Geoff Simmons | Page 10 | The Morgan Foundation

Who’s New Zealand’s real rich? The results may surprise you

Geoff SimmonsNovember 8, 2015Economics

Over the weekend Max Rashbrooke’s latest book Wealth and New Zealand was released, giving a rare insight into the wealth of New Zealanders. We don’t see this sort of information very often because of lack of data. Because we tax … Read More

Top 8 benefits of acting on climate change

Geoff SimmonsNovember 2, 2015Environment

When we talk about climate change, a lot of people (including our public servants and politicians) focus on the cost of taking action – most commonly without any regard to the cost of NOT taking action. So the conversation usually … Read More

Should we really ditch Kiwirail?

Geoff SimmonsOctober 29, 2015Economics

Yesterday, Kiwirail finally spoke out against Treasury’s advice that they should be scrapped. Until now, the public discussion has been limited to a bizarre joust between Steven Joyce, Bill English and Treasury on one side, with Mainfreight on the other … Read More

Education on Healthy Eating Dwarfed by Junk Food Advertising

Geoff SimmonsOctober 26, 2015Health

When it comes to obesity the mantra from the Government – echoed by former ACT leader Jamie Whyte on The Nation over the weekend – has been that people should make an informed choice. Even if this is true for … Read More

Uber vs the Taxis

Geoff SimmonsOctober 19, 2015Economics

Regulation is important, but unless it is nimble and well managed it can become a bigger problem than whatever it was intended to solve. We’ve seen one example of that in with minimum parking requirements, but another, much bigger regulatory … Read More

Fat Chance of Government Policy Reducing Child Obesity

Geoff SimmonsOctober 19, 2015Health

The Ministry of Health and Health Minister have spent months working up the Government’s new plan to reduce child obesity. Frankly, it is hard to see what they have been spending that time on. The policy has been self-proclaimed as … Read More

Cost of clean up should be no barrier to swimmable Waikato River

Geoff SimmonsOctober 6, 2015Environment

Last week Waikato Regional Council released figures totalling the ‘cost’ of returning the Waikato River to a swimmable state. The numbers were pretty scary, suggesting up to an $8b cost depending on how clean we want to get the river. … Read More

London property market: Is this a glimpse of Auckland’s Future?

Geoff SimmonsSeptember 20, 2015Tax and Welfare

Catching up with friends living in London the stories are remarkably similar to those in Auckland but on a whole other level. The city is awash with tales of hard working young people unable to save fast enough to get … Read More

Top 5 excuses to ‘do nothing’ about climate change (and why they’re wrong)

Geoff SimmonsSeptember 10, 2015Environment

The Government and many commentators have given plenty of reasons for our inaction on climate change. However, most of those reasons are now out of date, and no longer stand up to scrutiny. “China’s not doing anything” This is just … Read More