Lindsay Mitchell

Cut and paste in full from Samizdata . Only the exclamation mark led me to suspect it was....well read for yourself. Local substitutions cou...

On Wednesday Green's co-leader Metiria Turei questioned John Key about the extra assistance for newborns in the budget. She wanted to kn...

Chris Bishop has been selected as National's Hutt South candidate for the 2014 election. As it is my electorate and I would very much l...

The following thoughts are worthy of wider circulation. The fatalistic attitudes described don't just lead to road deaths. They lead...

Hot off the press, the graph below shows the percentage of smokers in each deprivation area, 10 being the most deprived. The data is extract...

ACT has just announced Stephen Berry will be standing in the Upper Harbour electorate. That's good news. With Libertarianz no longer c...

Yesterday I blogged, "Who can afford to smoke?" To flesh out just how much cigarettes have risen in relation to incomes here are...

A friend was under the weather and she asked me to pick up a few items from the local supermarket.  A couple of items were identified. ...

This is a new take on student loans, completely applicable to NZ: From Jacob Hornberger: The federal student loan program ranks among t...

Academic Deborah Russell delivers a lecture in taxation fairness in today's Herald on Sunday . She argues for progressive tax as opposed...

This is an interesting statement contained in the budget announcement about extra funding for vulnerable children “One per cent of childr...

The $172 million extension of Paid Parental Leave, said to be electorally popular,  is one of the big-ticket items in today's budget. Ba...

Australia needed to cut their welfare spending. Although government spending overall is a smaller proportion of GDP than New Zealand's...

Winston Peter's name is still listed in the ownership of Bellazeel. It was winning only 5 months ago but Winston says: "I on...

Not aided by an interviewer determined to make ACT's budget look bad, Jamie Whyte was eventually able to make some valuable points. H...

On-line over on The Standard yesterday David Cunliffe made this comment:   Our priority is to get kids out of poverty – that’s why our Be...

According to the NZ Herald : University of Auckland senior lecturer and Child Poverty Action Group spokeswoman Susan St John said tax cre...

The NZ Herald reports the Spirit Level authors are in New Zealand to lecture us about inequality, no doubt to boost the electoral chances...

ACT's alternative budget is a desperately needed breath of fresh air: This alternative budget highlights how far National, Labour...

Labour MP Sue Moroney says: “The select committee report shows the impact of the Bill would be just 0.05% of the crown funds being spent...