By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape was on an official visit to France last week, where he met French President Emmanuel Macron and held a number of important meetings to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Topping the list, through a joint communiqué, came the announcement of the setting up of a new PNG embassy in Paris. Currently, the closest PNG embassy is in Brussels, Belgium.
The opening of Papua New Guinea’s embassy in Paris was based on the two nations “sharing a common commitment to democratic values, multilateralism, international law”, as well as in favour of “peace, stability and resilience in the face of climate change … and for the protection of environment and biodiversity”, including forest protection.

READ MORE: Other France in the Pacific reports

On social networks, Macron described Papua New Guinea’s forests as “the true lungs of the Pacific”.
The diplomatic joint message also stressed the common will to “strengthen friendship and cooperation” relations.
Macron visited Papua New Guinea in July 2023, as part of a regional tour that also included New Caledonia and neighbouring Vanuatu.
On the political front, Marape also led a delegation to the French National Assembly (Lower House), which at the time was engaged in heated debates regarding New Caledonia.
The PNG delegation’s presence in the Parliament’s gallery was hailed and underlined by National Assembly Speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet, followed by a round of applause from the French MPs.
“Since we arrived, we have felt very much at home and very welcome,” Marape said.
But apart from his encounter with Macron on Wednesday last week, Marape also had significant contacts with major development aid stakeholder AFD (Agence Française de Développement) and the aircraft industry’s ATR, based in Toulouse in southwestern France.
More ATR aircraft on the way
The ATR call was said to respond to PNG plans to expand their current fleet of turbo-prop regional aircraft.
Since 2015, PNG Air currently operates 10 ATR 72-600 aircraft and plans to gradually expand its ATR fleet to 18 aircraft — a mix of ATR 72-600 (72 seats) and ATR 42-600 (42 seats).
ATR is currently finalising the construction of three aircraft to be delivered to PNG Air.
“Papua New Guinea is one of the most geographically challenging countries in the world, and aviation remains a lifeline service for our people, businesses, government services, and the broader economy,” Marape said in France.
Agence Française de Développement
Meeting the AFD top officials, Marape also touched on a crucial strategic development project in Rabaul in the East New Britain province, which is described as a “green port” project supported under the EU’s “Global Gateway” scheme.
The target would be for Rabaul to turn into a regional import-export hub, supporting cocoa, fisheries, sustainable timber, tourism, manufacturing and downstream processing.
At an estimated cost of over 80 million euros (about NZ$159 million), the project includes developments in terms of wharves, storage facilities, export-focused fish processing infrastructure, waste and wastewater systems, emissions reduction and port resilience measures.
From the total cost, AFD is proposing to fund 24 million euros.
The rest would come from the European Investment Bank (24 million euros) and from an EU grant (16.6 million euros).
Other projects supported by AFD include the “SONG” project (“Solwara Na Graun blo pipol”), which supports the conservation and sustainable management of forest and marine ecosystems through the establishment of marine and terrestrial protected areas, a major issue for PNG and the region.
The other project is a Green finance scheme to support the region’s green transition and provide better protection against climate change risks.
EU economic forum
Once the funding is finalised, a loan agreement is to be signed between France and Papua New Guinea during the European Union Economic Forum in Port Moresby on 2-3 June 2026, the AFD said.
During his visit in France, Marape said: “France is an important partner in the Pacific, and Papua New Guinea values this evolving relationship as we work together on shared regional priorities, including security, sustainable development, and economic growth”.
France is also a key player in PNG’s Natural Liquefied Gas (LNG) industry, through its company TotalEnergies.
The TOTAL LNG project is estimated to be worth some US$10-12 billion in development value, with and expected yearly output capacity of 5.6 million tonnes once operational.
In terms of security and defence relations, French and PNG armed forces have signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in 2022.
Since then, PNG forces are regularly taking part in French-hosted military and disaster-related humanitarian relief exercises and simulations, including in New Caledonia (with the New Caledonian Armed Forces, the FANC, and other neighbouring Pacific islands military personnel), French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna.
Over the past 10 years, France has increased its engagement in the Pacific, where strategic competition grows across the region, including in the form of a struggle for influence between the United States and China.
Through New Caledonia and French Polynesia, France holds one of the world’s largest exclusive economic zones and maintains a permanent military presence in the region.
Birds of paradise show
Coincidentally, the Paris Musée du Quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, which is largely dedicated to first peoples and Pacific islands cultures, has inaugurated earlier this month an exhibition named “Plumes of Paradise: Journeys of an Extraordinary Bird from New Guinea”.
The exhibition lasts until 8 November 2026.
It focuses on the multiple representations of PNG’s iconic bird, including the use of its feathers and the influence it had on European cultures.
The exhibition features almost 200 pieces of birds of paradise feather-based art works (jewellery, paintings, stuffed specimens, fashion items and accessories).
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/png-prime-minister-visits-france-plans-to-open-paris-embassy/

Dean Purcell/Getty Images As New Zealand’s budget day looms closer, the government has already revealed one important figure – NZ$2.1 billion – that offers an insight into its approach to spending this year. That’s the government’s tight operating allowance – or the new money available for ongoing spending.

And that’s already been trimmed back from $2.4 billion since its budget strategy was announced in December. The $300 million cut is small relative to total operating expenses, but still significant. Operating spending funds ongoing commitments, such as public servants’ salaries, benefits and superannuation payments.

It also covers the costs of keeping services running: think medicines for hospitals, or electricity for school classrooms. Operating allowances, meanwhile, determine how much room the government has for new policies and for meeting cost pressures in these areas.

Ahead of Thursday’s budget, those pressures are already intensifying. The outlook now points to higher near-term inflation than was anticipated when the budget strategy was released five months ago, driven in part by rising oil prices following the US-Iran conflict.

If costs rise faster than operating funding, the government faces increasingly difficult choices over what it can continue to fund, expand or cut back. The risks behind the cuts We also now know a little about what some of those choices will look like.

Last week, it was announced government agencies’ operating budgets will be cut by 2% in the coming year, followed by a further 5% in each of the following two years. The government’s wider reform programme also includes reducing core public service employment to no more than 55,000 full-time equivalent roles by July 2029.

The savings will be redirected to health, education, building infrastructure, defence and police. All of these are worthy causes for extra funding, and in principle, there is nothing wrong with asking whether existing spending delivers value and reallocating spending to where it makes the greatest impact.

But, as always, the devil is in the detail – and this is not yet known. It matters where in health, education or policing the extra money goes. It also matters which public service roles are cut, because so-called “back-office functions” can still be essential to delivering frontline services.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has suggested greater use of artificial intelligence could help the public service do more with less. But some international studies have found higher AI adoption has yet to translate into higher productivity.

If AI does not deliver substantial productivity gains in the public sector, restraint in government spending will ultimately show up somewhere: in deferred maintenance, scaled-back programmes or lower service levels. Inflation, resilience and the politics of spending Rising operating costs are not the only impact that inflation has on the government’s books.

In some ways, it can help. Higher prices and wages can lift tax revenue through the goods and services tax (GST), income tax and company tax receipts. Inflation can also inflate nominal gross domestic product – the dollar value of economic activity – which in turn can make government debt appear smaller relative to the size of the economy.

In other ways, however, inflation adds pressure. Interest costs can rise as government debt is refinanced at higher rates, while benefit payments and other spending tied to inflation or wages also increase. Meanwhile, the government has announced it is increasing capital spending, which funds long-lived assets such as roads, hospitals, schools, defence equipment and infrastructure.

This would appear a sensible move, given that New Zealand faces an infrastructure deficit in many areas. Addressing it could help bring a much-needed improvement in productivity. There is also the wider question of New Zealand’s economic resilience.

Independent economist and commentator David Skilling has argued global supply chains are being rewired. Where efficiency and just-in-time delivery once took priority for nations, a more unstable geopolitical environment is now shifting the focus toward resilience and security.

In this context, government capital investment can help address vulnerabilities in New Zealand’s critical supply chains – even if its small-economy status means it will always remain dependent on overseas trade. At the same time, capital spending can also come with political and economic risks.

For instance, projects might be chosen more for their political appeal than for whether they genuinely strengthen productivity or supply chain resilience. Budget 2026 will therefore represent a test of priorities. Reprioritisation, allocations from the smaller operating allowance and new capital spending should all face the same question: where will public money produce the greatest value?

The answer should be based on economic and strategic need, rather than political visibility or electoral advantage.

Michael Ryan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/in-a-tight-nz-budget-will-money-go-where-its-needed-most-or-to-political-priorities/

It is forgivable to think that an oil shock mainly hurts at the petrol pump. After all, that is where households feel it first.

But when my colleagues and I at the Bureau for Economic Research started digging through South Africa’s fuel data, a different story emerged – one that says as much about the country’s infrastructure failures as it does about global geopolitics.

As we began modelling the likely impact on the South African economy, it quickly became clear that diesel would inflict even more pain on the economy than petrol. (Our insights are based on ongoing analysis that has not yet been published.) There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, diesel underpins the South African economy’s cost structure. It powers the systems that keep the economy functioning: freight transport, food distribution, mining operations, agricultural machinery, generators and large parts of the country’s logistics network.

Higher diesel prices therefore raise the cost of transporting goods, distributing food, operating mines and running backup generators during electricity disruptions. This means the dominant economic impact of the Gulf war on South Africa is not simply that households are paying more at the pump.

The impact is also being felt through higher logistics, freight and operating costs as they feed through supply chains into broader inflation. Secondly, the price of diesel has spiked markedly more than the price for petrol.

