thenewzealandinitiative@gmail.com
For verified host and producer emails, sign up to view.
Booking Overview
Metrics
Episodes: 360
Frequency: Multiple_weekly
Rating: 4.7/5.0
Estimated listeners: <1k
Gender skew: Male
Location: New Zealand
YouTube: 1.7k subscribers
Contact Information
thenewzealandinitiative@gmail.com
For verified host and producer emails, sign up to view.
Host
Michael Johnston - Education policy researcher and senior fellow at The New Zealand Initiative.
Oliver Hartwich - Economist and executive director of The New Zealand Initiative.
Booking Intelligence
Booking Requirements
Recent Guest Discussions
Doug Blackmur - The Development Of NCEA, Changes To The Qualification Model, Grade Inflation, Independent Assessment And The System Replacing Ncea.
Ben Stallworthy - The Changing Character Of Modern Warfare, Drone Warfare, Ukraine’s Strategy, Strikes On Russian Infrastructure And The Implications For Europe And Liberal Democracies.
John Howard - Global Security Developments, China’s Submarine-launched Ballistic Missile Demonstration, NATO, Regional Security And New Zealand’s National Security System.
Recent Topics
Episodes
Free to Disagree: Are voters just going on vibes?
August 07, 2026
Free to Disagree is a weekly conversation about New Zealand politics and economics with Oliver Hartwich and Damien Grant. Two friends on broadly the same side of politics who find plenty to disagree about anyway. Each week they discuss three big issues, leading up to the election. In this episode they start with the economy, where unemployment is at its highest since 2015 and inflation is running hot, so what should the Reserve Bank do? They turn to TOP, polling at 8 per cent when almost nob...
Why the West has forgotten how to think about history
August 04, 2026
In this episode, Oliver talks with Dr Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, associate professor of history at the Australian Catholic University, about why the West has largely lost the ability to think meaningfully about its own past. She calls this the ahistoric age and argues that the statues we topple and the national days we fight over are evidence of it rather than signs of real engagement with history.
No off-ramp in the Iran conflict and what it costs New Zealand
July 30, 2026
In this episode, Oliver talks with John Howard, senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative, about why he sees no negotiated settlement over Iran in the next 30 to 60 days, and what prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz exposes about New Zealand's fuel and fertiliser supply. They also ask whether the increase in defence spending from 1.1 to 2 per cent of GDP is being converted into actual hardware and personnel, and assess Defence Minister Chris Penk's opening months in the job, inclu...
Try us risk free with a FREE 3 days trial.
Join hundreds of PR teams using Podseeker to pitch and land bookings
