Methodology

How this document works

NZ to Utopia is a collaboratively-edited policy document hosted on GitHub. It uses Git version control, which means:

• Every change is tracked — You can see the full history of edits, who made them, and why
• Anyone can propose changes — Via GitHub pull requests
• Changes are reviewed — Community members discuss and review proposals before they're merged
• Nothing is lost — Previous versions are always accessible

Document structure

The document is organised into numbered sections, each covering a major policy area. Sections have sub-pages for specific topics. The structure is defined in a manifest file that controls navigation order.

Status indicators

Each section has a status indicator:

• Draft — Initial content that needs significant development and review
• In review — Substantive content that is being actively discussed and refined
• Published — Content that has been through community review and represents a reasonably stable position

"Published" doesn't mean "finished" — all sections remain open to improvement.

Contributing

1. Read a section that interests you
2. Click "Edit this page on GitHub" at the bottom of any page
3. Propose your changes — GitHub will guide you through creating a pull request
4. Discuss — Community members will review and discuss your proposal
5. Merge — Accepted changes are published automatically

For broader discussion, use GitHub Discussions.

Policy as hypothesis

This document treats every policy recommendation as a hypothesis — a testable claim about what will produce good outcomes for New Zealand. This is described in the Introduction under "The scientific method for policy" and shapes how content should be written:

• State the hypothesis — "We believe [policy X] will produce [outcome Y] because [reasoning Z]"
• Define success metrics — What would we measure to know if the policy is working?
• Specify a timeline — When should we expect to see results?
• Identify risks — What could go wrong, and how would we detect it early?

Contributors are encouraged to frame their proposals this way. It makes the document more rigorous and more useful to actual policy-makers.

Open source simulations

Where possible, policy proposals in this document should be backed by computational models — agent-based simulations, economic models, labour market projections — that test the hypothesis before advocating for real-world implementation.

Approach:

• Open-source simulation code published in the nz-to-utopia GitHub org
• Calibrated with real NZ economic data (Stats NZ, Treasury, MBIE, OECD)
• Results embedded in the relevant content sections alongside the policies they test
• Interactive — readers can explore parameters and scenarios via Observable notebooks
• Auditable — anyone can inspect the models, challenge assumptions, fork and improve

Starting simple: a basic labour market transition model showing employment shifts under different policy scenarios. Expanding from there as contributors with modelling expertise join.

Principles for contributions

• Cite sources — Link to evidence, data, and research where possible
• Be specific — Concrete policy suggestions over vague aspirations
• Consider equity — How does your proposal affect different communities?
• Be constructive — Challenge ideas, not people
• Respect te ao Maori — Consider Treaty obligations and Maori perspectives

Licensing

Content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. This means anyone can share and adapt the content, provided they give credit and share under the same terms.