Relative to the first quarter of 2026, diesel prices in the second quarter increased by almost 60%, compared with about 25% for petrol.

Our calculations suggest that higher fuel prices could add roughly R45 billion (US$2.7billion) – just over 2% of quarterly GDP spend – in additional fuel costs to the South African economy in the second quarter of 2026 alone.

Nearly 70% of that additional cost burden would come from diesel rather than petrol. The main conclusion we draw from our insights is that South Africa needs to fix its fundamentals and shore up buffers so that it is better placed to withstand external shocks when they strike.

South Africa’s shift in fuel consumption To understand why diesel matters so much today, it is important to recognise how fuel consumption has changed. Over the past two decades, diesel consumption has steadily overtaken petrol consumption in the South African economy.

In 2005, petrol accounted for close to half of total fuel consumption, while diesel accounted for roughly a third (see figure below). Today, diesel accounts for almost half of all fuel consumed nationally, while petrol’s share has declined steadily.

Part of the explanation is relatively benign. Petrol vehicles have become significantly more fuel-efficient over time, allowing households to travel further on less fuel. Weak household income growth, higher fuel prices and expensive vehicle financing have also constrained discretionary driving and slowed petrol demand growth.

Diesel, however, is different. Diesel is primarily an operational input into the economy rather than a form of discretionary consumption. As such, its increased use reflects deeper structural changes in the South African economy: More freight has shifted to roads and trucks as the state-owned transport monopoly Transnet’s rail capacity has deteriorated.

These freight trucks run on diesel. Use of diesel accelerated sharply during the severe power-cut years between 2022 and 2024. This was particularly evident in businesses in the mining, manufacturing and agricultural sectors as well as hospitals, shopping centres and data centres.

All have increasingly come to rely on diesel generators to keep operating. Read more: Does South Africa have a future without power cuts? Ramaphosa intervenes, but the drama isn’t over During the worst periods of load-shedding in 2023, Eskom relied heavily on diesel-fired open-cycle gas turbines to help keep the lights on when the coal fleet failed.

At times, Eskom’s diesel usage was estimated to account for 20%-30% of national diesel demand. Fortunately, that dependence has eased considerably as electricity supply stabilised and diesel-fired open-cycle gas turbines usage declined. Still, diesel has quietly become South Africa’s shadow infrastructure system – the fuel that has compensated for failures elsewhere in the economy, from electricity generation to freight transport.

This means South Africa’s vulnerability to oil shocks cannot be easily remedied just by getting consumers to ditch their fossil fuel-guzzling SUVs in favour of electric vehicles. Vulnerability is embedded in the diesel-intensive systems that move goods, power operations, and keep the economy running.

The impact South Africa has always been vulnerable to oil shocks because it imports virtually all of its crude oil. But the nature of that vulnerability has changed. As domestic refining capacity has declined as several domestic refineries closed between 2020 and 2023, fuel (rather than crude) imports have increased.

This means South Africa has become exposed not only to higher oil prices, but also to disruptions in global fuel supply chains themselves. This creates the risk that external and domestic shocks will begin to reinforce one another.

A global fuel disruption on its own is painful but manageable. But fuel stress becomes considerably more destabilising. The impact is likely to be felt in a number of ways. Firstly, in the country’s agricultural sector.

South Africa is unlikely to face an immediate food supply crisis as domestic agricultural production conditions remain relatively favourable. Nor is there an immediate risk of food inflation as consumer food inflation began moderating earlier this year, supported by ample supplies of grains, fruits and vegetables.

Nevertheless, the sector will be affected. Fuel accounts for a substantial share of food distribution costs in South Africa’s highly road-dependent transport system. Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist of the Agriculture Business Chamber of South Africa, notes that roughly 80% of South African grain is transported by road.

Higher diesel prices, therefore, feed directly into the cost of moving food across the country. Farming is also highly diesel intensive. In addition, fertiliser prices have spiked as a result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

These price hikes will squeeze margins across farming and food distribution long before they fully appear in supermarket prices. Farmers may also lose important export markets. The Gulf states, together with Iraq and Iran, are important destinations for South African fruit and meat exports, much of which moves through shipping routes linked to the Strait of Hormuz.

The second major impact will be on the government’s finances. In April 2026, the government introduced temporary fuel levy relief of R3 per litre (or $0.18/litre), before extending and expanding the support specifically to diesel.

By May, diesel levy relief had effectively increased to R3.93 per litre ($0.24/litre), temporarily reducing the general fuel levy on diesel to zero. The total relief provided between April and June is expected to cost the fiscus roughly R17.2 billion in forgone tax revenue.

Since this exceeds the roughly R10 billion contingency reserve available in the current budget, the fiscal cost will need to be absorbed either through stronger-than-expected revenue or expenditure adjustments elsewhere. The third area of impact is inflation.

The cost of fuel shapes inflation expectations because it is highly visible and purchased frequently. Even temporary fuel spikes therefore risk de-anchoring inflation expectations. This is particularly important in the South African economy, where the Reserve Bank has spent several years cementing its credibility to aid the move to a lower inflation target.

This depends on inflation expectations continuing to fall towards 3%. This helps explain why policymakers are concerned not only about fuel prices themselves, but also about the possibility that higher fuel costs may become embedded in broader pricing behaviour and wage expectations.

The bigger lesson: resilience matters South Africa did not consciously choose to become more diesel dependent. It happened gradually, one workaround at a time. It spent years building diesel into its coping mechanisms. When rail failed, the country used trucks.

When electricity failed, it used generators and open cycle gas turbines. Those adaptations kept the economy moving, but they also quietly increased South Africa’s exposure to global fuel shocks. The lesson from the current crisis is, therefore, not simply that oil prices are volatile.

It is that resilience matters – just not the kind of home-grown resilience which depends on costly workarounds just to keep the lights on and the goods moving.

Lisette IJssel de Schepper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/24/iran-war-is-exposing-south-africas-dependency-on-diesel-what-went-wrong/

Camden, New Jersey, has seen a dramatic drop in homicides over the past 15 years. peeterv/iStock via Getty Images Plus In 2025, Camden, New Jersey – a city of about 72,000 residents that sits across the Delaware River from Philadelphia – experienced its first homicide-free summer in nearly 50 years.

The city ended the year with 12 homicides – a stark drop from 2012 when it recorded 67, a per capita rate 18 times the national average at the time. I’m a professor of criminal justice who wrote a book on police reform efforts in Camden over the last 15 years.

The stunning turnaround in violent crime has led Camden and its newly formed Camden County Police Department, which was established in 2013 and replaced the Camden City Police Department, to be hailed as a model of reform.

In 2015, then-President Obama visited the city to highlight the progress made. Positive national and international attention on police reform in Camden continued in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. This attention stemmed from the Minneapolis city council’s unanimous decision to dissolve the Minneapolis Police Department and start anew – much as Camden had done seven years earlier.

Yet one topic that I believe such discussions and commentary often overlook is the role that community and activist groups, as well as local media, played in better policing by the Camden County Police Department.

County takeover of city police department Under-policing came to define the final years of the Camden City Police Department, or CPD. Police presence in the community was largely absent. In contrast, the Camden County Police Department, or CCPD, began its new mandate with an aggressive, broken-windows style of policing that included targeting low levels of disorder and quality-of-life offenses, like loitering.

Residents were concerned about this new aggressive stance. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, researchers and local media used New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act to collect measures of the CCPD’s activity.

This data pointed to a troubling rise in officer-initiated vehicle and pedestrian stops, tickets for low-level violations, use of force, and citizen complaints of excessive force through 2014 and 2015. CCPD officers in 2014 made 60,352 total stops, including 16,742 of people on foot.

The per capita rate of pedestrian stops exceeded the rates in both New York City and Philadelphia during those cities’ peak stop-and-frisk years in 2011 and 2009, respectively, before stop-and-frisk tactics spurred court-ordered reforms. Beyond the stops, CCPD officers issued more than 6,000 citations from May 1, 2013, when the new department launched, through the end of the year.

They issued over 19,000 citations in 2014. During its first year or so, the CCPD’s total number of cases in municipal court increased by nearly 30% relative to the year prior. Similarly, the number of tickets issued for minor infractions – such as riding a bicycle without a bell or a light, and disorderly conduct – rose steeply.

For example, the number of citations for having tinted car windows more than tripled, while citations for not having proper car lights or reflectors more than quadrupled. A Camden County Police Department officer watches demonstrators take part in a Black Lives Matter protest march in Camden, New Jersey, on June 13, 2020.

Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images Backlash to broken-windows policing Citizen complaints against CCPD alleging excessive use of force increased from 35 in 2013 to 65 in 2014. Organizations like the Camden County chapter of the NAACP and the ACLU-NJ drummed up attention to these figures by issuing announcements and press briefings.

On the same day in May 2015 that President Obama heralded the CCPD, the ACLU-NJ issued a scathing rebuke to the President’s message.

It read, in part: “Before we hold Camden up as a model of community policing, we must address the troubling indicators that point to Camden’s use of practices that appear to take a page from a broken windows approach to policing.” Former President Barack Obama tours the Real-Time Tactical Operational Intelligence Center at the Camden County Police Department headquarters in Camden, New Jersey, on May 18, 2015.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images Mobilized residents and groups, including clergy members, made it clear that they did not appreciate this level and type of aggressive policing. The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Star-Ledger/NJ Advance Media amplified the coverage of Camden’s heavy-handed tactics.

