Why political philosophy? Why do I read it, teach it and encourage others to engage in it? Simply, because I am driven to it by my practice as a public servant. I have spent a great deal of my working life in meetings where we discuss, decide or make judgements about public policy. I notice...

The Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (IGPS) has commissioned this survey to generate a snapshot of the current state of play and, more importantly, to kickstart a much needed conversation. Our findings suggest that there are serious concerns with levels of public trust in the country. Not only is trust in our government, politicians...

Introduction Over the period 2002 to 2010, Statistics New Zealand carried out a longitudinal survey known as the Survey of Family, Income and Employment (SoFIE). Some eight waves of data were collected. Every second wave (2003/2004, 2005/2006, 2007/2008, and 2009/2010), respondents were asked questions about their wealth holdings. In 2007 Statistics New Zealand published a...

In 2011 the NZ government adopted from the Accident Compensation Corporation via the Welfare Working Group a programme of actuarially estimating the cost of someone staying long-term on a benefit and using that as the basis for defining the return from "investing" in action that deflected that person from a benefit into long-term work. The...

The Local Governance National Dialogue aims to develop a conversation based around research-informed discussion papers and a series of regional events to consider what type of local governance will best meet the needs of New Zealand’s many different communities over the coming years.