Different Matters by Damien Grant

Bariz Shah, originally from Afghanistan, grew up in New Zealand in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, grappling with a sense of identity shaped by the tension between his cultural roots and his new environment.

At age 18, Bariz ended up in an Auckland prison. He spiralled from schoolyard fights into crime and drugs - until prison made him rethink the story of his life.

Years later, in Christchurch, Bariz had turned everything around when a terrorist walked into the local mosque and took the lives of 51 people in his community. Driven by a new purpose, Bariz and his wife Saba raised money to return to Afghanistan and establish 51 small businesses in honour of those they lost.

In his memoir, Beyond Hope, he deals with finding self-belief, belonging and positive change.

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

For more interviews visit: https://www.differentmatters.co.nz/

Dr James Kierstead is a Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative focusing on higher education policy, including academic freedom.

James holds a BA in Classics from Oxford, an MA in Ancient History from the University of London, an MA in Political Science from Stanford and a PhD in Classics from Stanford.

He is also the co-host, along with Michael Johnston, of Free Kiwis!, a podcast dedicated to discussing free speech in a New Zealand context. 

In his recent report, Amazing Grades, Kierstead shows that Grade Inflation at New Zealand Universities is a problem.  

Between 2006 and 2024, the percentage of A grades (A+, A, A-) grew by 13 percentage points, from 22% of all grades to 35%. A grades spiked during COVID, with almost half (49%) of grades awarded at the University of Auckland in 2020 in the A range.  

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

For more interviews visit: https://www.differentmatters.co.nz/

One of New Zealand's most recognisable faces, Mike McRoberts was the TV anchor of the six o'clock news bulletin on Newshub for over two decades.

Damien Grant interviews Mike McRoberts about his book, Speaking My Language. For much of his life, Mike felt burdened by not knowing his own language - te reo Maori. Growing up at a time when te reo was scarcely spoken in daily conversations, and within a mixed-race family with little connection to Maoritanga, his experience mirrored that of many other New Zealanders.

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

For more interviews visit: https://www.differentmatters.co.nz/

Oliver is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative. Before joining the Initiative, he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, the Chief Economist at the Policy Exchange in London, and an advisor in the UK House of Lords.

According to Hartwich, "...more than half of New Zealanders think the country is going in the wrong direction. Trust in Parliament, the courts and the Reserve Bank has fallen sharply since 2021. What is broken?"

"The answer lies in the foundations we rarely notice. Prosperity rests on an invisible architecture. We notice air only when it is hard to breathe. We see institutions only when they fail." Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him. For more interviews visit: https://www.differentmatters.co.nz/

Benedict Collins is a political journalist working for 1News in the press gallery in Wellington. From his first days as a reporter, he's had a strong interest in covering anything to do with illicit drugs and enforcement.

He's covered punitive drug-testing sanctions applied to beneficiaries, the battle to legalise pill-testing at festivals, the 2020 cannabis referendum, and in 2018, helped expose a meth-testing scandal that had government, landlords and homeowners wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.

Benedict's book on the subject, Mad on Meth: How New Zealand Got Hooked on P was published in 2023. Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

For more interviews visit: https://www.differentmatters.co.nz/

Dr Barbara Oakley is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University. She conducts research on learning, cognition, and educational practices, bringing insights from neuroscience and psychology into the classroom. A New York Times bestselling author, she has written and co-authored numerous books, including A Mind for Numbers, Learning How to Learn, Mindshift, and Uncommon Sense Teaching. Her work has been featured in outlets as varied as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 

In her book, Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend, Barbera with psychology as a frame of reference, Oakley uses cutting-edge images of the working brain to provide startling support for the idea that “evil” people act the way they do mainly as the result of a dysfunction. In fact, some deceitful, manipulative, and even sadistic behavior appears to be programmed genetically—suggesting that some people really are born to be bad.

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

For more interviews visit: https://www.differentmatters.co.nz/
For the interview video visit: https://www.youtube.com/@DifferentMattersbyDamienGrant 

Musa al-Gharbi is an American sociologist. He is an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. 

Al-Gharbi is the author of the 2024 book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, a study of the history and political economy of the knowledge professions from the interwar period through the present, published by Princeton University Press.

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

Wood left high school early, associating with drugs and violence, committing crimes to maintain his habit. At 18 years old, he went to prison in Paremoremo Prison for murdering his 42 year old drug dealer, after he attempted to sexually assault Wood. Wood was convicted of murder and served 11 years in prison.

Wood's mother passed away three days before the murder. He served part of his sentence in Paremoremo Prison, which he described as "New Zealand’s toughest facility."

Wood completed his undergraduate and master's degrees while imprisoned, and he commenced a PhD, which he completed in 2011. He is the first New Zealander to have achieved both feats. In 2019 he published a biography titled, How to Escape from Prison.

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

David "Chook" Henwood is one of the country's most decorated and respected police officers, who served for 37 years in South Auckland before retiring in 2007. He held the rank of Detective Sergeant and was awarded a record three silver merit awards during his time as an officer.

Henwood was an early and, for a time, relatively lone voice in proclaiming the innocence of Teina Pora for the 1992 rape and murder of Susan Burdett - whose conviction would, 20 years later, be overturned in one of the country's most high profile cases of a miscarriage of justice.

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.

Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union (New Zealand) has worked in Wellington for 8 years across roles as a Beehive staffer, senior political advisor, and in the NGO sector.

Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.