What followed was a complete change in behavior among the CCPD from an activity, training and policy perspective. The numbers and rates of police stops declined. CCPD officers began issuing more warnings compared to tickets, to the point that “warnings over summonses” became an unofficial slogan of the department.

The top brass at CCPD sought out and implemented two types of de-escalation training, starting in the spring of 2015, for all officers. The CCPD also started to explore a complete overhaul of the agency’s use of force policy.

It eventually adopted a more restrictive policy that emphasized de-escalation and the sanctity of life, while prohibiting tactics like chokeholds and shooting at moving vehicles. The CCPD’s innovative policy even inspired the New Jersey Attorney General to revamp its statewide policy years later.

As a result, complaints of use of force, in general, and of excessive force dropped from 43 in 2015 to 28 in 2016, and declined to 16 in 2017 and just three in 2018. Such complaints have usually been in the single digits each year since.

The CCPD deserves credit for course-correcting. But I believe it’s important to remember where that impetus came from: community and activist groups, as well as local media attention. Many fewer murders, but persistent challenges Camden has undoubtedly made progress.

The city’s homicide rate in 2025 was four times the national average – a marked change from 18 times the national average in 2012. Homicides across the country have also declined in recent years. Yet, problems persist. Camden is still a perennial contender for the most violent city in New Jersey.

Despite a .6 billion economic package from the state to the city during the 2010s, which overwhelmingly took the form of tax subsidies to encourage businesses to either stay in or relocate to Camden, almost every census tract is among the most socially and economically disadvantaged in the state.

Most companies that receive tax breaks do not employ a meaningful number of Camden residents. The city is racially segregated from the rest of Camden County and the broader South Jersey region. In my opinion, Camden, like most other cities, relies too much on the police, giving them a monopoly on public safety.

I believe both the city and the CCPD should take a cue from places like Newark, New Jersey, and St. Louis, Missouri, to find innovative ways to collaborate and engage more with community groups, business associations and other non-police entities.

Together they can co-produce public safety and take a more holistic approach to reducing crime, violence and disorder.

John A. Shjarback does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/how-community-groups-activists-and-local-media-turned-camden-into-a-model-of-police-reform/

Many online shoppers who order from independent small retailers have no idea who ships their goods. Odds are growing that it’s Amazon. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes You did the right thing this morning. Instead of the one-click default to your laptop’s last opened tab, you opened Etsy and bought a ceramic mug from a maker you’d been following on Instagram.

Yesterday, your sister’s birthday gift came from a Shopify store run by a kitchenware designer in Sacramento, California. You felt something when you clicked “buy,” a small, warm, fuzzy feeling. Not Amazon. Not a giant.

Someone real. The package will arrive on time, in unmarked brown cardboard, in two days. It will arrive that way because Amazon delivered it. On May 4, 2026, Amazon announced the launch of Amazon Supply Chain Services.

It opens Amazon’s warehouses, trucks and delivery network – built over decades to ship products from its own website – to outside companies of any size. Procter & Gamble, 3M, Lands’ End and American Eagle are among the first customers.

The headlines framed it as a logistics story – Amazon is coming for UPS and FedEx – and most coverage stopped there.

Amazon’s announcement that it would open its logistics network to other companies has major implications for consumers trying to ‘shop small.’ But the bigger shift is one that consumers can’t see, and it has to do with how they support small businesses.

A 2024 Pew Research survey found that 86% of Americans say small businesses have a positive effect on the country. For the millions of shoppers who have been redirecting their dollars away from corporate giants and toward small and local businesses, the May 4 announcement isn’t a logistics story at all.

It’s about whether that effort still means what they think it means.

We’re scholars of consumer behavior and marketing who study how people square their purchasing decisions with ethical considerations, and we see a growing dilemma for consumers: If you pick the small brand instead of the giant, part of your payment actually goes somewhere you don’t expect.

You may think you’ve made a conscious choice, but you’ve just walked through a different door into the same store. And it’s getting harder and harder to escape. Invisible but growing Dragon Glassware is a small kitchenware company that began in a garage in Sacramento in 2017.

You may have bought one of their wine glasses on their Shopify website, drawn in by the founder’s story and the small-business feel. Yet the order was picked, packed and shipped from an Amazon warehouse.

Another example is Poppi, which started at a Texas farmers market and went viral on TikTok as a cooler, healthier alternative to the giant soda companies. For years, the cans you ordered from Poppi’s own website – the ones that felt like a vote against Big Soda – were shipped to you by Amazon.

Poppi was sold to PepsiCo for nearly US$2 billion in 2025, which is its own David-becomes-Goliath story. These aren’t rare cases. Amazon’s Multi-Channel Fulfillment program, the service that ships these orders, now serves more than 200,000 U.S. merchants, and the network grew by roughly 70% in 2024 alone, according to Amazon.

The same Amazon service also handles fulfillment for sellers on Shopify, Etsy, eBay and TikTok Shop. But you wouldn’t know this — the packaging is left unmarked by design.

What changed on May 4 is that Amazon opened this service up for all businesses – not just the small brands that have been there all along, but every kind of company at every size, from American Eagle retail orders to Procter & Gamble raw-material shipments between factories.

Peter Larsen, the executive quoted in the May 4 press release, said Amazon is doing for shipping what Amazon Web Services did for the internet. But there’s more to that comparison. Most people don’t know which websites run on AWS, and they don’t care.

That’s the kind of invisibility Amazon is now building underneath physical things, too. Amazon Supply Chain Services announced on May 4, 2026, that it’s opening up its shipping and logistics services to all companies, a sign of its growing reach.

Business Wire photo illustration It’s also extremely lucrative. Amazon collects a fulfillment fee on every order it ships for an outside brand – roughly for a three-pound package shipped in two days, according to Amazon’s own published rates.

It also collects monthly storage fees on that brand’s inventory. And it gathers real-time visibility into what every competitor sells, to whom, in what quantities, at what moments of the year.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy publicly described Supply Chain Services as a “major growth opportunity.” When Amazon says growth opportunity, it means the same thing it said about AWS – a business that could one day rival its retail arm.

Why the small brands are using Amazon It’s tempting to think the small brands are selling out. They’re not. They’re doing the math. A small kitchenware founder shipping out of her own garage can only get a wine glass to a customer in three to five days.

Amazon’s network can get there in two. After 15 years of Amazon Prime, two-day delivery isn’t a luxury – it’s what shoppers expect. Small brands that can’t match it lose sales. Independent fulfillment companies exist, but Amazon’s service is typically cheaper and integrates directly with the platforms small brands already sell on, such as Shopify, Etsy, TikTok Shop and eBay.

The bigger implication is upstream, however. Amazon now controls roughly four out of every 10 dollars Americans spend online – more than four times the share of its nearest competitor. A small brand that wants to be discovered by new customers has little choice but to be on Amazon.

Once there, the path of least resistance is to use Amazon’s warehouses for everything – including the orders that come in from Shopify and Etsy. So for consumers, the choice technically exists. But the economics make it a decoy.

And the more small brands are routed through Amazon’s network, the more Amazon can raise fees, change terms and shape the conditions for small commerce. In fact, Multi-Channel Fulfillment prices have already risen for three years running.

If even Procter & Gamble has decided to route part of its logistics through Amazon, what can a kitchenware founder in Sacramento realistically do? For years, you’ve been telling yourself something every time you supported a small business – that your dollars meant something, that you weren’t pouring every dollar into the same handful of giants.

But what does shopping your values even mean when the system underneath is invisible? The impulse to shop your values isn’t naive. But it’s becoming harder to act on. For small businesses caught in the middle, deeper dependence on Amazon’s logistics means rising fees, with no leverage to push back.

For those consumers who want choices, it means something uncomfortable: They can keep trying harder to avoid the giants, but the giants keep getting bigger anyway. The mug will arrive Tuesday. It will be beautiful, made by hand, wrapped in brown paper tied with twine.

The truck pulling up outside won’t have a logo on it. None of that is an accident.

All of it is by design.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/youve-been-trying-to-get-around-amazon-but-its-not-that-easy/

Attila Csaszar/Getty Images In years gone by, school leavers had one main chance to get into university – by finishing their Year 12 exams with certain marks. Media coverage of Year 12 results perpetuates the idea everything hinges on your final exams.

Every year it runs the same stories of star students with perfect ATARs (Australian Tertiary Entrance Rank). In reality, the ATAR is just one way to begin undergraduate study. There are multiple paths that can take you to uni if that’s where you want to go.

One of these paths is an enabling program. How do these work? Read more: Help! I’m almost finished school but don’t know what I want to do next What are enabling courses? Enabling courses are designed to lead to a university course, usually an undergraduate degree.

They were traditionally called “bridging” programs because they bridge the gap between high school and university for students who don’t meet university entrance requirements. They are also called tertiary preparation programs (or TPPs) because they prepare students for undergraduate tertiary study.

You may also hear them called “uni ready” courses. Enabling courses are fee-free for Australian citizens, as part of a federal government push to encourage wider participation in university study. Some students enter straight out of school or during the senior years of school.

Some enter many years after leaving school and may not have completed Year 12. Different universities in different states will have different admission requirements, for example, English language requirements. Students should check the specific website of the university for the most detailed and current information.

How do they work? There are about 48 enabling programs offered by universities across Australia. The courses can cover a variety of different subjects like academic writing, study skills, mathematics, science, digital literacy and discipline-specific options.

They all teach the skills you need to do well in university study, even if you have not completed high school. The courses are taught by university lecturers who are especially focused on student support and inclusive teaching.

