Oliver Neas

New Zealand has one of the highest incarceration rates in the developed world. Around 9000 people are in prison at any one time. That’s just under 200 prisoners per 100,000 people, compared to somewhere between the 30 and 60 in the Nordic countries.…

For more than 15 years, New Zealand households have carried more debt than they earn in income. Our total private debt — mostly in mortgages — is now one and a half times national income. But when it comes to the government’s finances, pressure to…

In the 1920s, you could get almost anywhere by train. But a hundred years later, there is just one inter-regional commuter rail service in the entire country, between Palmerston North and Wellington. The few other intercity services are targeted at…

– One in three New Zealanders live with untreated tooth decay. – 32,000 children and 274,000 adults had teeth extracted in 2019 due to decay, an abscess, infection or gum disease. – Around 7000 children each year require dental treatment in hospital…

New Zealand is the world’s largest dairy exporter after the European Union. Over the last 30 years, industrial scale irrigation and a 670 per cent jump in the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser has increased the intensity of the way we farm. It…

Nearly every day, someone dies on New Zealand’s roads and another seven are seriously injured. New Zealand ranks 29th out of 33 OECD countries for road deaths, with a death rate of 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people. In Norway, the rate is just 2. And…