The New Zealand Initiative

The Charities Amendment Bill is currently before Parliament, but it is flawed and full of unintended consequences. As promised in the Labour Party manifesto, charities in New Zealand are demanding a proper first principles review with a better process and more public participation. This week's podcast is a conversation between Oliver Hartwich and Sue Barker, a charity law expert, about the growing...

Director of Economics for the Infrastructure Commission, Peter Nunns, talks to Eric Crampton, Chief Economist for The New Zealand Initiative, about his research on the cost to deliver infrastructure in New Zealand and the need to improve the efficiency of our infrastructure sector, rather than only focusing on broadening the funding and financing options available to it. For more, please read the...

Resilient infrastructure is crucial for protecting people during disasters and ensuring that communities can bounce back quickly in the aftermath of a crisis. Two powerful examples of this can be seen in New Zealand's response to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and, more recently, Cyclone Gabrielle. However, with the high cost of repairs that will be needed, the government will need to find the f...

The Initiative team has welcomed a new addition to their team with the appointment of Benjamin Macintyre as a Research Assistant. Benjamin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Politics, International Studies, and Italian, and brings a fresh perspective to the team, with a focus on traditional political theory, modern political issues, international institutions, international political economy, and Italian...

In this week's podcast we are diving into the much-anticipated policy shift announced by the country's new Prime Minister. The speculation has been building for months, with many wondering what policies will be scrapped and which ones will remain. In this episode, we dissect the Cabinet's first reprioritisations - everything from the biofuel mandate, free speech, the Social Unemployment Scheme, Th...

In this week's podcast The New Zealand Initiative's chief economist, Dr Eric Crampton, chats with Christian van der Pump about building regulations, fire safety and the causes of 'market failure' in the building industry. Christian van der Pump is a professional engineer with qualifications in chemistry, engineering and economics. He is doing a PhD in market failure in the construction industry ac...

In this week's podcast The New Zealand Initiative's chief economist, Dr Eric Crampton, chats with Jonathan Alve, National Operations Manager at Hospitality New Zealand, about proposed amendments to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act and the challenges these may hold for licence holders.

Holly Gooch is part of the KiwiNet Emerging Innovator programme to progress a project to help twice-exceptional secondary students. Michael Johnston sat down with Holly to talk about her PhD research project.

Josie Pagani interviews Oliver Hartwich about the state of the nation in this week's Initiative podcast.

Michael Johnston sat down with Emma Chatterton, Strategic Project Lead at ImpactLab, to discuss her experience gaining registration and certification as an overseas-trained teacher. In addition, they discuss how New Zealand might improve teacher supply through immigration, and the country's growing truancy rate.

New Zealand's immigration system is cracking under pressure. A lack of staff, a shambolic IT system, and new government policies that bamboozle applicants are creating unnecessary stress for migrants, and long delays around simple work visa applications that once made their way through the system with ease are causing issues for employers. Oliver Hartwich and Eric Crampton talk with June Ranson, C...

Oliver Hartwich chats with Christoph Schumacher about the Official Cash Rate, inflation, the Taylor Rule, and the new GDP Live tool that provides real-time New Zealand GDP tracking. To help fund the incredible GDP Live tracker contact Christoph at c.schumacher@massey.ac.nz.

Victoria University's Associate Professor Martien Lubberink specialises in banking regulation. In Newsroom, Prof Lubberink warns of unintended consequences of setting extra taxes on current bank profits. He talks about bank profitability, regulation, and taxes, with Eric Crampton and Bryce Wilkinson. Link: Newsroom. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/corporate/taxing-banks-excessive-profits-be-careful-wha...

Josie Pagani and Oliver Hartwich discuss the state of the nation

James Kierstead and Michael Johnston discuss the results of a second pilot for literacy and numeracy assessments, as well as an upcoming survey on the extent to which university students are willing to express their ideas.

Oliver Hartwich and Eric Crampton discuss how the government is preventing overseas supermarkets from entering the New Zealand market.

Are international students subsidising the education of domestic students in Australian universities – or is it the other way around? Why does Australia have quite so many international students anyway? Does China post a real risk to academic freedom in Australia? And how might Australia’s universities be reformed? In this wide-ranging interview about his recent book Australia’s Universities: Can...

Oliver Hartwich chats with ACT’s Transport and Climate Change spokesperson Simon Court about the Clean Car Scheme and how it's adding bureaucracy, not reducing emissions.

In this episode Michael Johnston hosts Oliver Hartwich and Eric Crampton to discuss various European crises and how New Zealand should be learning from, and not repeating, the European mistakes.

Ideology rather than evidence is the basis for the Ministry of Education’s (MoE) ‘Modern Leaning Environments’, research by The New Zealand Initiative has revealed. Dr Oliver Hartwich and Dr Michael Johnston discuss the fact that a government ministry could not produce data to support its policy for mass conversion of New Zealand’s classrooms to Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) and other fi...

Michael Johnston talked to leadership coach Kate Morton of Transformation Space about leadership in organisations and self-leadership as an antidote to anxiety. They also discussed the implications of Kate’s work for addressing rising levels of anxiety in teenagers and your people.

Dr Eric Crampton interviews Scott Wilson in this follow up interview to their discussion about transport funding and getting roads built. In this episode they talk about the history of how New Zealand funded and financed roads, and the structures of getting roads approved.

Are Māori dying earlier because they are Māori? Do Māori lead less healthy lives because they are being discriminated against? And how much racism is there in the New Zealand health system? These are the questions at the heart of a new report by Senior Fellow Dr Bryce Wikinson. Bryce researched claims made by the Government that systemic racism is to blame for poor Māori health outcomes. And he al...

Oliver Hartwich is joined by Retail NZ CEO, Greg Harford, to discuss the pressures retailers are facing in the current economic climate - crime, inflation, fair pay agreements, increasing costs of doing business, labour shortages, and Covid.

Oliver Hartwich talks with Professor David Rozado from Otago Polytechnic about his research in positive/negative sentiment words and terms loaded with political connotations in academia and news/opinion articles from news media outlets.