The government’s proposed income insurance scheme is being described as a “social insurance” scheme. What does that mean, and why is the characterisation important for how you think about the scheme and how it could be funded?

Vaccine mandates should not be seen as anything other than a severe step responding to a dire situation. There may well be good reason for them, but before deciding that we need to honestly recognise how severe an imposition they are.

The government is introducing a vaccine mandate which will cover much of the work force. There’s a hole: an unclear provision for exemptions is probably wider in scope that the Ministry of Health seems to think.

As the Government moves to make vaccination compulsory in more and more situations, it should learn from the problems associated with the already existing mask mandate.

The Government plans to expand ACC to cover some birth injuries. That’s good. But it’s doing it in a daft way.

In trying to defend their decision not to make a special extension of the ACC scheme to include victims of the mosque attacks, the government seems to be pushing a narrative that the ACC scheme is about physical injuries. I have two objections to this. First, it’s ahistorical. Second, the physical/mental divide is dubious and problematic.

WorkSafe has charged the Government’s volcano watchdog, GNS Science, as one of the thirteen parties in relation to the Whakaari/White Island eruption. We don’t yet know why. But can they really be guilty of not sciencing properly?

Labour’s (or, at least, Jacinda Ardern’s) decision to rule out all but a minimal increase to the top tax rate puts real constraints on the social policy changes it can make. But there’s one policy area where progressive reform remains on the table and so “transformation” is still possible.

Should returning New Zealanders be charged for the time they must spend in isolation? That turns out to be a really tricky question to answer.

Is it really true that the High Court is (partly) to blame for the recent decision to allow COVID-19 infected travellers out of quarantine? No. No it isn’t.

Was Simon Bridges’ false claim that average wage earners pay 33% in tax a mistake, or a clever double dog whistle … and if the latter, what can be done about it?

The Whakaari / White Island tragedy raises issues of risk, harm and responsibility, and whether our ACC scheme properly deals with these.