The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: Tax Lies, Perverse Pay Packets and Social Media Meltdowns

   Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson, Cross Party Lines returns in a week dominated by tax promises nobody can keep, a CEO pay packet that defies all decency and a rare moment of cross-party agreement on social media and children that both men want to see survive the campaign. All thanks to Frank Risk Management - the 100% Kiwi owned insurance brokerage and proudly the foundational partner of Cross Party Lines. In this episode: * The tax debate nobody’s having honestly — National is running a campaign claiming Labour will introduce nine to eleven new taxes. Labour is talking about one: capital gains. But Phil is equally unsparing about his own side — jumping on the bandwagon to promise no fuel excise increase, regardless of the road maintenance bill that creates, is not honest politics either. Chris reaches back to George H.W. Bush’s “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge — delivered in New Orleans in 1988, broken within two years for entirely good economic reasons — as the canonical warning against definitive promises in election campaigns. * $30 million for a CEO while the stock tanks — and what it says about corporate governance — The revelation that a major New Zealand CEO received $30 million in remuneration while the company’s share price was falling prompts one of the more animated exchanges of the episode. Phil draws a direct line between runaway executive pay, the collapse of faith in institutions, and the rise of populism. Chris is equally blunt: a board that approves that package while the stock is declining has failed its most basic governance responsibility. * Social media, children and a rare cross-party moment worth protecting — In the episode’s most substantive segment, Phil and Chris give a thorough and genuinely cross-partisan treatment to the social media age restriction bill. Phil went away and read the expert literature: psychologists documenting compulsive and addictive platform design, decreased attention spans, social isolation, predators and paedophiles operating with industrial efficiency online, and mothers at overseas protests holding photographs of children who took their own lives after being bullied. Australia’s under-16 ban hasn’t been perfectly enforced — 70% of banned children found workarounds — but as Phil argues, an imperfect solution to a real problem is not a reason to do nothing. Cross Party Lines exists to lift political literacy and create space for calm, good-faith political conversation. New episodes every Tuesday. If you value thoughtful debate, follow the podcast and share it with someone who might too. 🎙 Next episode live from Christchurch — Word Festival, 6 September. Sold out, but follow us so you don’t miss the recording. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crosspartylines.substack.com

   August 31, 2026·50min
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   Number 2: Vacuum in the Pacific and Lies on the Billboards (Live at WORD Christchurch)

   Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson, Cross Party Lines takes to the stage at The Piano in Christchurch for a sold out live episode that opens with a tribute to the resilience of Cantabrians and closes with a plea to get on the electoral roll before 25 October. In between: the Pacific being carved up by superpowers, an election campaign built on little lies and big lies, and the strategic questions nobody in Wellington wants to answer. All thanks to Frank Risk Management - The 100% Kiwi Owned Insurance Brokerage. In this episode: * The Pacific — neglected, militarised and handed to China on a plate — Phil’s account of the Pacific Island Forum in Palau is forensic and sobering. Five leaders stayed away — all from countries with close Chinese ties — in what Phil reads as geostrategic interference turning a forum for Pacific solidarity into a proxy battleground between Washington and Beijing. The Cook Islands leveraged China against the United States and got $100 million for a port on Penrhyn — an island of a few hundred people with a deep harbour that can take warships. Chris and Phil agree on the diagnosis: for generations New Zealand neglected the islands, failed to build the courthouse in Samoa, paid peanuts in compensation for the Rena, and now wonders why China has filled the vacuum. * Election lies, ACT’s contradictions and promises that will never be kept — Chris invokes what he calls the principle of political attribution: if you’re going to say Labour is responsible for every tax floated by the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and the Opportunities Party, then National must own the BNZ nationalisation, Paul Henry’s $2 billion cancer hospitals and every other coalition promise. Phil is blunter: Simeon Brown’s nine-taxes campaign is an absolute bloody lie, and he says so to a Christchurch audience that appears to agree. The ACT policy to abolish the Māori and Pasifika medical school admissions scheme draws Phil’s sharpest domestic argument of the episode: David Seymour was asked why racial discrimination applies to Māori and Pasifika entry but not to rural students. Both Phil and Chris are scathing about the race to the bottom on tax promises, with Phil noting that two-thirds of New Zealanders say they’d happily pay more tax for a health system they can rely on — and asking why no major party is listening. * The audience takes over — strategic planning, superannuation and the antidote to populism — The Christchurch audience doesn’t hold back. The standout question of the night comes from the floor: how, under a three-year parliamentary term, does New Zealand ever achieve long-term strategic planning on infrastructure, immigration and an ageing population? Phil draws the direct lesson from Auckland’s $200 million wasted on light rail planning — scrapped by an incoming government — and argues that long-term projects need genuine cross-party buy-in from the start. Chris backs a revived Commissioner for the Future, abolished by Muldoon in 1983, as the structural answer. On superannuation, Phil raises the question both major parties refuse to touch: life expectancy has risen ten years since the retirement age was set at 65, he worked until he was 71, and he was still drawing a pension while doing so. On the trade agreements question — a Cantabrian asks why the government is walking back its climate commitments under the EU and UK FTAs. And on populism, Phil and Chris deliver their clearest joint statement of the season: the antidote is not rhetoric, it is major parties performing — delivering for the broader community, not just their own tribe, and being honest about the cost of doing so. Cross Party Lines exists to lift political literacy and create space for calm, good-faith political conversation. New episodes every Tuesday. If you value thoughtful debate, follow the podcast and share it with someone who might too. 📋 Not on the electoral roll? Enrol before 25 October or your vote won’t count. Don’t let anyone you know get disenfranchised. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crosspartylines.substack.com

