By Paul Simperingham Recently, Paul Simperingham of the Public Policy Club’s content team sat down with three of the University of Auckland’s most prominent economists to discuss pressing policy matters in New Zealand and around the globe today. Meet the Economists Dr Asha Sundaram is a senior lecturer in the University of Auckland’s Economics Department,… Read More Blog | Auckland’s Economists on New Zealand: Policy Problems, Solutions, and Misconceptions

By Alfred Kim The New Zealand Government proposed a new approach to the Budget on 30 May 2019: one that aims to instil hope for better “living standards over the long-term,” by providing support for the “many possible definitions of wellbeing.” This purpose of this article is to make sense of how the Government plans… Read More Blog | Wellbeing Budget 2019: The Five Priorities

By Yi Xin Heng When asked to identify the biggest existential threat to the United States, four candidates in the first night of the US Democratic Debate firmly uttered “climate change”.[1] Such recognition is no surprise at a time when local councils have been declaring climate emergencies, Europe is hit by searing temperatures and the… Read More Blog | Three Environmental Policies to Watch

By Ellis Pike The End of Life Choice Bill is a private member’s bill introduced by ACT Party leader David Seymour in 2017. It passed its second reading on the 26th of June and is now before the Whole House Committee for review. Considering the controversial nature of this Bill, this article will clarify its… Read More Blog | The End of Life Choice Bill and Euthanasia

By Jonathan de Jongh The popular mobile app ‘FaceApp’ has come under fire recently after a media scare alluded to the app being able to collect sensitive information from the phones of its users. Allegedly, the app has the ability to access photos on the phones of its users, even those that were not used… Read More Blog | Saving Face – Social Media, Photos and Privacy Issues Facing New Zealand

By Alfred Kim The future holds exciting prospects with the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Public policy will have to develop accordingly to facilitate this new tool; AI may also become an asset for public policy itself. There is a common misconception that there have been signs of conscience development. Although no one is ruling… Read More Blog | The Implications of Artificial Intelligence in Public Policy

By Ellis Pike In the wake of the horrific Christchurch attacks on the 15th of March that killed 51 people, the government will be looking at introducing new laws that make social media platforms responsible for the content that is posted. Reasons for the Law One of the most horrifying aspects of the tragedy was… Read More Blog | The Speech Coin: Freedom v Hate

By Yi Xin Heng The state’s duty to intervene when situations go awry for children has been imprinted in the nation’s consciousness as early as 1890. However, the same recognition has not been extended to a group who experience abuse at a comparable rate – the elderly.    Apart from experiencing a brief spike in… Read More Blog | Elder Abuse is Left in the Grey

By Jonathan de Jongh Due to continued disagreements and compromises behind the walls of the Beehive, several laws have been stopped in their tracks or have failed to even see the light of day due to party politics. The latest victim is the capital gains tax proposed by the Tax Working Group earlier this year.… Read More Blog | The Policy Graveyard: Where Controversial Laws Come to Die

By Jasper Poole In 2015, the Supreme Court of New Zealand became the unlikely scene of what is perhaps the first of many legal battles regarding the term “climate refugee”. It is this term that may identify one of the largest issues facing the world in the coming years as millions of people flee their… Read More Blog | Climate Refugees: New Zealand’s New Humanitarian Obligations in the 21st Century.