What’s involved? These courses can be delivered in high schools, on university campuses, face-to-face or online. Usually students complete four courses that relate to the undergraduate discipline they want to enter. Successful completion of these usually allows the student to enrol directly into the undergraduate program.

This can include areas such as law, communications, science, arts, education, business, engineering and healthcare, but may vary across different universities. The programs, with four courses, can potentially be completed in a single semester, or even in a compressed study session over the summer holiday period.

So, in theory, you could do an enabling course and enrol in an undergraduate degree mid-year or the next year. To get started you can search the website of the university of your choice for “enabling”, “TPP” or “FFUR” courses and apply directly online.

Also speak directly to support staff at the uni to ask what prerequisites you need to apply for the degree you are interested in. Who can do an enabling course? It is estimated approximately 25,000 students Australia-wide will undertake a fee-free enabling course in 2026.

Around 60% of enabling students are from equity groups who are less likely to go to uni. This includes students from regional and remote areas, students from a non-English speaking background, people with a disability or students from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Enabling programs can also benefit students who experienced significant illness or disruption in their final years at school. Or perhaps they are the first person in their family to go to university. What does it mean for later study?

Doing an enabling program does not mean you are less able to cope with uni than peers who enrolled with an ATAR. Data suggests students who enter degree programs via enabling courses do just as well in their studies as students who come straight from high school.

In our own experience, we see some students enjoy enabling programs more than school study – they prefer the more flexible, adult environment. Some young people don’t know what they want to do when they leave school.

So an enabling course also gives them a chance to try out higher education without incurring a debt.

Susan Hopkins teaches in an enabling education program and works for a university which offers a Tertiary Preparation Program.

Greg Nash teaches in an enabling education program and works for a university which offers a Tertiary Preparation Program.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/you-dont-need-an-atar-to-go-to-uni-you-can-do-an-enabling-or-bridging-course-instead/

Guido Mieth/Getty Images If you or someone you’re caring for has a medical emergency, visit your nearest emergency department or call 000. But what if it’s not an emergency, or you’re not sure?

Sometimes you can’t wait wait until 9am or Monday morning to see a doctor or access health care. You might have a fever that’s not subsiding, a sprain that could be a break, a painful urinary tract infection, or a distressing situation that demands immediate mental health support.

Here are your options for accessing timely health care, in-person and virtually – including some that are free. Medicare Urgent Care Clinics Medicare Urgent Care Clinics provide bulk-billed care by a general practitioner (GP) for non-life-threatening illnesses and injuries.

Patients can walk in without an appointment or referral, and can access other services such as blood tests and X-rays. There are no out-of-pocket costs. You can find your local clinic here. Search engines to find a GP appointment – in person or online Health service search engines such as Healthengine and HotDoc can help you find GPs and book appointments.

You can filter search results by types of services and telehealth availability, including the “GP telehealth on-demand option within 15 minutes” on Hotdoc. Many will come with out-of-pocket costs. Home visits In-person home doctor visits for urgent, episodic illness or injury can also be arranged through options such as 13SICK National Home Doctor Service, DoctorDoctor, Hello Home Doctor Service, Sydmed, 13 CURE and OnCallDrs.

These are often bulk billed. A call with a nurse or doctor The new 1800MEDICARE helpline is a free 24/7 service where you can speak to a registered nurse about any health concern. They will listen to your concerns, assess your symptoms and provide advice on next steps.

This might mean looking after yourself at home, getting help from a GP, or attending an Urgent Care Clinic, pharmacy or emergency department. If the 1800MEDICARE nurse advises you to see a GP within 24 hours, you may be offered a telephone or video call back from a 1800MEDICARE GP.

These GPs can provide prescriptions via SMS.

Virtual emergency departments for non-life-threatening emergencies Virtual emergency departments are free, online emergency departments that treat non-life-threatening emergencies such as pain, sprains, infections, respiratory illnesses, gastroenteritis, high blood pressure, pain, infections, minor burns and rashes.

Examples include: the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department the South Australia Child and Adolescent Virtual Urgent Care Service Queensland Virtual Emergency Care Service. Read more: What is a virtual emergency department? And when should you ‘visit’ one?

Another similar option is My Emergency Doctor, which offers patients access to specialist emergency doctors via video call or telephone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, this service costs 0. Medicines and pharmacists Some pharmacies operate on extended business hours, including 24 hours.

You can find a pharmacy near you at this link, with the option to filter by “extended hours”. In some circumstances, pharmacies can issue a small amount of a medicine if you’ve run out.

In some states and territories, pharmacists can provide medicines such as antibiotics for simple urinary tract infections without a prescription. Read more: It’s now easier to get antibiotics for UTIs. But here’s what to do if your symptoms don’t go away For people living in remote Australia, the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) runs a Medical Chests program.

Medical chests contain a range of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical items, including prescription-only medicines, which RFDS doctors may prescribe after a phone consultation. Pregnancy, birth and children Pregnancy, Birth and Baby is a free national service that provides support to expecting parents, and parents of children from birth to five years of age.

You can speak to maternal and child health nurses via phone, by calling 1800 882 436, or video call about you or your baby, between 7am and midnight, seven days a week. If video call isn’t an option, you can call 1800 882 436.

Screenshot from Pregnancy Birth Baby CubCare is another virtual urgent care option which provides access to paediatric emergency doctors, for a fee. Dental care The Australian Dental Foundation runs a free 24/7 Emergency Dental Hotline which can help you work out the urgency of your issue and your next steps.

National Emergency Dentist is a private health service which connects patients to emergency dentists offering same-day and after-hours appointments, for a fee. Mental health phone support Mental health support will depend on your individual needs and background.

You can access mental health support after hours through these call services (some also have online chats): Lifeline: 24/7 crisis support Beyond Blue: counselling via phone online chat Kids Helpline: 24/7 online and phone counselling for young people aged five to 25 years Suicide Call Back Service: 24/7 service providing phone and online counselling to anyone affected by suicide 1800 RESPECT: 24/7 support for people affected by domestic, family, or sexual violence Gambling Help Online: phone and online support for anyone affected by gambling National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline: 24/7 service for all states and territories, except South Australia which operates 8.30am–10pm the Butterfly Foundation for free and confidential support about eating disorders and body image.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services 13 YARN: 24/7 crisis support phone line operated by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Yarning Safe’N’Strong: 24/7 support available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who need to have a yarn with someone about their wellbeing Brother to Brother: 24/7 crisis line providing phone support for Aboriginal men, staffed by Aboriginal men, including Elders.

LGBTQIA+ services QLife: phone and webchat that operates during afternoons and evenings seven days a week to support LGBTQIA+ people. Communication assistance The National Translating and Interpreting Service offers support to non-English speaking people for their consultations.

This service is typically free, covers 150 languages and can be accessed after-hours. Register here.

The National Relay Service provides assistance to people with hearing or speech difficulties during their medical consultations.

Mahima Kalla received previous funding from the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre to help build a patient consultation summary application within Healthdirect’s video telehealth platform.

Feby Savira Feby received a Priority Primary Care Centre Fellowship (2023-2025) supported by the Western Victoria Primary Health Network and was involved in the evaluation of Priority Primary Care Centres in the Western Victoria region.

Kara Burns receives funding from the Australian General Practice Foundation to research the scaling of digital maternity care in remote general practice.

Sathana Dushyanthen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/need-a-doctor-or-nurse-after-hours-how-to-get-virtual-or-in-person-care-in-australia-including-for-free/

Getty Images As New Zealand enters the colder months of the year, more than a million Kiwis have begun receiving their government-funded top-ups to help pay the power bill. Since it was introduced in 2018, the Winter Energy Payment has helped pensioners, beneficiaries and others on fixed incomes cover heating costs.

It has also seen debate about who should receive it and whether it should be more tightly targeted. Student associations have proposed extending the payment to tertiary students – something our research has found a clear need for.

The group Share My Super has called on wealthier superannuitants to donate their payments to help children in poverty. But there a larger issue. The pressures the Winter Energy Payment was designed to ease have continued to mount, driven by rising energy prices and a worsening cost-of-living crisis.

Having not increased in line with energy prices, it has become less effective than originally intended. Today, almost one third of New Zealand households experience energy hardship, with serious consequences for health and wellbeing. Cold, damp and mouldy housing alone costs the country more than NZ million each year in hospitalisations.

On top of this now come the knock-on effects of the Iran war for local fuel, power and grocery bills. As things stand, the Winter Energy Payment will continue to be a band-aid measure that buys less warmth each year.

This strengthens the case for longer-term solutions that permanently reduce household exposure to high power prices, while tackling New Zealand’s energy “trilemma” of security, affordability and sustainability. What works – and what doesn’t New Zealand already has several initiatives that show what more structural solutions can achieve.

Successive government-funded insulation retrofit programmes have been very cost-effective, delivering subsidised insulation to over 385,000 homes since 2009 and $4.40 worth of benefits for every dollar spent. The Healthy Homes Initiative has also delivered strong results. The programme supports households with children hospitalised for housing-related illness, connecting them with insulation, income support, energy advice and practical low-cost measures such as draught stopping.

Evaluations show it has reduced hospitalisations by 19%. The Healthy Homes standards have also pushed landlords to improve rental properties, while stronger Building Code requirements are helping newer homes use less energy. While education programmes encouraging people to use less electricity can help, they also only go so far.

People on very tight budgets already know what drives their power bills.

For those who can’t shop around for better prices because they are locked into contracts or use prepay electricity due to a poor credit history, “choosing” to use heating isn’t possible without support to buy more power.

