Motu News

Here's where you can find out how Motu Research is making and breaking news.

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Greenhouse gas emissions: Govt opts for harsher penalties

The government has proposed further changes to the emissions trading scheme, including tougher penalties and higher costs for emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Our Catherine Leining talks about why some of the proposed changes to…

Local expert opinion on prices is a good substitute for a full-fledged market price survey – since local prices are often missing this is great news

The comparison of poverty rates across two countries, or across regions within a country, is a common occurrence in analysis produced at the World Bank and other development agencies, as well as in published academic…

New Zealand’s well-being approach to budget is not new, but could shift major issues

At the end of this month, New Zealand will release its first “Well-being Budget”. It builds on treasury’s Living Standards Framework (LSF), published last December, which introduced a suite of well-being measures, including cultural identity,…

WTF is a wellbeing budget

Arthur Grimes discusses the upcoming wellbeing budget on the Two Cents Worth podcast from RNZ and Newsroom.  There are two fundamental problems with GDP. Firstly, it overlooks unpaid work like parenting and the work of unpaid…

How tough is it for the middle class in New Zealand?

Our Arthur Grimes is interviews in this Noted NZ Listener story looking at how money worries have set off a wave of populist politics in most Western democracies, but not here. Is that because our…

The clash between science and silence

Lincoln University was silenced for over two months due to a clause in a research contract with South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu which forced it to seek written permission before speaking publicly. See the Newsroom…

Census delays and missing data

About 10% of the population didn't fill in the Census. This is higher than normal (estimated to be 2.4% in 2013). A further 5.5% of respondents left some bits blank - which is normal (5%+…

It's not just The Warehouse going carbon neutral; people are doing it too

An article from Stuff using our household emissions tool to see if the general public can go carbon neutral.

PCE report on “Farms, forests and fossil fuels”: One lump or two?

Catherine Leining has a new Low-emission blog post talking about how she agrees with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's new report: targets & policies should reflect differences across GHGs. If NZ was starting from…

How to cut your contribution to climate change by offsetting your emissions

Stuff looks at living a carbon-free lifestyle. Each person's carbon footprint – the amount of greenhouse gases your activities release – is different. A vegan's emissions are likely to be lower than a meat eater's on…