Susan Guthrie | The Morgan Foundation

Five reality checks on Maori fresh water rights

Susan GuthrieMay 16, 2016Treaty

Maori rights to fresh water deserve a better quality of debate than we’ve seen recently. The debate is actually about three things: acknowledging and implementing Maori rights to fresh water; allocating the economic benefits of water; and the New Zealand … Read More

Kermadec Kerfuffle – Government’s disrespect for Treaty Partner harms us all

Susan GuthrieMay 2, 2016Treaty

Last week the fishing industry waded into the stoush between prominent Maori leaders and Environment Minister Hon Dr Nick Smith over the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary. The issue with iwi highlights yet again how far New Zealand has to go to … Read More

Four Lessons for Labour on How to Sell the UBI

Susan GuthrieApril 12, 2016Tax and Welfare

Andrew Little has blamed the recent poor poll numbers for Labour partly on the public debate around the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI). Although it was never Labour Party policy – it was simply raised as an option to look at … Read More

Big thinking on the UBI is not for the fainthearted (or weak headed)

Susan GuthrieApril 5, 2016Tax and Welfare

The recent Basic Income debate has brought to light both criticisms of the existing welfare system, and of alternatives to it, such as the Big Kahuna’s tax and welfare proposal. Criticism is the easy part, designing something which would work … Read More

Remembering Dr Ranginui Walker

Susan GuthrieMarch 6, 2016Treaty

The video collection TalkTreaty.org.nz had humble origins. After reading everything we could about the Treaty of Waitangi, Gareth and I wanted to test our ideas by asking people many, very personal, questions – what do they identify with, have they … Read More

Four Ways to celebrate a turning point in New Zealand’s history

Susan GuthrieOctober 14, 2015Treaty

Whina Cooper’s land march, which ended in Wellington forty years ago this week, was a turning point in New Zealand’s history. It brought the vast scale of Maori land loss to the wider public’s attention in a way that had … Read More

Why we’re talking about online slog-fests.

Susan GuthrieSeptember 2, 2015Treaty

Talktreaty and I are in trouble again. We can’t seem to help ourselves. This time we’re the inadvertent cause of a communications policy meltdown – and yes, in case you’re wondering, that is bad news. The problem is this … Read More

We need to start thinking quickly about the effects on New Zealand of China’s economy

Susan GuthrieAugust 25, 2015Economics, Uncategorized

Last week I gave a presentation about the ‘big picture’ to a gathering of government officials in Wellington. I talked about China’s economy and financial market volatility, rather on-the-money topics given this week’s global stock-market meltdown! Here is a potted-version … Read More

Welcome to our world

Susan GuthrieAugust 11, 2015Treaty

Last week we had the formal launch of our Talktreaty project – a video exhibition and online video collection about the Treaty of Waitangi. For a year now I have been leading this project for the Morgan Foundation. It followed … Read More

National’s tax policy: Sit on your hands and do nothing whilst hard working kiwis struggle

Susan GuthrieSeptember 4, 2014Tax and Welfare

Let’s be clear – current tax policies do not tax everything they should. This is a huge problem for the economy, and for anyone but those with a lot of equity in housing. Sorting it is an urgent issue, but the policies … Read More