Policy Progress operates according to a publicly-available work programme, which sets out the reports it intends to produce over the coming year. We aim to produce 3-4 reports each year dealing with particular policy areas in a detailed way.

The work programme covers a period of approximately one year, although some topics may be ongoing over two (or more) work programmes.

Draft Work Programme for 2010

We are currently developing our work programme for the first year, and invite suggestions from our readers. This initial work programme will commence at the beginning of April 2010 and finish at the end of March 2011.

Three major themes are proposed for this initial work programme.

• A Progressive Path to Prosperity
• Theoretical Foundations
• The Fiscal Record of the Fifth Labour Government

A fourth proposed topic, for initial work and thinking in 2010 before developing into a major theme in 2011, is around child poverty and cycles of disadvantage.

A Progressive Path to Prosperity

There is widespread agreement that New Zealand’s economic performance, over a long period of time, has been much weaker than it ought to be – and that we need to do better in future. Prescriptions for improvement, however, often differ wildly about how to go about this.

This topic would proceed in two stages. The first, general stage would aim to identify a handful of challenges New Zealand needs to tackle. This would reflect features of the New Zealand economy that have contributed to lower levels of growth than comparable countries

The second stage would involve more detailed reports setting forth a progressive approach to addressing these specific challenges.

Theoretical Foundations

This topic would look at the theoretical underpinnings for the progressive critique of the free-market right, and for its alternative policy programme. How robust, well-grounded and logically consistent are they?

To what extent have the theoretical arguments used by progressives changed over the last few decades, and to what effect?

And what new theoretical insights are being developed today by a new generation of thinkers, perhaps influenced by the lessons from the financial crisis of 2007-08?

The Fiscal Record of the Fifth Labour Government

This topic would treat the Fifth Labour Government as a case study, from which we can gain insights into the challenges of fiscal management that the next progressive government will need to face.

The topic would look at what drove expenditure growth during the period. To what extent did some portfolios crowd out expenditure in other areas? What was the balance between discretionary and non-discretionary initiatives? What was the cost of simply ’standing still’ in terms of inflation and wage pressures? How might different choices on a few major spending areas have altered the government’s overall expenditure profile?

Process

Policy Progress welcomes feedback, both on ways of tackling these topics or on other issues that you see as more urgent and/or important.

You can do this via comments at the Policy Progress blog, either on the initial post introducing the work programme, or on subsequent posts on particular topics. Or by emailing us directly at workprogramme@policyprogress.org.nz.

We will close off feedback on this on Friday 26^th March, with a view to finalising our 2010 work programme at the beginning of April.