BBC Russian

INFRASTRUCTURE PROBLEMS IN NEW ZEALAND

Listener: 17 September, 2011.
Keywords: Environment & Resources;� Governance;
The cinema may give a good idea about the sewers of Paris and Vienna, but I have little idea what goes on underneath the city in which I live. I just pull the plug or chain and the waste magically disappears.
For the citizens of Christchurch, it did that [...]

NOW LET ME GIVE YOU THE RESULTS OF AN EQUALLY VALID SURVEY ….

Letter to The Dominion-Post, 10 June, 2011.
Keywords: Governance;
Lacking the impetus to chase hard stories, the �Dominion-Post� ran a survey of government departments last Tuesday based on the rankings of an arbitrary panel. At the bottom was the Ministry of Culture and Heritage scoring 3.18/7. This reflected that the panel did not contain the many who [...]

WHO WANTS ASSET SALES?

Those who favour privatisation can be divided into four camps �
Listener: 5 March, 2011.
Keywords: Business & Finance; Governance; Macroeconomics & Money;
Ideologues who hate the Government succeeding and want to scale it back, even if it is costly, as was privatising the Telecom monopoly. They would do the same to the three electricity companies. Given that [...]

RESERVE BANK TO THE RESCUE

The crew worked extremely hard to keep the good ship New Zealand afloat.
Listener: 18 September, 2010.
Keywords: Governance; Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History;
When Alan Bollard transferred from the position of secretary of the Treasury to that of the governor of the Reserve Bank, a good friend announced it was “more pay for less stress”. [...]

ANOTHER REDISORGANISATION

Why is the Government proposing public-sector mergers for so little apparent benefit?
Listener: 1 May, 2010.
Keywords: Governance;
At a certain point in the political cycle, governments start following officials’ agendas that make no political sense but meet some administrative need.
All policy changes upset the people whose interests are harmed. These changes often reflect a cool political calculation [...]

HOLLOW AUCKLAND

There are at least three good reasons that the restructuring of our largest city will fail.
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Listener: 25 July, 2009.
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Keywords: Governance;� Growth & Innovation;
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Author Bruce Jesson once said New Zealand was a �hollow society�. He meant that although we had a central government and individuals, the social institutions between them lacked independence. The government preceded [...]

THE FUTURE OF AUCKLAND.

Presentation to Auckland Regional Council: 29 October. 2008.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Governance; Growth & Innovation;

Aucklanders sometimes talk about wanting to have a �world class city�. Since any city can be world class in its class, that is not a very ambitious goal. The issue is in which class does Auckland want [...]

SUBMISSION TO THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON AUCKLAND GOVERNANCE

23 April, 2008
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Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Governance;
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Introduction
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The purpose of this note is to bring together various writings of mine about some analytic tools, which the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance may find helpful. There are no specific recommendations other than I commend the use of these tools were relevant.
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By way of introduction I am [...]

BUZZ WORDS V BUSINESS

A report finds our health system is too top-down.�
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Listener: 8 March, 2008.�
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Keywords: Governance; Health;�
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�There does not seem to be the understanding that several actions � for example, writing a policy or reminding staff about a concern � are actually very weak actions. There is also little indication that general clinical staff are involved in the [...]

Brian Easton