This is an experimental project on our side. Fable is the author; I asked it to do the job, provided feedback, tested the thing against other models. There are very likely some remaining errors. Point them out using the feedback form. Fable will triage feedback and update.

So. Back to the method now. Fable went through all of the planning documents as best it could across the main centres, including precinct maps. It built the maps, and it wrote the entire site. I didn't write a word of it; I provided suggestions for refinement.

In Hamilton, new supermarkets are permitted downtown, where land prices will be higher. Building one elsewhere requires the applicant to show that suitable land is not available within the business centres.

Christchurch isn't the only place with this kind of rule. It is forbidden to have a new competing supermarket in lots of places. In a country where we hear no end of complaints about cost of living and a lack of competition.

Why is it forbidden to open another supermarket at Homebase? To protect the viability of The Palms mall down the road. Homebase might steal its customers otherwise. This kind of restriction should be a Part 2 Commerce Act offence.

Click on the map and you get the local rule. Here's a Large Format Retail Zone. Supermarkets are permitted in that zone, except at Homebase, where there is a prohibition on any larger supermarkets before 2031.

Maybe we should start with a teaser map, to get a flavour of where we got to before saying how we got there. Here's Christchurch. A 4000 sqm supermarket would be a permitted activity in the green places. Yellow and orange may prove difficult.

Submission on it is here. If you want to know why I oppose it, this is the best place to look. www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-...

I have written probably about a half dozen columns on this, as well as a submission. Privacy considerations are central. None of this is hard to find. Here is one. newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/07/s...

I'm probably the last one in this space to notice the problem. But I made it my Newsroom column for the week when I noticed it. Piece is now ungated. My concluding bit snipped below. newsroom.co.nz/2026/06/09/w...

DIA categorises its spending. Policy and Related Services is for spending that supports Ministers in policy development. Regulatory Services is for running regulatory services. 2025/26 had $1.2m for policy development. The new allocation is for regulatory services.

I had a hard time understanding how anyone could spend $6m in 2026/27, rising to $8.5m for 2028/29 and 29/30, just "to develop policy and possible regulatory options to improve children's online safety." I think the spending's going to be on implementation. Minor thread.

RBNZ splits out inflation by tradeable and non-tradeable components. Restrained monetary policy would have avoided the very sharp spike in the orange non-tradeable line. And effects through exchange rates would have reduced the rise in the blue line.

Here's Treasury's Core Crown Expense Classes. The line at the bottom is my addition. It says 'higher' if spending, as %GDP, was higher in 2025 than 2019. Recall that 2019 was Ardern-Robertson, pre-Covid. Which categories do you think represent 'donor driven austerity'?

One thing I love about writing for the Post: they don't strip out links or swap out links for semi-relevant stories from their own website. My piece in today's post: NZ's migration story isn't Europe's. Stop importing narratives that don't apply here. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

I thought a bit of perspective on datacentre water use could be worth the risk. Maximum draw for the new Southland datacentre is comparable to: - 80 hectares of vineyard - 60% of a meat works - a quarter of an average Canterbury irrigation consent - two waterparks - half an apple orchard.

I'd put some OIAs through on it. NZTA folks literally, on a Sunday, had to start work on a RUC abatement scheme to have something ready for Cabinet on the Monday. newsroom.co.nz/2022/06/20/t...

The National Policy Statement on Urban Development gave public transport providers a superpower. Set a mass transit node, and the 200 hectares around it gets upzoned, plausibly creating billions of dollars of development opportunities. Superpowers should be used. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

Amazing. And Saskatchewan's law remained in place until 1969.

The RBNZ is consulting about a proposal that it would not have statutory authority to undertake. I wish I better understood what the RBNZ thinks it is doing. It feels like ongoing governance failures. offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2026/04/acce...

Extensive @dileepafonseka.bsky.social interview with Alain Bertaud at BusinessDesk. Auckland's improved since Bertaud's last visit. I hope it will be even better on his next visit. businessdesk.co.nz/article/infr...

My Herald column in advance of last week's lecture by Alain Bertaud. A snippet here. And ungated at the Initiative's site: www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-...

A couple of years ago, NZ Politics was very worried that reduced excise on heated tobacco (less harmful than combusted) might cost ~$200m over four years. That figure required NZ to be importing about 3,900 kg heated tobacco per month by now. We imported less than that in total in 2025.

Prediction markets are not a casino. They are a tool for aggregating information, transferring risk, and generating knowledge that cannot otherwise exist. DIA should reconsider its decision. My column in yesterday's Post. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

Auckland's zoning allows roughly a million pie shops, give or take a couple hundred thousand. Look around. Do you see hundreds of thousands of pie shops? Obviously no. Zoning space for a couple million houses doesn't mean that many will be built. Me in The Post. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

Nah, we secretly control everybody by inviting them to have lunch with and talk to a couple dozen CEs and Chairs of our member companies. And even before I joined the Initiative when I lectured at Canterbury, I had Genter give a talk for the econ students on Don Shoup's work. Forward-thinking see.

1. I didn't know this; 2. This guy should have been named Ransom E.O. Speedwagon, not Robert.

This week's column in The Post gave me an excuse to email Joe Bennett for comment. An illicit cigarette vendor on Facebook Marketplace is purporting to be selling cartons of Bennett's book about bullshitting. "That's wonderful. Double Happiness as double irony." www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

My piece in today's Herald goes through one on the lessons from Canada's path to greater First Nations autonomy: starting small and learning as you go can have a lot of merit. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/the...

I simply cannot believe that any hapū signing onto the Treaty could have imagined that their descendants would wind up needing to travel to a council office miles away to beg permission to build things on their own land. Canada shows a path to this kind of rangatiratanga.