This where the Winter Energy Payment helps those who are eligible. It reduces bill stress, supports heating use and as, one participant in our research put it, suggests that “somebody cares”. Yet, as the payment buys less warmth each winter, vulnerable households can be forced to choose between heating and eating.

Those we surveyed described constant stress, anxiety and worry around bills – patterns echoed in other studies. This illustrates why scrapping the scheme would hurt many. At the same time, it’s questionable that taxpayers should accept a policy that delivers diminishing returns each year.

A solar solution? What New Zealand lacks in this policy area is an “off-ramp”: a way to permanently reduce household exposure to rising electricity costs. Research suggests that household solar – rooftop panels that allow homes to generate their own electricity – is one of the few options that can achieve this.

Over recent times, its upfront cost has fallen sharply. Analysis from the non-profit group Rewiring Aotearoa indicates that installing solar could save the average household over $2000 each year on power bills, equating to around $65,000 over standard system lifetimes.

And by generating electricity closer to where it is used, household solar might help tackle each side of the energy trilemma – improving affordability, sustainability and energy security at the same time. At a system level, widespread household solar would reduce pressure on hydro and thermal generation, helping keep hydro storage available for peak demand periods and dry winters.

This would free up more gas and diesel for industries and machinery that are harder to electrify, rather than relying on them to meet everyday household demand. Solar could also improve resilience during extreme weather outages, with broader economic benefits.

For these reasons, a government-funded household solar package would arguably make strong economic sense. By lowering power bills over the long term and making healthy indoor temperatures more affordable year-round, it could reduce pressure on hospitals, improve household resilience and help break the cycle of recurring winter support.

Rather than being viewed as a luxury policy, supporting low-income households to install solar could make for a practical investment that eases energy hardship and strengthens energy resilience. The Winter Energy Payment will still be needed for many households in the years ahead.

But, as global instability increasingly feeds into local energy costs, there is a case for policies that reduce reliance on annual bill support and bring household electricity costs down.

Kimberley O’Sullivan receives funding from a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship administered by Royal Society Te Apārangi, and also contributes to a research programme funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment.

She has previously received funding from the Health Research Council, Lotteries Health Research, and the Marsden Fund.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/the-winter-energy-payment-is-buying-less-warmth-each-year-could-there-be-a-better-long-term-fix/

The National Anti-Corruption Commissioner, Paul Brereton, has quit, two years short of completing his five year term. His time in the job has been marked by repeated controversy.

Brereton said in a statement: The ongoing focus on matters relating to me personally rather than the Commission’s work is drawing attention away from the Commission’s core purpose of strengthening integrity in the Commonwealth public sector.

I believe that the Commission’s success is paramount, and not due to any single person.

While I will continue to resist any suggestion of impropriety, I have decided that it is time, now that the Commission is established and functioning with quality staff and good processes, to step aside and allow a new Commissioner to lead it into the next phase of its development.“ The Inspector of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has been investigating “complaints of agency maladministration or officer misconduct” regarding Brereton’s relationship with the Australian Defence Force.

Brereton had come under fire for undertaking consultancy work for the Inspector-General of the ADF while in his NACC post. Earlier the Inspector of the NAAC in 2024 found Brereton had committed “officer misconduct” for his handling of a conflict of interest in relation to the Robodebt scandal.

He had failed to properly recuse himself when the NACC was considering referrals from the Robodebt royal commission. He had a personal relationship with one of those referred. While he partialy recused himself he did not do so sufficiently.

Brereton is due to appear Tuesday at Senate estimates. He will leave the NACC on July 6. He took office as the inaugural Commissioner on July 1 2023. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said in a statement: Commissioner Brereton has made an invaluable contribution to the establishment of the NACC as its inaugural Commissioner.

Earlier this year, in an interview on Sky, Rowland said the government had confidence in Brereton but she had raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest relating to the ADF. Setting up the NACC was a central promise of Labor in opposition.

There was argument around its riding instructions, with only minimum provision for public hearings. So far it has held none. It has also produced what critics consider limited results. Crossbench senator David Pocock said in a statement: the NACC is essential to rebuilding trust in politics and institutions which sits now at historic lows.

I have called for some time for Commissioner Brereton to step aside and I welcome his decision to do so today. There have been too many perceived conflicts of interest, too many decisions out of step with community expectations and the need for the NACC Inspector to intervene too many times.

Pocock called on the government to use the opportunity “to reform key aspects of the NACC’s operation, including making it easier to hold public hearings. “The appointment of the next Commissioner must occur through an independent and merits-based process that provides Australians with transparency.

And it’s on the Attorney-General to ensure this is the case,” he said.

“We need the next Commissioner to help restore confidence in the organisation and for it to better fulfil the vision we had for it as a beacon of integrity.” Brereton defended the NACC’s record under his rule: Over the last three years, much progress has been made in pursuit of our mission of enhancing integrity in the Commonwealth public sector.

While our mere existence has influenced and shaped behaviour for the better, that has been powerfully reinforced by our extensive education and engagement program, which has enhanced the integrity culture across the sector. We have completed assessment of more than 92% of the 7,624 referrals received over the last three years.

We have published 7 investigation reports.

Our investigations have exposed corrupt conduct in law enforcement agencies, Commonwealth departments and government business enterprises, including cronyism in a recruitment process, a secret commission in a procurement processes, dishonesty in senior executive decision-making, and the leaking of sensitive information about law enforcement investigations to criminal associates.

Much more is underway. Our 34 current investigations cover former or current parliamentarians and staff, senior executives in the public service, contractors and consultants, and a grants scheme.

Fair and thorough investigations take time, and the outcomes of these and other investigations will emerge in due course, though it is important to remember that many will not result in findings of corrupt conduct.

From the outset we have been committed to fairness, and that approach is well embedded in the Commission’s operations.

Crossbencher Helen Haines, who pushed for the establishment of the NACC, told reporters: “This is a very significant opportunity now for the National Anti-Corruption Commission to reset, Mr Brereton’s tenure has been overshadowed by the inspector of the NACC’s findings in 2024 of officer misconduct in regard to the Robodebt inquiry.” “I remain incredibly proud of the work that got us to establishing Australia’s first federal Anti-Corruption Commission.

But it’s time now for a reset.” Brereton headed the investigation into allegations that some Australian soldiers committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

Recently, VC winner Ben Roberts-Smith was charged with five war crimes of murder while serving in Afghanistan.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/controversy-ridden-nacc-chief-paul-brereton-quits-two-years-short-of-his-terms-end/

Marty Melville/Getty Images Aotearoa New Zealand’s government is attempting one of the country’s largest public service reforms in decades – and betting artificial intelligence (AI) can help offset thousands of planned job cuts.

By any measure, the reforms announced by Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon this week are wide-ranging. They would cut some 8,700 roles, merge departments and rapidly embed AI across government, making its use a basic expectation.

All of this begs several important questions. To what extent is this planned overhaul a symptom of a new governing logic? How effective might these initiatives be? And what can be expected for the public service in the near to mid future?

A familiar strategy Far from being a novel idea, the reforms tap into a tried and tested classic for public services: restructuring. It has been a recurring feature of public service change in Aotearoa and its appeal to governments has rarely wavered.

As research by School of Government PhD graduate Annika Naschitzki shows, the country’s public sector underwent 484 separate restructuring initiatives between 2018 and 2021 alone. The latest reforms are not particularly new, even by this coalition government’s own standard.

Public service job cuts were a key part of its initial 100-day action plan, even if the most recent workforce data showed approximately 500 more full-time equivalent roles than in 2023. Many of these newer roles also differ from traditional perceptions of the public service.

They are concentrated in support functions such as information and communications technology, legal services, human resources, procurement, finance and management – or what our colleague Karl Lofgren has described as a “new public bureaucracy”. By contrast, only 5.7% of public service workers are policy analysts.

Other commentators have argued there has been little significant long-term shift in New Zealand’s broader public sector structure since the reforms of the 1980s, concluding: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The logic underpinning the reforms is also far from unique to New Zealand. Only a few months ago, for example, the Victorian government in Australia announced public service job cuts aimed at saving A$4 billion.

In New Zealand’s case, the reforms are also being framed as a return to a smaller pre-pandemic public service, with its target of 55,000 full-time equivalent roles equating to around 1% of the population. The historical basis for this 1% figure, however, is at best unclear and does not appear to reflect the country’s administrative experience since the 1890s.

In 1985, for instance, when the population was 3.3 million, the public service stood as 88,000 full-time equivalent roles. In 1995, the public service had a far smaller number of employees, with only 35,000 full-time equivalent roles, even though the population had only shifted marginally to 3.67 million.

The AI productivity gamble The logic behind the government’s AI push also requires closer scrutiny, because there is still limited evidence about how it will improve public service delivery. Increasingly, downsizing and digital transformation has morphed into a new discourse, in which AI is presented as the mechanism that makes a smaller public service administratively possible.

But there are many uncertainties. Some highly specific trials have demonstrated promising results in narrow contexts. But the idea that AI can simultaneously support workforce reductions, organisational mergers and improved public service performance rests on a series of assumptions that are highly questionable.

As well, the reforms are likely to involve a huge disruption to institutional memory. This means that, rather than a simple number of jobs, the public sector would lose institutional knowledge about how government functions – as it has been for the past three decades.

Further cuts to full-time staff will reduce in-house capability, while efforts to cut consultancy spending will reduce external expertise. Attempting to simultaneously restructure agencies, shrink the workforce and scale up AI could therefore create capability gaps, just as demand for specialised knowledge and oversight increases.

