On a check this afternoon, Abrysvo still isn't listed in Medsafe's database.
Nobody's applied for NZ approval.
It's stupid to blame foreign companies for ignoring tiny markets.
Blame lies with us, for requiring them to apply.
I'd noted Abrysvo in a column last year as example of the failures in NZ's pharmaceutical approvals regime.
We had a chance to automatically authorise medicines approved by trusted overseas regulators.
And we blew it completely.
www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3606...
"A vaccine during pregnancy which protects newborns against nasty chest infections is cutting hospital admissions of babies by more than 80%, UK health officials say."
www.bbc.com/news/article...
It's great news, for those in ~40 countries that aren't NZ.
In NZ, it is not Medsafe-authorised.
I'd put some OIAs through on it. NZTA folks literally, on a Sunday, had to start work on a RUC abatement scheme to have something ready for Cabinet on the Monday. newsroom.co.nz/2022/06/20/t...
During the Covid inflation, Labour ran a petrol excise holiday - reduced Fuel Excise Duty.
Then they remembered that diesel doesn't carry it.
And NZ Transport Agency had to, on very short notice, come up with an equivalent scheme for abating RUC.
Additional complication we didn't have a chance to get into: diesel doesn't carry any fuel tax. Fuel Excise Duty on petrol gets put into the National Land Transport Fund. Diesel and electric vehicles pay per-km Road User Charges that vary by vehicle weight.
In New Zealand, diesel is now over US$7 a gallon. Yet the government is resisting calls to cut fuel taxes. I brought
@ericcrampton.bsky.social onto The Indicator from @planetmoney.bsky.social to explain why.
Expect it would also need Japan-style land-reapportionment measures.
Currently, Kiwirail depends on about half a billion dollars in annual subsidies from the Crown. Appropriate partnerships for TOD could let Kiwirail be self-sustaining and instead return a dividend to the Crown. Seems worth building what guardrails might be needed.
Ability to have side-businesses isn't necessary if it can partner with those who can do the non-rail parts.
The National Policy Statement on Urban Development gave public transport providers a superpower.
Set a mass transit node, and the 200 hectares around it gets upzoned, plausibly creating billions of dollars of development opportunities.
Superpowers should be used.
www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...
Amazing. And Saskatchewan's law remained in place until 1969.
The RBNZ is consulting about a proposal that it would not have statutory authority to undertake.
I wish I better understood what the RBNZ thinks it is doing.
It feels like ongoing governance failures.
offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2026/04/acce...
My article (with @bradhumphreys.bsky.social ) "Yes, There is an Economic Consensus That Professional Sports Facilities are Inadvisable Public Investments" is now published in Economic Development Quarterly. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Ubiquitous driverless cars risk turning streets into parking lots, unless use of the roads is properly priced.
This week's column riffs on Ben Southwood's piece at Works in Progress, noting that NZ's more ready than others for proper road pricing.
Read Andreas's piece first.
Really not getting your point here.
Reform pensions to address future costs.
And set financing mechanisms now so properties affected by climate change can levy themselves for joint works.
Can do both.
Prices do that without anyone having to set quotas or ring-fencing. The most important uses are prioritized, those that can wait, wait.
Read Heuser-Whittington on it:
www.heuserwhittington.com/insights/why...
So long as prices can rise to clear markets, risk of running out is low. No formal rationing required.
You'll also find old reports from the former NZ Institute in there. We don't guarantee that we agree with all of the reports from either prior organisation.
It may be easier to deal with the cost of climate change if the government's budget isn't heavily weighted to transfers to the elderly.
Extensive @dileepafonseka.bsky.social interview with Alain Bertaud at BusinessDesk.
Auckland's improved since Bertaud's last visit.
I hope it will be even better on his next visit.
businessdesk.co.nz/article/infr...
The best and brightest young people from around the world are getting the message: Reconsider investing your talents in the United States.
Cumulative issuance of F-1 student visas by calendar month, down circa 32% as of September (latest available)
Source: travel.state.gov/content/trav...
Depends what you mean by essential.
That is a case for NZ being a high bidder, with high prices helping ensure supply for truly critical needs.
Why would we?
Rationing is what happens if you cap fuel prices.
Letting fuel prices rise is far better.
Jones has falsely claimed the Labour government closed the refinery down, repeating that claim again on Morning Report. Refining NZ (now Channel Infrastructure), a private company, made the call to end refining at the Marsden Point site and transition to being an import-only hub. The government considered stepping in, but decided against it, with advice to ministers being that risks to fuel security were "very low", because any event that cut off the supply of refined oil would likely cut off crude as well.
I think it is important to give credit to RNZ for "looking out the window to see if it is raining" in this article. Because we should note when media are being responsible in reporting claims, not just getting angry on cases of bad reporting www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
“You are one of the cities most advanced in reform, so my second trip to the city is to learn,” former World Bank planner Alain Bertaud tells Auckland. “A city survives only because it adapts. It is not a finished building. A finished building can be a masterpiece. A city is just the opposite.”
More from Bertaud to Aucklanders, on urban planning: “The big sin is not to be wrong. The big sin is to be wrong and keep on doing what you were doing.”