Opinion: NZ Defence costs the government $16.4m a day – that money could be better spent elsewhere, such as education, health care inequity, and the climate crisis.

Opinion: Many NZ cancer patients will die waiting on National's failed election promise to fund 13 new drugs they said they'd do so in their first Budget.

OPINION: Moving away from university-based teacher education has the potential to undermine the profession by disconnecting teachers from education research.

Opinion: Negative political language can undermine trust in political institutions and leaders, and can lead people to become more cynical and distrustful of the political system:.

OPINION: Inflation is a key issue for Finance Minister Nicola Willis to address in this week’s Budget. Dr Murat Ungor of Otago's Department of Economics on inflation and the cost of living:.

Why does our small, remote country have such a costly defence force? Is this investment rendering it fit for purpose – and in 2024, what is that purpose?. Otago's Marie Russell on defence spending:.

Want to hear more? Please join us for a launch of a new book examining the foreign policy of Jacinda Ardern's New Zealand Government: 

OPINION: The years of former PM Jacinda Ardern’s global popularity presented an opportunity for NZ to influence the world on some of the most pressing & enduring, global challenges. Has that chance been squandered?. Peter Grace and Robert Patman weigh in:.

Opinion: Stronger vape retailer monitoring and enforcement is needed in NZ to reduce underage vaping. Identifying supply routes such as older friends, siblings and dodgy retailers offer important insights into new policy measures to reduce youth access.

OPINION: New Zealand’s decision to no longer offer free influenza vaccines for all children under 12 will likely wipe out recent gains in uptake.

A new Otago-led study has uncovered the origins of a mysterious lineage of mergansers - riverine and coastal fish-eating ducks predominantly found in the Northern Hemisphere - in Aotearoa: 

Almost one in five emergency department presentations are by mental health clients, and more needs to be done to improve services, a University of Otago, Wellington, study has found.

Opinion: Cancer survival rates have significantly improved during the past few decades, but survivorship not only entails surviving the disease, it also involves surviving the health system:.

While most people were looking up at the night sky and enjoying the aurora display, Otago physicists were working to implement a system they designed to protect NZ's power grid from overloading and collapsing due to the solar storm's geomagnetic effects:.

The highly infectious H5N1 avian virus has now spread globally to all continents except Oceania. Otago's Professor Jemma Geoghegan explains what this means for Aotearoa New Zealand, its wildlife and potential human transmission:.

OPINION: ADHD is under-diagnosed and under-treated in Aotearoa NZ, perpetuated by equity issues and barriers such as restricted accessibility in the public sector and expensive assessment costs in the private sector.

Ngā mihi nui to Otago's HDGC Research Group for receiving the prestigious Prime Minister’s Science Prize at parliament tonight!. The group discovered the gene that causes inherited stomach cancer, significantly improving treatment of the disease globally.

Aotearoa’s health system must improve cultural integration practices for international doctors or risk losing them, a University of Otago study argues.

MDMA consumers in Aotearoa carry out harm reduction practices relatively frequently, with the most common reason for not using drug-checking services being the lack of availability in people's local area or at relevant events, according to new Otago study:.

From online abuse to threats of sexual violence – harassment of New Zealand’s parliamentarians is on the rise, and becoming increasingly disturbing, Otago research shows:.