In October 1972 the New Zealand Parliament passed the Accident Compensation Act 1972 which establishes the most comprehensive accident compensation scheme ever enacted in the common law world and deals a mortal blow to the traditional tort system of compensating the victims of accidental injury....

An address at the Open Day at Frank Kitts Park to celebrate the Gentle Giants of the Ocean on 15 December 2007. The address considers Japan’s exploitation of the scientific research provision in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling

An address to a meeting in Dunedin introducing A Constitution for Aotearoa New Zealand on 30 November 2016. The address makes the case for a written constitution in the light of concerning trends overseas, such as the rise of the “post-truth” age in Donald Trump’s United States and the...

A journalistic piece written for the Dominion Post in 2014. It makes the case for a Royal Commission into the public service, citing the absence of free and frank advice to ministers, the difficulty of recruiting staff into the core public service, its “cult of management”, and the silo...

An address to the New Zealand Local Government Conference, delivered on 18 November 1995. The address traces the history of local government in New Zealand, from the provincial legislatures of early colonial New Zealand, to their abolishment in 1876. It suggests that this abolishment has...