A new documentary shines an important light on a new approach that seeks to radically reshaping the way social services are provided, writes geographer Tom Baker How do we address poor health and education outcomes, high incarceration rates, and other pressing social issues? I’m guessing your top three answers do not include “make social services an investment product”, but around the world, … Read more
The Financial Markets Authority has launched an interactive tool that let’s you access, and compare, basic fund information. Rebecca Stevenson extracts herself from KiwiSaver ennui to take a look at the numbers. I have a confession. I have a KiwiSaver, and yet for the first two years or so I didn’t realise I had it. … Read more
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
Boot camps, parental fines… how on earth do these policies fit the social policy framework of the National government in 2017? Simon Wilson takes a look at what the prime minister and his cabinet colleagues have been saying this year. On 14 May, prime minister Bill English told a conference of the National Party faithful … Read more
Tax cuts, more money for infrastructure, and catch-up spending on a raft of areas where it had previously been frozen. All well and good, says economist Shamubeel Eaqub, but what about housing? Read all our Budget 2017 coverage here. Steven Joyce delivered his first Budget and it was carefully calculated to maximise impact in an … Read more
Budget 2017: Bill English has been trumpeting the “social investment approach” as a core part of his thinking, and it underpins much of this week’s budget. For economist Simon Chapple, however, it amounts to a rhetorical banner that obscures standard centre-right political goals Dr Simon Chapple has held senior economist and public policy roles in New Zealand … Read more
The first manifesto of the election has been declared and it doesn’t even belong to a political party. ‘Manifesto 2017: What the next New Zealand government should do’ is the work of think tank the New Zealand Initiative. Simon Wilson, worried as ever about Auckland, searches for some goodness within. They’ve got well organised minds … Read more
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
If the National Party gets its policy of “social investment” right it could stay in power for another generation. So what will Labour and the Greens do about it? Here’s part four of Simon Wilson’s analysis of Labour in 2017. At the National Party’s Northern Regional Conference in May last year, Bill English started his … Read more