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Insights 3: 5 February 2026
NZ Herald: Roger Partridge on reclaiming New Zealand's democratic story
 
The Australian: Dr Oliver Hartwich on reforming how governments reform
 
Newsroom: Dr Eric Crampton on how regulations push up prices at pharmacies
New Zealand’s new reality
Dr Oliver Hartwich | Executive Director | oliver.hartwich@nzinitiative.org.nz
For the first time since the Second World War, New Zealand is being asked to make major economic decisions under direct threat from an ally. 

New Zealand is negotiating a minerals deal with the United States. On Tuesday, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Bede Corry met US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in Washington. A joint statement confirmed talks on a “critical minerals framework”. The talks are moving fast. 

Critical minerals are the raw materials in batteries, electronics, electric vehicles and weapons systems – lithium, rare earths, that sort of thing. America wants secure supplies from allies rather than China. Fair enough. But the way Washington is going about it is something else entirely. 

In January, the White House gave trading partners 180 days to strike deals or face import restrictions, including tariffs. The deadline expires in July. This is not negotiation in any traditional sense. It is a deadline backed by the threat of punishment. 

For decades, that is not how allies dealt with each other. Negotiations took time. Pressure, when applied, was discreet. Agreements stuck. That world is gone. 

What Washington wants now is fast compliance. The old courtesy of partnership has given way to something that looks more like extraction. 

Australia has already discovered what this means in practice. In October, Canberra signed an $8.5 billion minerals deal and the mining industry celebrated. The agreement included American guarantees of minimum prices, so that if China flooded the market with cheap supply, Australian mines would still be worth the investment. 

Last week, those guarantees were quietly withdrawn. 

Australia played by the rules. It moved quickly, signed a big deal and trusted that the relationship would hold. It now carries the risk on its own. 

This matters because New Zealand is next in line. We share intelligence ties and decades of close cooperation with the United States. None of that changes the calculus. We are not negotiating because the terms are attractive. We are negotiating because the alternative is worse. 

Even full compliance offers limited security. Australia had scale, existing mines and deep defence ties through AUKUS. Yet its protections still evaporated within months. New Zealand has far less to bargain with. 

The assumptions we have long relied on no longer apply. What gets agreed today can be revised tomorrow, and when it is, there is no appeals process. 

This is the new reality. We had better understand it soon. 

Listen to Oliver and Eric's podcast here for a deeper discussion. 
When infrastructure becomes an excuse
Dr Benno Blaschke | Research Fellow | benno.blaschke@nzinitiative.org.nz
Auckland is deciding where the next generation of homes will go. Plan Change 120 is a proposal to rewrite the city’s planning rules. It would concentrate new housing near train stations and town centres. Further submissions open later this month. 

The outcome will shape whether the next generation can afford to live in the city where they grew up. 

Opponents say there is no point zoning for more homes unless the pipes and roads are already in place. Councillors Christine Fletcher and Troy Churton made this case in the NZ Herald. It sounds responsible. 

But we can test this claim. Land prices tell us what is actually scarce. 

Think about two paddocks at Auckland’s edge. One sits just inside the urban boundary, the other just outside. Same soil, same weather, same distance from town. The only real difference is that one has permission to become housing and the other does not. 

If permission were abundant, developers would not pay much more for the urban section. They could always go next door. So, any large gap between the two prices tells us that permission itself is scarce. 

What do the numbers show? 

Te Waihanga, the government’s infrastructure agency, found that Auckland’s urban land sells for nearly $1,300 per square metre more than rural land nearby. On a standard 600 square metre section, that premium adds up to roughly $780,000.  

To be clear, the money is not for better soil or a nicer view. That is what it costs to get permission to build in Auckland.

Councillors can claim that the city has zoned enough land for housing. Prices suggest otherwise. 

Even if you accept that infrastructure matters, pulling back permission now does not keep options open. It forecloses them. 

Getting permission back later means another plan change, more delays, more years of hearings and appeals. Developers see the uncertainty and hold back today. Fewer homes get built. Prices stay higher than they need to be. 

And the premise that Auckland lacks infrastructure is outdated anyway. The City Rail Link opens later this year. A massive new wastewater tunnel is nearly finished. Both will serve exactly the areas where Plan Change 120 focuses on growth. 

Plans should keep options open. Consents should confirm a site is ready, not reopen the question of whether homes belong there at all. 

When someone wants to build homes, the default answer should be yes.  

Auckland does not need to rediscover scarcity dressed up as prudence. 
In defence of educational caution
Roger Partridge | Chair and Senior Fellow | roger.partridge@nzinitiative.org.nz
Education Minister Erica Stanford stands accused of compressing a generation of reform into two years. Her programme is “radical,” “ideological,” and risks turning children into guinea pigs.  

Auckland University’s Professor Peter O’Connor calls it neoliberal “shock-and-awe.”  

These are serious charges. History teaches us that haste in education leads to disaster. 

Consider the cautionary tale of Charlemagne. In the ninth century, he rashly insisted that monks learn to read and write properly. The result? Mass literacy, the preservation of classical texts, and eventually the Renaissance. Europe is still recovering. 

Or take Prussia’s reckless decision in 1763 to mandate compulsory schooling. Within a century, German children could read, calculate, and think systematically. The consequences were far-reaching and not all of them pleasant. 

New Zealand, by contrast, has pursued a more measured path. For roughly two decades, we conducted our own educational experiment. Participation was compulsory. There was no control group. Withdrawal was not permitted. Results were studiously ignored. 

When international assessments showed sustained decline, they were sensibly dismissed as culturally biased. When domestic data revealed troubling gaps, this was contextualised appropriately. Achievement fell, but intentions remained impeccable. 

Against this backdrop, Stanford’s insistence on structured literacy and explicit teaching appears reckless. Why require children to decode words when they might infer meaning from pictures? Why insist on times tables when fingers remain perfectly serviceable? Why sequence knowledge when learning is a journey best undertaken without maps? 

Most troubling is the lack of consultation. Education systems work best when those who built them decide whether they are working. That such figures now counsel patience should not be read cynically. It is merely prudent. 

Better to proceed carefully. Perhaps pilot reading in select schools. Monitor results for another decade. Convene a working group. Refresh the framework. Embed it in draft guidance. Then, if results remain concerning, consider consulting on a roadmap toward implementation. 

Some argue that delay costs another cohort their futures. This is emotive – and dangerously impatient. After all, the system has been failing children steadily for years. Interrupting that trajectory so abruptly risks confusion. 

Besides, if teaching children to read and do mathematics turns out to be a mistake, we can always reverse course. 

New Zealand has long experience retreating from standards. It is one of our few remaining areas of genuine expertise. 
 
On The Record
Initiative Activities: ​ To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App.
 
All Things Considered
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