New Zealand

Ronald Reagan famously remarked that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

The NZ government has set standards for what good policymaking looks like, with the Policy Project, a set of online frameworks and toolkits.

As soon as the subject appears on the horizon, a tangled web of defensive arguments and anecdotes will accumulate to obscure it.

Too many government organisations take their subject matter experts and task them with writing policies, standards, and procedures without ever providing them training on how to actually do it.

Developing objective measures of what works and what does not, and what caused a policy to fail or succeed, is nigh on impossible. What we can gather, nonetheless, is that addressing three key issues can certainly improve the chances of producing a successful policy.

Each of us can choose whether to be the ‘innocent’ bystander to unfairness in the public sector, or the protagonist willing to speak up about it. Which will you choose to be?

Today, what is now known as ‘Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House’ will be opened by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

New Zealand’s COVID Tracer upgrade is unlikely to help, as both countries are still using different contact tracing systems that can’t communicate.

All NZ public sector agencies will need to measure and publicly report on their emissions, and offset any emissions they can’t cut within five years.

Supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Pacific Data Hub provides information on key areas, including population statistics, fisheries science, climate change adaptation, and much more.

The Prime Minister of New Zealand is putting forward a motion to declare a climate emergency on Wednesday. If passed, New Zealand would join countries like Canada, France and Britain in similar efforts on tackling climate change.

It is hard to overstate just how much control Ardern has over New Zealand’s 53rd parliament. Even before special votes are counted, the parliamentary arithmetic renders National, ACT and the Māori Party virtually irrelevant.

New Zealand residents cannot have been in a COVID-19 hot spot for at least 14 days in order to avoid quarantining when arriving in Australia.