimal military capability. Rather than trying to match Australian capabilities independently – an economically unfeasible proposition – Pezzullo suggests reinstating our 1944 military alliance. 

His proposal would create an integrated force specifically for territorial defence while maintaining sovereign decision-making for operations beyond our immediate region. “New Zealand wouldn’t necessarily have to acquire its own F-35 Lightnings, for instance, but it could contribute in other ways,” he explained. 

A united ANZAC approach would strengthen our position in countering China’s growing influence in the Pacific, evidenced by recent security agreements with the Solomon Islands and Cook Islands. 

Pezzullo estimates a 10-20% probability of conflict – far higher than most insurable risks people address in their private lives. With American security guarantees increasingly conditional, we cannot afford complacency. 

What this means for New Zealand is clear: our geographic isolation no longer provides the security buffer it once did. Modern military technology, changing geopolitical dynamics, and strategic competition in our region demand a serious reassessment of our defence arrangements. The public conversation about these realities has been notably absent in New Zealand compared to Australia. 

The ANZAC tradition began with our nations standing together. In today’s complex security environment, a renewed military partnership represents our most realistic path to maintaining sovereignty. 

Listen to Dr Oliver Hartwich and Michael Pezzullo's podcast episode here.
Preaching to the unconverted: My regulatory revelation
Dr Bryce Wilkinson | Senior Fellow | bryce.wilkinson@nzinitiative.org.nz
Last night, I found myself standing at St Peter’s Church for the “Red Tape Hui,” not to confess my economic sins, but to proselytise about the virtues of the prospective Regulatory Standards Bill. 

The event, hosted by Labour’s Greg O’Connor, MP for Ōhāriu and Assistant Speaker of the House, featured a panel including Dr Bryce Edwards from The Integrity Institute and Craig Renney from the Council of Trade Unions.  

I expected to be the only one likely to speak out to support the Bill. But being a lone advocate in what felt like missionary territory gave me an idea. 

Suspecting I would be surrounded by those who view the Bill as “evil neoliberalism,” I decided to follow in the footsteps of a rather accomplished ancient orator. 

The Apostle Paul, encountering an altar “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” in Athens, cleverly appropriated the Athenians’ own cultural framework to introduce his message (Acts 17:22-31). So, why not borrow this strategy? 

After all, if regulatory reform aligned with divine intervention, The Bible would tell us so. 

And lo, The Bible, it appears, is absolutely teeming with regulatory wisdom.  

King Ahab’s property acquisition strategy with Naboth (1 Kings 21) was clearly a cautionary tale about inadequate regulatory standards. Even King David’s accountability to the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12) screamed of the need for a Regulatory Standards Board. 

It was quite the theological tightrope. Every criticism of the Bill seems to have a biblical rebuttal.  

Worried about chilling effects on future governments? Consider Ecclesiastes 1:9 (”What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun”). 

Troubled by fiscal costs? Jesus himself advised “counting the cost” before building towers (Luke 14:28-30), which is practically a biblical mandate for cost-benefit analysis. 

Of course, my critics might suggest that finding regulatory principles in ancient texts is rather like discovering that the Book of Revelation is actually about modern accounting standards. 

But as I stood there, quoting chapter and verse in defence of regulatory transparency, I felt a certain kinship with St Paul – albeit defending a rather different kind of gospel. 

Whether my audience at St Peter’s was converted to the cause of regulatory reform remains to be seen. But should the Bill pass, I shall consider it nothing short of a miracle. 

After all, turning water into wine seems only marginally more challenging than turning biblical wisdom into regulatory policy. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my study. I believe Deuteronomy may contain some excellent insights on resource management legislation. 
 
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