It might simply be decided that AI vendors become the new public service, with a full shift to dependence on these platforms. This creates obvious risks. And right now, the public service still lacks the legislative, regulatory and governance foundations needed to support such a transition.

Efficiency is not the same as cost cutting At this point, what the public service arguably requires is more internal capability, not less. If improved coordination, integration, productivity and efficiency are the objective, these latest plans are unlikely to deliver them.

Of course, public services should always be designed and delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible. But efficiency does not necessarily mean simple cost cutting.

As the head of the United Kingdom’s Office for Statistics Regulation, Ed Humpherson, recently argued, efficiency is not simply about the cost of inputs but also the quality of outputs: Perhaps cost cutting makes for a simpler message than the more complex ‘efficiency can be more outputs for the same cost’ story.

Projected job losses naturally generate headlines.

But the more important concern is the cost they will have on the quality and delivery of public services for New Zealanders.

Jonathan Boston is an Honorary Senior Fellow of the Helen Clark Foundation

Barbara Allen and Michael Macaulay do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/25/the-push-for-a-smaller-public-service-risks-coming-at-a-larger-cost-for-new-zealanders/

Inland Rail Pty Ltd Australia has a remarkably poor record of delivering megaprojects on time and on budget. It is a predictable outcome of a broken system. Earlier this year, consultants Deloitte found the cost of 13 publicly funded road, rail and energy projects had blown out by A$130 billion more than their initial estimates.

Snowy Hydro 2.0, a renewable energy scheme initially costed at A billion, was meant be completed by 2021. Instead, it’s still under construction, and some reports have its cost rising to billion – eleven times the initial estimate.

There are many similar examples: Inland Rail’s cost also jumping nearly tenfold, from .7 billion to $45 billion Melbourne’s North East Link road tunnels project more than doubling in cost, from billion to billion Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop rising to more than billion, also almost double its original price tag and Brisbane’s billion Cross River Rail, originally announced at .4 billion.

When I shared these Australian examples in Brussels while previewing our new book chapter in “Governance for Major Projects”, colleagues from other countries laughed in disbelief at the scale of the cost blowouts. One asked if I was joking.

Here’s what we get wrong and how that could change. How Australia approves projects the wrong way around Every major project that goes over time and budget will have specific causes to point to, from tunnelling problems to supply chain disruptions.

However, in Australia, the same structural problems keep repeating. Announcing projects without a credible business case A 2020 Grattan Institute report found prematurely announced projects suffered an average 35% cost overrun. Melbourne’s $96 billion Suburban Rail Loop is a classic example.

When it was announced for billion in 2018, there was no business case and no independent assessment. Lack of independent scrutiny, with the power to pause projects Within a highly politicised project appraisal system, assumptions about costs versus benefit are rarely subjected to rigorous independent scrutiny.

Infrastructure Australia is meant to be the federal government’s independent infrastructure advisor.

In its 2016 evaluation of the business case of the 1,600km Inland Rail freight line from Melbourne to Brisbane, Infrastructure Australia said it: would prefer if the proponent could present a more complete, transparent and objective assessment of the options considered, with greater detail of the relative costs and benefits of alternative options.

Yet it still endorsed the project anyway. Inland Rail began construction in 2018 under the Morrison government – before its route had even been finalised. Its northern half from central New South Wales to Queensland has just been axed, due to predictable cost blowouts.

Transparency is treated as discretionary In Australia, much of the advice informing ministers’ decisions about multi-billion-dollar projects remain hidden from the public. In February, the federal government released its business case for pushing ahead with a proposed $93 billion High Speed Rail project.

Yet dozens of pages of the business case are blacked out with heavy redactions. Read more: High-speed rail from Sydney to Newcastle is a step closer. But what about Sydney to Melbourne? How Norway turned cost blowouts into savings International research has shown cost overruns on big infrastructure projects are more common than not.

In the 1980s and 1990s, most major projects in Norway were experiencing significant overruns. So in 2000, Norway introduced mandatory, external quality assurance for all projects estimated to cost more than 1 billion Norwegian krone (around A$150 million).

This happens at two stages – concept selection and cost validation – before funding approval. Before its quality assurance process was introduced, a 2015 study found 72% of Norway’s large road projects experienced cost overruns. Afterwards, that fell to 27%.

A 2024 paper looking more broadly at 96 Norwegian government projects found just 25% of those projects had cost overruns. The average project was delivered 4.4% below budget. The UK is learning from costly lessons The Australian government has rightly pointed to the United Kingdom’s expensive and mismanaged High Speed Rail 2 as a lesson in what not to do.

But a year ago, the UK began to strengthen oversight for major projects by creating the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority – a single body to oversee infrastructure planning, prioritisation and delivery. Three key changes needed in Australia Norway and the UK both acknowledged their systems were causing too many expensive publicly funded failures – and made changes.

Here’s where Australia could start. 1. Do things in the right order Mandatory independent assurance, modelled on Norway’s system, should be a legal prerequisite before any announcement. Premature announcements cripple an evidence-based appraisal process.

Cost estimates should also be independently validated before ministerial approval. 2. Set up an independent project authority, with real power Infrastructure Australia was created as an independent advisory body back in 2008 under Labor. It was championed by now Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a way to “stamp out the pork barrelling”.

Yet even today, Infrastructure Australia has no real power to compel, reject or delay risky projects. Australian needs a truly independent statutory authority with real power to oversee major projects. This would require the major political parties to surrender something they prize: being able to announce projects before the proper appraisal has been done.

3. Make transparency the law, not the exception Full public disclosure of cost and benefit estimates should be a legal requirement, before projects can get financial commitment. Norway publishes its project appraisals in full as part of its mandatory reporting requirements.

The argument that Australia cannot do the same is not a practical objection. It is a political one.

Dominic D Ahiaga-Dagbui is involved in running six safety culture surveys for Terra Verde, which is delivering the tunnelling on Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop.

However, this funding goes to Deakin University’s Construction Workforce Futures Research Lab, rather than to him. He has previously received past funding from Victoria’s Department of Transport (2022-23) and Infrastructure Australia (2021).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/24/to-avoid-future-road-rail-and-renewable-blowouts-costing-billions-australia-needs-these-3-big-fixes/

Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto via Getty Images The recently signed free trade agreement between New Zealand and India has so far been discussed and debated in very broad terms: the size of the Indian market, opportunities for exporters, implications for immigration.

Much of this is understandable. Preferential access to a market larger than the European Union and ASEAN countries combined, with purchasing power forecast to grow exponentially by 2050, is indeed an opportunity. Realising that opportunity, however, is another matter entirely.

The real test for New Zealand businesses lies in how they now approach the regionally complex and dynamic Indian market. While the free trade agreement calls for a clear strategy for doing business in India, the harder question is whether a pan-India strategy is enough in a market so diverse and difficult.

A country of countries The regional differences within India’s large and complex economy make it a “country of countries” requiring a business strategy for each of its 36 states and union territories. Key policy decisions – about infrastructure development, land and labour, healthcare and transport, licensing and permitting – are all made at state level.

On top of this, economic, social, political and cultural expectations vary across states. Approaching each as a separate market is vital, with the economic and operational environments considered in tandem. For example, the states with highest GDP are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and West Bengal.

But the top-ranking states for ease of doing business are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh. Also, given the nature of the country’s governance structure, the relationship between central and state governments is an important consideration when deciding where to focus.

New Zealand businesses will almost inevitably struggle in states where operating on the ground is difficult and economic conditions less advanced. Picking the right entry point will be important. Building and sustaining business relationships is key to a winning strategy.

But in a country like India, or within one of its very different states, this depends on managers possessing real “cultural intelligence” to interact effectively. Breaking into the Indian market needs patience. Doing business there is vastly different to New Zealand.

For example, New Zealand ranks first and India 63rd on the World Bank Group’s ease-of-doing-business index, despite substantial improvement over the past decade. Developing networks and relationships will be important. In my past research I have spoken with senior New Zealand managers doing business in India.

They have explained how building family-level relationships with their trade partners has helped sustain business ties even during tougher economic conditions. On the other hand, this can be a double-edged sword. While close relationships can help overcome uncertainty and leverage shared resources, they can also create a tendency to avoid conflict and encourage opportunistic behaviour or lax oversight.

Realism and patience New Zealand business and export managers also need to be prepared to change and adapt their ways of thinking about economic, cultural and business practices. Expecting things to happen like they do in New Zealand won’t work, risking lost opportunities and damaged relationships.

The good news is that a lot of advice and support is available, including from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Export NZ.

Academic and business associations such as the New Zealand India Research Institute, India New Zealand Business Council, New Zealand Bharat Chamber of Commerce and Industry and New Zealand India trade Alliance may also be helpful.

Despite the promise held in the free trade agreement, those at the coalface of building business relationships in India have to be realistic about the actual challenges (especially if they have yet to even visit the country).

Overall, an effective India strategy will be mindful of regional variation but open to broader approaches that will apply nationally: building close but careful business relationships, being adaptable and avoiding Eurocentric mindsets. The central Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a priority of encouraging development and reducing regulatory clutter.

But this too will vary across the country. Exporters of goods and services will need to customise their strategies for each state, region and market. That means careful, data-based analysis of the various opportunities, operating environments and customer segments.

To be blunt, the happy headline of “1.4 billion potential customers” is largely a fiction. There is no real pan-India business strategy that will work.

A nuanced, patient and contextualised approach will be the best basis for long-term success.

Revti Raman Sharma received a grant (2014-2016) from the India-New Zealand Education Council to work on managing institutional challenges to doing business in India.

