Ryan Bridge: The real reason Kiwis are crossing the Tasman

What's the point in us having more affordable property prices for first home buyers if young workers are jetting off to Australia in search of a better tomorrow?

There's a perverse logic to this, but across the Tasman right now, where our flying Kiwis are headed, they're experiencing something of a property boom.

It's the opposite of the stagnant or falling prices we're seeing here, where homes in most regions are now considered, technically at least, affordable.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Jobs for the Boys......

Jobs for the Boys - why has the Police Commissioner been chosen to head the Social Investment Agency when he doesn't have the required skills?

It has been announced that the Police Commissioner has been chosen to head the Finance Minister Nicola Willis' Social Investment Agency when he steps down in November. So how does the NZ Treasury define social investment?

Mike Grimshaw: She’ll be right…? Is New Zealand stuck in the churn of complacency?

In 1944 poet and critic A.R.D. Fairburn felt moved to write a long essay critiquing and evaluating New Zealand society as it looked toward a possible post-war future. 80 years on it is hard not to read it and wonder how little we have really changed. Is New Zealand actually like the lightbulb in the old joke: how many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb? One – but the lightbulb has to want to change…

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The NSW Government is coming for our Kiwi cops

We've got to talk about the brain drain that’s going on.

Today, the NSW Government has announced it is going to come for our Kiwi cops. It's got a shortage of 1500 police, and they're extremely worried about it.

So the Chris Minns Government has announced it’s going to slash red tape, cut down the course time required by more than half and fast-track Kiwi cops into their force.

Kate Hawkesby: I feel for our young people, no wonder they want to leave NZ

 

“Politicians have sucked the life out of young New Zealanders” this according to a very good opinion piece in the Herald yesterday by University Macro Economics professor Robert McCulloch.

He makes the point that even though students and staff returned to campus post lockdowns, “students are reluctant to physically attend class.” He says it’s because ‘they can’t see a future, their mojo and buzz are gone’, and that ‘despondency rules.’ 

How depressing is that? The thing is, he’s not wrong. He cites students who’ve told him they’ll leave as soon as they graduate for international jobs with higher pay and lower living costs, students who say they feel like their entire course has been done on Zoom.

Mike Hosking: New Zealand's tall poppy syndrome as worse as ever

Depressing, and yet encouraging as well.

Lani Fogelberg, a young entrepreneur, serves it up the way it is in the Herald on Saturday. It's a must-read, if you missed it.

Depressing because it’s a realistic take on the country as it currently sits. But encouraging because we are seeing, at long last, an increasing series of people speak out on the way we are being led and why we are where we are.

Fogelberg talks of the celebration of the Lotto winner and yet the dissection of the person who grafted for their two million but is suddenly a tall poppy. Free money is good, money worked for is to be taxed and you are to be brought down.