data

Labour should keep National’s social investment approach – with one crucial change

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Abolition would be a step too far. Jacinda Ardern should retain the Social Investment Agency, but reshape it so it is truly about people’s lives, argues Simon Chapple. Social investment in the welfare system was the flagship policy for the National-led government, and specifically for Bill English’s – an approach which links welfare reform with improving … Read more

I’m a data nerd and a data cheerleader, but still I fear Bill English’s datatopia

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NZ’s new prime minister is a champion of evidence-based policy, the “social investment approach” and open government. So why is fellow data-evangelist Keith Ng warning of a data-democracy cargo cult? Bill English is the most data nerdy prime minister we have ever had. An ex-Treasury wonk and a champion of open data across government, he’s … Read more

878 quakes in 24 hours: how New Zealand shook in the wake of the monster Kaikoura eqnz

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Geonet recorded 878 events in the 24 hours after the monster 7.5-magnitude shock, more than 300 of them 4-magnitude or greater. Here Chris McDowall plots the quakes on an animated map. This animation shows all the earthquake events recorded by GeoNet’s monitoring network between Palmerston North and Christchurch on Monday, November 14. The big quake … Read more

The Figure-Friday quiz, #1: How well do you know our education system?

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Test yourself on our new weekly quiz immediately, so you can say you were there before it was cool. Earlier in the week, we launched the first Spinoff-Figure.NZ feature, in the form of the Chart of the Week. Today, the chart’s evil twin: the quiz. And in a week that the government announced plans to … Read more

Introducing: the Chart of the Week, from Figure.NZ. And a quiz, too

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Today the Spinoff and Figure.NZ launch a new weekly feature, in the form of a chart that tells us something about New Zealand. After extensive thought, we have decided to call it the ‘Chart of the Week’. The plan: to bring more data to more people, explains Lillian Grace, Figure.NZ CEO. After catching a glimpse … Read more

Announcing the debut of ‘Business is Boring’ – our brand new weekly podcast

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Announcing the debut of ‘Business is Boring’ a brand new weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound will speak with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and text. On Facebook the other day I saw a post … Read more