Professor Alexander Gillespie: NZ report card 2025 - how the country fared in 28 key global and domestic rankings

Standardised testing and regular progress assessment became key features of the education system this year, so why not apply those same principles to New Zealand as a whole?

There’s an important difference here, of course. This exercise is about prompting discussion and debate, and should be read with a degree of caution. The metrics tell us only so much – but it’s still possible to trace the nation’s ups and downs.

Alexander Gillespie: NZ report card 2024 - how the country fared in 25 key global and domestic rankings

If it’s good enough for school and university students, it’s good enough for entire countries, too.

This report card provides a snapshot of how New Zealand fared across a wide range of international measures – where it did well, and where there’s room for improvement.

Ross Meurant: No Happiness is the Enemy

For some time now, media reports in our nearest and most valuable neighbour, Australia, have been reporting on elevated antisemitic pro Palestine tensions.  Melbourne in particular.

Most recently, Breakingviews has carried opinions lauding Netanyahu’s response to Lebanon based Hamas-led militant groups surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which involved a rocket barrage and a few thousand militants breaching the Gaza–Israel barrier, attacking Israeli civilian communities and military bases.

Ross Meurant: Message to Santa - All I want for Christmas is …Happiness.

In this Odessey we call life; what path; which road do we take?

Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it’s the courage to continue that counts,’ extolled Sir Winston Churchill.

Euripides said: ‘I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.’

My family coat of arms embraces the Machiavelli dictum: “Virtu et Fortuna”.

Yet, for they who strive, be it from helot to bourgeois, or those born to the Manor (where bequeathments from they who before them strived, are often squandered), debt is a companion for life – an albatross around one’s neck.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: Religiosity and national happiness ratings

Religion promises you heaven but gives you hell. – Anon.

One could be forgiven for thinking that something as subjective and nebulous as happiness (thesaurus entries range from ‘content’ to ‘exultant’) is pretty near impossible to objectively measure. One could also be forgiven for questioning the credibility of averaged-out happiness measures for entire national populations. But that’s what some statisticians do to earn their pay, and expressions such as “national happiness capital” and the like are now being used in serious academic discourse, and happiness ratings are compiled for numerous countries.