Colin James

Colin James was first a Trustee of the Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust (from 2004), and chair from 2006 until 2012. Between July 2015 and July 2016 he acted as Interim Chair of the Motu Foundation Board.

Colin is a political journalist of more than 35 years experience and political columnist of the year in 2003. He has correctly forecast which party would be or would lead the government after 12 of the past 13 elections. He writes a weekly column in the Otago Daily Times and a monthly column in Management Magazine. He is New Zealand correspondent for Oxford Analytica. He is a senior associate of the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington and until recently was Managing Director of the Hugo Group. He makes presentations on the strategic environment to companies, industry associations, government departments and other groups.

Colin has written six books plus several editions of a guide to journalists covering elections and many chapters in books and has written or edited six books or monographs for the Institute of Policy Studies.

He has contributed many papers to seminars, conferences and symposiums in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and has held several university fellowships, including JD Stout Research Fellow at Victoria University in 1991 and inaugural New Zealand Fellow at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne University in 1993.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Victoria University in 2008. He is a fellow of the Institute of Public Administration and a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union.