Tony Burton is a former deputy chief economic adviser at Treasury.
In the 1980s, David Lange reformed the public service to improve democratic accountability. A new bill aims to reverse that.
The government’s support for the economy has had extraordinary public support, but the decisions around who pays for it will be far less popular.
A monument to Winston Peters and Think Big projects would both boost the economy, but Argentina learned the hard way they can also impoverish a nation, writes Tony Burton.
In the face of the disaster zone that is UK politics New Zealanders can feel superior that our democracy works heaps better than theirs.
The prime minister of Britain neatly fits the description of a ‘sneaky fucker’
When is being unemployed not unemployed? A true measure would show more teens are without jobs than people who have supposedly 'retired', writes Tony Burton.
The review of the 2018 census backs up his experience that Statistics New Zealand is a monster with a small but distant brain, writes Tony Burton.
Random attacks are only a moment's inattention away so government officials learn to watch their step when committing anything to the written record, writes Tony Burton.
Public service chief executives are now more interested in making their mark than providing government ministers with decent advice – and it's having disastrous consequences.
