My former Parliamentary colleague Muriel Newman’s website gets better every week, with ever increasing content. She’s drawing columns from some of New Zealand’s most bold or thoughtful critics. This year’s have included David Bellamy, Tim Shadbolt, Christine Rankin, Mike Moore, Karl du Fresne, John Boscawen and international heavyweight Richard Epstein. To me, Epstein’s short piece on the “mystery” of our poor productivity hits the nail on the head.

It matches my observations as a lawyer, and employer and a company director. It’s simple. There are too many laws making it painful and risky to be an employer. We must employ but we consume our marginal energy avoiding trouble.

Anti-leftists raised on a now-abandoned Sunday church habit could feed an itch by logging in for a weekly sermon and some rousing consciousness raising on Muriel’s site. Or sign up for her weekly email reminder of the devil’s work over the previous week.