He is on the Board of Directors of the New Zealand Bharat Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/24/india-is-a-country-of-countries-nz-business-needs-a-regional-strategy-to-make-the-trade-deal-work/

When famous soccer players come to mind, it is usually revered pioneers such as Pelé, Bobby Charlton and Diego Maradona. Later came Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Samantha Kerr. But who has heard of Jean-Marc Bosman?

A man who changed soccer forever Anyone interested in association football (soccer) or sport in general should know about Bosman. He is responsible for the European Court of Justice’s landmark December 1995 Bosman Ruling (often just called Bosman) that enabled players in Europe to move freely between clubs.

Jean-Marc Bosman, flanked by two of his lawyers, smiles after the European Court of Justice ruled in his favour on December 15, 1995.

STF/AFP via Getty Images This rather obscure Belgian soccer player, who never represented his country at senior level, is arguably as or more important to the world game and some other sports such as basketball than much more gifted athletes.

Elements of the Bosman story echo the late-19th-century feudalism of the Netflix series The English Game. Akin to peasants unable to switch lords and ladies of the manor, professional soccer players in the late 20th century were still forcibly attached to clubs.

Soccer goes to court In 1990, Bosman was at the end of his contract with Belgian club RFC Liège and wanted to move to French club Dunkerque. Sports can change dramatically in the blink of an eye.

Sometimes, these moments create immediate shockwaves. Other times, it’s not until much later that their impact become obvious. This is the second story in a rolling series that explores key (and sometimes long forgotten) moments in sports history.

Read more: Game changers: how one team’s dominance transformed rugby league forever But the clubs could not agree on the mandatory transfer fee and he remained at Liège, outside the first team on reduced wages.

He appealed to the European Court of Justice, which ruled in his favour. It determined preventing athletes from moving freely within the European Union was an unreasonable restraint of trade. This decision dramatically shifted the balance of power between players, their agents and the associations and clubs.

Within the powerhouse Union of European Football Associations confederation (UEFA), recruiting, retaining and remunerating players became much more complicated. Bosman did not create today’s overheated transfer market and hyper-commercialised football, but he certainly fuelled it.

One effect was to exacerbate the enormous financial losses of clubs chasing the best players for inflated sums. This bubble expanded as US private equity firms and Middle Eastern investment funds infused vast amounts of capital into soccer, creating multi-millionaire athletes and loss-making clubs.

UEFA was forced to intervene with financial fair play regulations and, later, financial sustainability rules in an effort to stop clubs haemorrhaging cash. Mobile players, static fans Players soon had to pay a physical and psychological price for their newfound riches as leagues and clubs sought to generate more revenue in a globalised sport market.

To the consternation of their “union” – Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPRO) – they were soon required to play more games in more competitions and travel on intercontinental promotional tours. Although centred on Europe, Bosman had a ripple effect across the globe, including in Australia.

While Australian players such as Craig Johnston had long made their fortunes in Europe, the post-Bosman honeypot was especially attractive to the likes of Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Mark Schwarzer and others. Finding long-lost relatives in the European Union sometimes helped with immigration authorities.

One of Bosman’s greatest beneficiaries was the English Premier League (EPL), which was formed in the early 1990s with money from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. The EPL became by far the richest league in Europe after luring the world’s best (and most mobile) athletes.

The combined transfer value (the estimated cost of buying their entire squads) of Chelsea’s and Manchester City’s 101 players is around A.5 billion. Ironically, the UK’s Brexit threatened to curtail the sport’s labour supply.

But the Bosman mobility template has largely survived. Bosman also had deeper social and cultural ramifications for the relationships between players and fans. The former transitioned from proto-employee to small businessperson selling athletic services to the highest bidder.

This was good for the bank balances of professionals with short, precarious careers. But hometown fans, unlike most athletes, are static rather than mobile in their loyalties. They tend to regard some players as money-grubbing mercenaries, while perhaps hypocritically welcoming big-money recruits from other clubs.

Bosman helped widen the gap between the celebrity player and everyday fan, exposing professional soccer’s corporate-capitalist underbelly and disenchanting many romantics. Soccer culture has changed substantially as a result, dramatically exacerbating the inequalities between apex predator and tiddler clubs.

Those same inequalities are reproduced among players. The still-developing women’s game has seen professionalisation and Bosman-inspired mobility enable some players to prosper in relative terms, while many more still need to supplement their incomes outside the game.

What happened to Bosman? What became of the man whose legal victory was so important to these developments? Now in his 60s, Bosman benefited little from the ruling, ending up bankrupt and divorced, an alcoholic with a conviction for assaulting his partner.

His life is a far cry from those of the many fabulously rich footballers for whom he paved the way. But his impact on soccer is still being felt today. Thirty years after the Bosman Ruling, the Justice for Players foundation served notice of a class action against FIFA, football’s governing body, and several European football associations.

Involving more than 100,000 players, the action seeks compensation for lost income since 2002 attributed to FIFA’s restrictions on player transfers. The similarity does not end there. French player Lassana Diarra sparked the dispute after he was obstructed from moving between Russian and Belgian clubs in 2016.

His lawyer, Jean-Louis Dupont, represented Bosman in his case and is advising the new class action.

This latest development demonstrates the 2020 documentary Bosman: The Player Who Changed Football was not exaggerating – the shock of the Bosman Ruling continues to reverberate around the world game and beyond.

David Rowe has received several Australian Research Council grants underpinned by sociology and related interdisciplinary domains, with the place of the sport-media nexus in contemporary cultural citizenship a consistent area of analytical concern.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/22/game-changers-how-soccers-mega-money-era-was-sparked-by-a-little-known-belgian-athlete/

Mark Robinson/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-ND Natural geological processes have been regulating Earth’s climate for millions of years. Accelerated versions of these processes are now being promoted as technologies to draw down carbon from the atmosphere – and some are rapidly moving from concept to real-world deployments.

Two such technologies are known as enhanced weathering, which speeds up the chemical breakdown of certain rocks, and ocean alkalinity enhancement, which increases the ocean’s natural ability to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Startups backed by tech companies including Google and Microsoft are already applying these technologies in field trials. Investment in the sector is rising rapidly, with large-scale trials underway and carbon credits beginning to appear on voluntary markets.

But as our new assessment published in Science highlights, some estimates of carbon removal through these technologies may be too optimistic. Current models assume carbon captured on land or in coastal waters will reliably make its way into long-term storage in the ocean.

However, these models don’t replicate all Earth processes. In reality, part of the engineered capture of carbon can be reversed as water moves through soils, rivers, estuaries and coastal environments. Dissolved elements can become trapped again in new minerals such as clays, reducing how much carbon ultimately remains stored over long timescales.

The true additional carbon removed from the atmosphere may be smaller than headline estimates suggest. How enhanced weathering is supposed to work Enhanced weathering works by accelerating chemical reactions that already occur naturally between rocks, water and carbon dioxide.

When rainwater mixes with carbon dioxide held in the atmosphere and soil, it forms an acid that slowly dissolves rocks that contain the minerals calcium and magnesium. This includes volcanic rocks such as basalt and ultramafic rocks such as dunite.

In nature, the dissolved minerals increase the capactiy of water to store carbon dioxide and these chemical products can then be transported by rivers to the ocean, where the carbon may remain stored for thousands of years.

Enhanced weathering attempts to speed up this natural process. Finely crushed rocks and minerals are spread across landscapes such as agricultural soils, increasing the surface area available for reactions. Ocean alkalinity enhancement uses similar principles, but aims to increase the ocean’s ability to absorb and store atmospheric carbon dioxide directly.

Carbon losses along the way Many enhanced weathering assessments assume that once minerals dissolve, the resulting alkalinity and carbon will eventually make their way into the ocean for long-term storage. However, different materials dissolve at different rates.

Climate, rainfall, soil chemistry and biological activity also influence how quickly reactions occur. This means carbon removal can vary enormously between environments. Earth systems also contain many opportunities for the flow of carbon to weaken before it ever reaches the open ocean.

As alkalinity moves through the environment, dissolved elements released during weathering can become trapped again in new minerals. These reactions can consume alkalinity and reduce the amount of carbon ultimately stored long term. These challenges are not limited to enhanced weathering on land.

Ocean alkalinity enhancement may also experience losses as dissolved elements interact with sediments and seawater chemistry, recycling alkalinity back into solid minerals before it contributes to long-term storage. The challenge of durable carbon removal In natural systems, weathering, transport and mineral formation are tightly linked parts of a much larger Earth-system cycle.

While naturally occurring warm and wet environments may accelerate weathering, using a rapid-dissolution model to replicate this does not necessarily guarantee durable carbon storage. There is also another problem: some enhanced weathering and alkalinity approaches may interfere with natural carbon removal pathways that would have occurred anyway.

For example, increasing alkalinity in one part of the Earth system may reduce natural dissolution or weathering processes elsewhere. This means the amount of truly additional carbon removed from the atmosphere may be smaller. Many field trials focus on changes occurring at the application site itself, but much of the long-term carbon storage depends on what happens downstream – across entire catchments, rivers and coastal oceans.

As enhanced weathering and ocean alkalinity enhancement move toward larger-scale deployment, the central question is how much carbon remains removed from the atmosphere over decades to centuries – and whether that removal is truly additional. None of this means these technologies don’t contribute to climate mitigation.

The challenge is whether Earth systems can keep the captured carbon stored or whether we are simply moving carbon across time and space instead of durably removing it from the atmosphere. New Zealand may offer an opportunity to better understand these questions because volcanic rocks, high rainfall and strong land-to-sea connectivity create ideal conditions for tracking how alkalinity and carbon move through the Earth system.

