Welcome to this new issue of Policy Quarterly (PQ). We hope you find the new format appealing and accessible. With the recent retirement and resignation of various academic staff in the School of Government and the appointment and five new staff members, we have taken the opportunity to refresh the editorial board of PQ. Paul Callister remains on the board, and is joined by four new members: Dr David Bromell, Dr Valentina Dinica, Dr Michael Di Francesco and Dr Mike McGinnis. I am very grateful to those who have contributed their services to PQ in the recent past (i.e. editing and reviewing submissions) and those who have offered to assist during the next few years.

I would also like to thank the School of Government Trust for its generous agreement to fund the bulk of the direct costs of publishing PQ for the next three years. This places PQ on a firm financial footing and significantly reduces the extent to which the IPS will need to seek other sources of funding.

As we enter 2010 and a new decade, there is a plethora of important international and domestic policy issues confronting New Zealand. On the global front, critical issues include the regulation of financial markets, managing the large fiscal deficits that have arisen in the wake of the financial crisis in late 2008 and early 2009 (and the related risks of default in the case of certain European countries), and responding to the rise of China as an economic giant (including the related issues of trade, exchange rate management and global economic governance).

Addressing the consequences of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen will also be high on the agenda. Plainly, progress was much less than many had hoped. Accordingly, the immediate prospects of the global community successfully concluding a new, legally-binding multilateral agreement (whether a Kyoto-plus or a new protocol) to take effect when the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012 are now poor. In the medium-term, of course, much will depend on domestic policy developments in the US: if the Senate eventually passes legislation establishing a comprehensive and effective emissions trading scheme, then there is a reasonable chance of negotiating a satisfactory multilateral post- 2012 arrangement; but if not, then the days of relying on multilateral approaches to mitigate climate change look bleak. Instead, there may be no alternative but to rely on a bottom-up approach, based on domestic, bilateral and regional arrangements. These are most unlikely to deliver the level of emission reductions that many leading scientist consider necessary if we are to avoid dangerous climate change – partly because national targets will lack stringency, and partly because there will be insufficient incentives for investment in green technologies.

This issue of PQ includes brief perspectives on the Copenhagen conference from five contributors: Phil O’Reilly (the chief executive of Business New Zealand), Peter Neilson (the chief executive of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development), Mark Belton (the managing director of Permanent Forests International, and a leading expert on forestry issues), Paul Melville (a policy analyst with the Fonterra Cooperative Group) and Geoff Keey (the political advisor for Greenpeace New Zealand). As these contributions highlight, the Copenhagen conference was not a complete failure, with good progress on a number of important issues – especially on measures to address deforestation and the establishment of the Global Alliance to address greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector. The problem, of course, will be how to maintain the momentum on these issues if the wider negotiating framework remains highly uncertain. This issue of PQ also includes contributions on four other important issues. Terry Stokes, the head of the School of Government, discusses the relative weighting of research and teaching in universities and suggests changes to the performance-based research fund (PBRF) in the interests of ensuring that applied research is not disadvantaged. Susan St John considers the recent controversy over the full-funding of accident compensation in New Zealand and argues that the current policy framework is misguided. Christina Hood evaluates the National-led government’s key change to the emissions trading scheme at the end of 2009, namely the shift from historical grand-parenting of free units to an uncapped production-based allocation, and questions the fiscal sustainability, equity and environmental effectiveness of the new policy. Finally, in the context of the current review of the legislation governing electoral finance, Alec Mladenovic explores the philosophical principles that should guide how democracies regulate the funding of political parties and electoral campaigns. Fundamentally, he argues that more attention needs to be given to the principle of political equality, in particular the norm of equal opportunities for political influence.

A variety of important policy issues will be canvassed in future issues of PQ, including the likelihood of special issues addressing the following subjects: regulatory policy frameworks and the advantages and disadvantages of a Regulatory Responsibility Act; the funding and consequences of infrastructure investment; ethics and public policy; political finance and related constitutional issues; and health policy issues. Papers on other policy-related matters are, of course, always welcome.

Jonathan Boston