New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme favour big farming and industrial emitters over households and small businesses, argue academics Geoff Bertram and Simon Terry.In a plain language guide that demystifies the complex world of emissions trading, they contend that New Zealand has a wealth of options for cutting emissions more equitably but courageous political leadership is needed.

Piketty’s book is a bombshell, promising a Kuhnian scientific revolution. Geoff BertramPiketty erects a floodlight that illuminates the shadows ignored by economists for too long. Hautahi KingiFew books have had the global impact of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. An overnight bestseller, Piketty’s assessment that inherited wealth will always grow faster, on average, than earned wealth has energised debate. Hailed as ‘bigger than Marx’ (The Economist) or dismissed as ...

Praise for Swan's handling of the economy'One of the most impressive economic policies I have seen, ever.' - Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate'Wayne Swan's judgment and decisiveness, in international terms, must rank a high distinction.' - Paul KeatingA very personal account of an extraordinary period in Australian politics.Despite the divisions within the Labor Party as the Rudd government fell into disunity and as Julia Gillard was undermined by disloyalty f...

A broad, concise and inclusive vision of Australia and Australians by one our most renowned historians.After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events that have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport; the suspicion of the tall poppy; the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbo...

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS, BIOGRAPHY BOOK OF THE YEARPaul Keating: the big-picture leader is the definitive biography of Australia’s 24th prime minister, and the first that Keating has cooperated with in more than two decades.Drawing on around 15 hours of new interviews with Keating, coupled with access to his extensive personal files, this book tells the story of a political warrior’s rise to power, f...

The divide between New Zealand’s poorest and wealthiest inhabitants has widened alarmingly over recent decades. Differences in income have grown faster than in most other developed countries.New Zealand society is being reshaped, stretching to accommodate new distance between those who ‘have’ and those who ‘have not’. Income inequality is a crisis that affects us all.A diverse gathering of New Zealand scholars, journalists, researchers, business leaders, workers, students and parents share...

By any measure, New Zealand must confront monumental issues in the years ahead. From the future of work to climate change, wealth inequality to new populism these challenges are complex and even unprecedented. Yet why does New Zealand’s political discussion seem so diminished, and our political imagination unequal to the enormity of these issues? And why is this gulf particularly apparent to young New Zealanders?These questions sit at the centre of Max Harris’s ‘New Zealand project...

Wartime Australia. Key members of Menzies' government die in a fiery plane crash. What went wrong and what happened next? In August 1940 Australia had been at war for almost a year when a Hudson bomber – the A16-97 – carrying ten people, including three cabinet ministers, crashed into a ridge near Canberra. In the ghastly inferno that followed the crash, the nation lost its key war leaders. Over the next twelve months, it became clear that the passing of Geoffrey Street,...

The nuclear meltdown at Fukushima ... the Fonterra botulism scare ... the Christchurch earthquakes in all these recent crises the role played by scientists has been under the spotlight.What is the first duty of scientists in a crisis to the government, to their employer, or to the wider public desperate for information? And what if these different objectives clash?In this penetrating BWB Text, leading scientist Shaun Hendy finds that in New Zealand, the public obligation of the scientist i...

If you’re going to lead, you have to have certain values that are important to you, otherwise you can’t lead, you just flip-flop around the place. Jim BolgerNowhere is it written down what are the powers of the Prime Minister. . . . it’s your personality, it’s the skills that you’ve got, it’s how you use the office. Helen ClarkBased on the acclaimed RNZ podcast series, and including new material, The 9th Floor by journalists Guyon Espiner and Tim ...

Since 1970 seventy-three political leaders within the major parties have been forcibly removed from their leadership positions. And at the heart of the turmoil is the media, with its 24-hour news cycle making political leadership evermore precarious.Disposable Leaders is an engaging and insightful analysis of the high-drama leadership challenge – a regular event that is now central to Australian politics. Not only does Rodney Tiffen explore some of the most intriguing fede...

A controversial call for debate about Australia's failure to improve the lives of Aboriginal people.'An independent and fearless book which deftly negotiates a passage between the romanticism of the Left and the hard-heartedness of the Right. We badly need books of this kind.' Robert ManneIndigenous Australians have a life expectancy almost twenty years below that of other Australians. No other wealthy country has a worse record. But this provokes no sense ...