Dr Eric Crampton is the Chief Economist at The New Zealand Initiative and previously served for over a decade as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Canterbury.

In this episode Eric and Damien discuss the book, How the Dismal Science Got Its Name, by David M. Levy.

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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

Philip Matthews is a senior journalist, reviewer and editorial writer whose work has appeared in the NZ Listener, Metro, Sunday Star-Times, Landfall, The Press, The Wire, The Spinoff and a host of other publications during his 25 years in the business.

For more than 10 years he was an award-winning film reviewer for the NZ Listener, with two stints as the magazine’s arts and books editor.

Damien interviewed Philip Mattews about his book, The Quiet Hero: Andrew Bagshaw.

Genetic scientist Andrew Bagshaw put his life on hold to help the people of Ukraine. His selfless actions would save some 500 lives, but cost him his life.

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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

Joe Bennett is one of New Zealands most highly decorated columnists and has won the New Zealand Colomnist Award of the Year multiple times. 

Born in England, Joe Bennett has lived in New Zealand since 1987.

Thirteen collections of his columns have been published in New Zealand and three world-wide. He has had four travel books published by Simon and Schuster UK, and his work has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Greek and American. Where Underpants Come From was the Whitcoulls Travcom Travel Book of the Year in 2009.

 His novel, King Rich, is set in the ruins of Christchurch after the 2011 quakes, and spent five weeks at #1 on the NZ Fiction Best Seller list. ​His memoir From There to Here was published by Harper Collins in May 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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

Jordan Henry Williams (born 1986) is New Zealand lawyer best known for his political activities, which are often connected to the National or ACT parties, and his lobbying for liberal and conservative causes.

Jordan is also one of the cofounders of the Taxpayers Union which recently celebrated its ten years in existance.

Gareth Thomas Llewelyn Hughes is a New Zealand activist, Political Commentator, and a former politician of the Green Party. He was a member of the New Zealand Parliament for eleven years, from 2010 to 2020.

He is also the author of the book, A Gentle Radical, The Life of Jeanette Fitzsimons. Join me as I speak to Gareth about Jeanette's early life, what drove her to vaticalism, the limits to growth and other pholosphical ideas that drove her, and her election to Parliment and her running in and interaction with Jim Anderton, Helen Clark and John Key.

For more information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere is an author and columnist. A former member of the European Parliament and advisor to The Board Of Trade, he writes for ConservativeHome and The Washington Examiner.

He is currently a sitting member of the House of Lords where he takes the Conservative whip, and has since 2020 served as an adviser to the Board of Trade. He is the founding president of the Initiative for Free Trade.

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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

Don has been one of New Zealand's leading economic and financial policy advisers, and over the years he has provided advice to governments in many parts of the world – in New Zealand most obviously, but also in recent years in Indonesia, Cambodia, the Bahamas, Saudi Arabia, and the Pacific Islands.

Brash was Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand for fourteen years from 1988 to April 2002, leader of the Opposition and leader of the New Zealand National Party from October 2003 to November 2006, and leader of the ACT New Zealand party for seven months from April to November 2011.

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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

Paul Diamond is a writer, broadcast journalist and historian. His radio programmes have won Qantas Media and Media Peace Awards. He was also awarded a David Low Chevening Fellowship in 2001 to study at Oxford University. Diamond’s first book, A Fire in your Belly (2003) is a significant collection of interviews with Maori leaders. Makereti: Taking Māori to the World (2007), is a biography by Diamond, and was the inspiration for the exhibition about Makereti (Maggie Papakura) at the National Library.
(Source: Read-NZ)

The outcome of years of digging by historian Paul Diamond, Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay shines a clear light on the vengeful impulses behind the blackmail and Mackay’s ruination.

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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

Todd Lauchlan is the managing director of JLL and a real estate professional with over 25 years of experience in office leasing, investment sales, transactions and managing corporate clients. I am a strategic thinker adept at combining technical skills with strong leadership abilities to implement quality business decisions.

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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website. 

In this interview with Dr David Cumin from the Israel Instatute of New Zealand,  we talk about the history of anti-Semitism, the history of the state of Israel and some of the activities that have led to the current crisis with the Hamas attack on Southern Israel.

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 information, or to get in touch, visit the Different Matters Website.