   September 07, 2026·1h
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   Number 3: Live Q&A: New Zealand's Greatest Mistake, the Foreshore Lie and Who's Worst

   Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson with special guests Helen Clark and Tracey Martin, this bonus episode brings together the questions from the live Q&A sessions at both the Auckland Q Theatre and Wellington Hannah Playhouse shows. All thanks to Frank Risk Management, the 100% Kiwi owned insurance brokerage. The audience asks, the panel answers: * What was New Zealand’s biggest missed political opportunity? — Phil and Chris are in rare and emphatic agreement: Sir Robert Muldoon winding up the Kirk government’s superannuation scheme in 1975 — for short-term political advantage — is the single most costly decision in New Zealand’s modern history. * Energy, health, the Crown-Māori relationship and urgency in Parliament — The audience covers the waterfront. On energy: all three panellists back pumped hydro over an LNG terminal, and Phil draws a line connecting Malcolm Turnbull’s climate pragmatism to what New Zealand’s current government is getting catastrophically wrong. * AI, trans rights, capital gains tax and the Opportunities Party — The rapid-fire second half covers the issues the audience most wanted answered. On AI: Tracey always says please and thank you to AI, because when they take over the world she intends to be fine; Phil is more concerned about the military applications. Along the way: a four-year term referendum that never happened and probably should have, Chris’s view that the Intelligence and Security Committee should be chaired by a senior opposition MP rather than the Prime Minister, why the UK delegation that came to study New Zealand’s select committee process now has a better system than we do. Cross Party Lines exists to lift political literacy and create space for calm, good-faith political conversation. New episodes every Tuesday. If you value thoughtful debate, follow the podcast and share it with someone who might too. 🎙 Christchurch is next — part of the Word Festival, second week of September. Tickets at word.co.nz. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crosspartylines.substack.com

   August 17, 2026·42min
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   Number 4: Penk, Peters and Citizens Arrests (LIVE with Tracey Martin)

   Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson, Cross Party Lines goes live at the Hannah Playhouse in Wellington — sold out in a week — with a very special guest: Tracey Martin, former deputy leader of New Zealand First, former Minister for Seniors and Children, and current CEO of the Aged Care Association. An episode that moves from the psychodrama of National’s leadership crisis to the slow-motion crisis in aged care — with an insider’s account of life in the New Zealand First caucus along the way. Thanks for Frank Risk Management, New Zealand 100% Kiwi-owned insurance brokerage - find out more at frankrisk.co.nz. In this episode: * National’s leadership crisis — Penk’s defenestration and what comes next — Phil walks through the numbers with forensic clarity: Luxon is lucky to be standing. The week that preceded the vote was arguably the worst of his premiership — the small business comments, the MMP referendum blurt, the Air Force plane to a party fundraiser, wages up 2% against inflation at 4.1%. Chris is blunt about Chris Penk: a good minister, probably not the only one involved, and now made an example pour encourager les autres. Tracey offers the most nuanced reading: what if Penk was genuinely motivated by loyalty to the party and believed a new leader would save the election? * Inside the New Zealand First caucus — and was the Peters outburst planned? — Tracey Martin spent years as one of the most senior figures in New Zealand First, and she doesn’t pull her punches. She describes her own caucus colleagues as occasionally weird — but notes that every caucus has weird people, because weird people deserve representation too. On Peters telling Lawrence Xu-Nan to go back to his own country: she had her husband check the Hansard. All Lawrence said was “are you vaccinated?” What followed was not planned — but that, she argues, might be the more alarming conclusion. * Citizens’ arrest, aged care and the promises nobody can afford — The episode’s final stretch is its most policy-dense. Chris dissects the Crimes Amendment Act’s enhanced citizens’ arrest powers: who decides what constitutes reasonable force? What happens when a 40-year-old man sits on a 15-year-old child? Phil cites the Police Association, Retail New Zealand and Business New Zealand all opposing it — because all the evidence shows that fatalities in retail crime happen when retailers chase or tackle offenders. Tracey adds the constitutional concern: the law says you can detain someone if you merely think they did it. On aged care — Tracy’s professional domain — the warning is stark: superannuation is the base funding model for all residential age care in this country. TOP’s policy of transitioning away from superannuation was designed without understanding that, and she has had to explain the consequences to them herself. Along the way: Tim Groser performing with Sam Neill at Downstage in its heyday, Annette King messaging Chris to be nice to her cousin Tracey, Chris describing himself as Captain Smack in National Party circles, Count Binface polling between 20 and 30% in Clacton and Tracy’s observation that misogynists exist in every party — not just New Zealand First. Cross Party Lines exists to lift political literacy and create space for calm, good-faith political conversation. New episodes every Tuesday. If you value thoughtful debate, follow the podcast and share it with someone who might too. 🎙 Wellington sold out. Christchurch is next — second week of September as part of the Word Christchurch Festival. Tickets available now at wordchristchurch.co.nz. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crosspartylines.substack.com

   August 15, 2026·1h 7min
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   Number 5: Hospital Crisis, Dirty Money and Trumps Midterm Nightmare

   Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson, Cross Party Lines returns to its usual programming for an episode that is almost entirely about the health of democracy itself: in New Zealand’s hospitals, in its political donation system, in its local body elections and in the United States with 74 days to go. Thanks to Frank Risk Management, the 100% Kiwi owned insurance brokerage. Get more info at frankrisk.co.nz. In this episode: * Health, housing and the election’s tier-one issues — Phil opens with a forensic and at times furious account of New Zealand’s hospital emergency departments: patients waiting up to fifty hours for a bed, wards operating at two to three hundred percent capacity, people in acute pain sitting in bright lights unable to sleep. Chris adds property rights as his personal tier-one issue — invoking the OECD Secretary General Matthias Cormann’s argument that the rule of law is the single most important ingredient in a wealthy, functioning economy, and connecting it to the greyhound racing shutdown, the MACA amendment and sixty Treaty settlements he signed. * Cleaning up New Zealand politics — donations, lobbying, ballot theft and postal voting — Phil walks through a list of reforms both men broadly support: a Parliamentary Budget Office (Labour has now officially adopted it as policy, prompting an alleluia from Chris); a lobbyists’ register; a strengthened Official Information Act with real enforcement; and caps on political donations. The $245,000 donated by thoroughbred breeder Peter Feller to New Zealand First — whose leader is the Minister of Racing — and the half-million from Graham Hart to the National Party are held up as symptoms of a system that allows money to buy access in ways that undermine equality. * Trump’s five outrages and the American midterms taking shape — With 74 days until the US election, Phil delivers five rapid-fire outrages: threatening to bomb Oman — an American ally; curtailing military exercises with South Korea to avoid offending Kim Jong-un; doing nothing about Netanyahu rejecting his own peace envoy’s plan; losing his Supreme Court appeal on the E Jean Carroll sexual abuse case; and fleeing a purported Iranian assassination plot via catering van while leaving Marco Rubio and the entire press corps on Air Force One as a decoy — accompanied only by the woman who types his Truth Social posts. Chris notes Iowa — reliably Trump country — is now in play because of soybean tariffs, that Susan Collins is vulnerable in Maine, and that Trump’s approval has dropped from 52% at inauguration to 33% in the Reuters poll. The independents are leaving. The farmers are hurting. And a proper midterm conversation with a guest is being planned. Cross Party Lines exists to lift political literacy and create space for calm, good-faith political conversation. New episodes every Tuesday. If you value thoughtful debate, follow the podcast and share it with someone who might too. 🎟 Christchurch Word Festival — 6 September. Tickets available now at wordchristchurch.co.nz This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crosspartylines.substack.com

   August 24, 2026·52min
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