If these approaches are going to play a major role in future carbon removal strategies – and generate carbon credits at global scale – we need to understand not only how quickly minerals dissolve, but whether carbon is stored durably without weakening natural carbon removal pathways at the same time.

Terry Isson receives funding from the Rutherford Discovery Fellowship and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/22/some-technologies-use-accelerated-natural-processes-to-capture-carbon-but-can-they-store-it-durably/

Getty Images Real New Zealanders like mowing their lawns. I certainly do. Until I met my partner I thought everyone did. But she and I have strong views on mowing lawns – and they pull in opposite directions.

I’m from the conventional keep-the-damn-things-under-control school of thought, while she’d rather the grass was left to grow, if not to infinity and beyond, then at least to knee height. Lawns and I go way back.

Mostly, I associate them with Dad. Each Saturday he’d don his lawnmowing gear (stubbies, a daggy old tee-shirt of indeterminate colour, towelling hat) and spend an hour or so running the Masport up and down.

There was a narrow strip between our house and the neighbour’s fence, and when he got to that part he would drop the blade a notch and carve out a passable cricket strip.

As soon as he was done I’d be in, armed with a pile of lemons, and remove an entire World XI of the top international batsmen of the time – Viv Richards, Greg Chappell, David Gower – for next to nothing.

Each one of them bowled middle stump or, if I was having an off day, caught behind. None of them ever hit my lemons for six – scratchy singles were all I ever conceded.

But eventually the lemons would disintegrate, or I’d have run through the World XI, the last of them (Imran Khan) out retired hurt, trying to hook a short lemon which got big on him, and I’d wander off looking for something to eat.

After Dad died, I took his shorts, shoes and the Masport down to the bach at Te Whārangi Foxton Beach. The mower was the first to give up the ghost. The shorts went next, more hole than short by the time I reluctantly put them away in a bottom drawer.

The shoes were the last to go. I found that quite hard. Dad had worn them for years, and they were the last of his things in my possession that had been in direct contact with his skin.

I should probably biff them, but for now they’re sitting quietly alongside the new Chinese mower out in the shed. ‘Colonist grass’ Lately, the relationship between the grass and me has begun to shift.

Somehow, the lawn has become caught up in my thinking about the many ways in which the big, nation-building stories of colonisation are entwined with the small ones found in the histories of settler-colonial families like mine.

It seems an odd thing to have happened, but there is no getting away from it: the more I look at it through a settler’s eyes, the more clearly I see Maurice Shadbolt’s “colonist grass”.

The lawn – the “telltale patchwork quilt of European settlement” – arrived in this country with the British. The ones established over here were intended to mimic and to elicit an emotional connection with the ones left behind.

In early Pōneke Wellington, an observer noted, “many of the principal residences [are] standing in a green lawn, with a pretty garden at the back” and this “reminds one of an English villa”. This was by design, not accident; it was both natural and entirely contrived.

Like the introduction of other exotic flora and fauna, pastoral farming and parliamentary government, the laying down of the lawn was one of the ways in which colonisation marked this land. Perhaps not at the very beginning, when most new arrivals would have been busy felling trees, draining wetlands and burning bush.

But once the footholds had been established and life had become a little less precarious, it was time to take up the challenge of civilising the new colonial spaces by reproducing the landscapes of Home.

Time to impose order upon chaos and inscribe empire on the land. Time to cultivate the lawn. Laying down the lawn I didn’t think much about this sort of thing while I was cleaning Geoffrey Boycott out for a duck.

Neither would it have occurred to me to wonder where the grass I was trundling up and down on came from.

I’m not generally given to browsing scientific papers on the composition of New Zealand lawns, but lately I’ve taken to reading studies of what I’ve always thought was a local phenomenon but turns out to be no such thing.

None of the most popular lawn grasses we use in our lawns – perennial ryegrass, blue grass, fescue, meadow fescue and browntop – originated here.

Our lawns are dominated by alien grass species, and there is very little in the way of native grass at all: encounters with settlers didn’t usually end well for the local species, and those that have survived are often regarded as weeds.

Not really grass at all then, but something undesirable. One study of the lawns of Ōtautahi Christchurch reckons that native grasses account for just 13% of all of the lawn species down that way, and 19% across the entire country’s lawns.

I am struck by how similar those figures are to the proportion of Māori in the human population: perhaps the exotic does not much discriminate between Indigenous people and indigenous flora.

And those data mean that I have been waging a never-ending and unwinnable war on behalf of the imports against the indigenes – weeds, insects and the like – which are endeavouring to return our lawns to something resembling the way they once were.

Take your eyes off the insurgents for more than a week or two, and they will be all over you.

Miriam Sharland has smartly suggested that what we call a “weed” is really just a plant that happens to be in the wrong place, or which annoys us because it doesn’t need our help to grow.

What lies beneath The lawn is more than a square or a rectangle or a tangle of angles of grass. It is also an idea that reaches back to an earlier New Zealand.

Its potency has not been diminished by the passage of time – even if its origins, like those of some of the roads we drive on and land we farm, have also been lost, ecological amnesia taking its place beside other forms of forgetting.

Where once I saw simply grass, now, as I fire up the mower, I also glimpse the flickering ghost of the colonial project which carried the lawn to this place. In some places, the soil beneath the crown of green lies uneasy.

The lawns I grew up with in Taranaki are on unquiet ground.

Up that way, and in the other parts of the country where whenua was confiscated from those who were in the way of progress, and then surveyed, converted into sections or farms and sold to Pākehā farmers, the cutting, trimming and general keeping of things under control is a contemporary expression of old patterns of behaviour.

Ecological imperialism is just as imperial as the kinds that rely on soldiers and civil servants. The language of the lawn can grind a little in those parts. We talk of controlling the grass; of keeping things trimmed, cut and tamed.

We keep the section tidy and the grass down. Wage war on the weeds. Stop things from getting out of hand. These are terms of conflict and subjugation, the rhetorical descendants of words my forebears might once have used as they slashed, chopped, felled and burned the native bush.

Cleared the land of obstacles that needed to be removed so that new lives could be built. Invaded people’s villages and tore down their homes. This is also the lexicon used by those who colonise to characterise what must be done to those who have been colonised.

Indigenous people need to be kept in their place just as much as indigenous flora does, and for much the same reason: give them half a chance and they’ll get away on you.

Beneath words of this kind is a fear of what might lie behind or beneath us; of some primeval force that might rise up in the dead of night if we do not keep things buttoned down, neat and tidy, under control.

Of what might come lumbering out of the unknown. ‘Wakefield’s folly’ Moreover, the entwining of soil and finance lie deep in our colonial heritage.

In 1839, Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s New Zealand Company issued the terms of purchase for land in its first settlement, the location of which had yet to be determined but would eventually become known as Pōneke Wellington.

Some 1,100 sections, each comprising one “town acre” and 100 “country acres”, were advertised for sale at £101 per section. The company undertook to set aside 110 sections – or 10% of the total – for distribution among the “chief families of the tribe from which the lands shall have been originally purchased”.

The conditional tense is important, for at the time the lottery took place, in late July 1839, no company official had yet set foot in the new colony and no land had been purchased from Māori.

This did not stop the New Zealand Company from selling 99,999 acres of other people’s land to British land speculators. You can see why former New Zealand diplomat Derek Leask refers to the whole shoddy business as “Wakefield’s folly”.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield, circa 1850–1860. Wikimedia The act of surveying called the section into existence. The section’s rectilinear shape was not an accident but intentional, enabling the attribution of financial value where none had existed.

It was one of the means by which the spatial imagery of an alien West was inscribed upon a way of seeing and inhabiting the world that was already here. And it happened not because the section was, or is, in any sense a “natural” construct, but because this is how you ascribe value to land.

This is how you build a system of private property rights. This is how space is created for some and taken from others. The sale of land – of sections and farms – is what this colony was based on.

Between 1844 and 1864, the Crown paid Ngāi Tahu £14,750 – roughly NZ$2.5 million in today’s terms – for the entirety of Te Wai Pounamu South Island. Take Rakiura Stewart Island (which sold for £6,000) out of the equation, and that amounts to less than a penny per acre.

The land was then on-sold, the proceeds used to fuel the development of the colony.

One North Canterbury block of 30,000 acres went for £14,750, which was both the same price as the Crown shelled out for the whole South Island and fully 1,142% more per acre than the Crown paid Ngāi Tahu.

Now, that’s what you call a capital gain. Grass of empire I still like a good lawn. But it turns out that ours is not just something I mow. These days I’m aware that when I pull on the new boots which replaced Dad’s old sneakers and head outside, I’m doing a bit more than keeping things tidy.

And perhaps I’m overdoing it, conflating the mowing of a lawn with the ongoing effects of colonisation. But I find I’m unable to do the first without thinking about the second. It is no longer prosaic, our lawn, but is its own little piece of landscape, imbued with meanings I’m still learning and stories I’m just beginning to hear.

There is something immersive and interactive going on here; its borders are not where I thought they were. It has ceased to be a space in which I think, and become a place that makes me think.

Of people who are long gone. Of a past which still resonates. Of the knowledge that colonisation is not just about the movement of people and power across time and space. Ideas, too, are instruments of empire.

As is grass and the land it grows on.

This is an edited extract from The Good Settler: Essays from other people’s lands published by Massey University Press.

Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/05/22/mowing-the-lawn-the-colonial-ghosts-haunting-our-suburban-ritual/