Jordan is fresh out of the Budget 2026 lockup and joined by economist Cam Bagrie to unpack whether the Government’s numbers really stack up.

They warn the Budget is heavy on promises, light on proof, and may rely too much on inflation, backloaded savings, and heroic assumptions to get back to surplus. From rising borrowing costs and “promise-enomics” to the demographic time bomb of superannuation and healthcare, this is a blunt post-Budget reality check on whether taxpayers are being served broccoli — or just another sugar hit with the bill pushed past the election.

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In this episode of Taxpayer Talk, Peter Williams is joined by Nick Clark from the New Zealand Initiative and Jordan Williams (Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director) to break down the Government’s plan to slash New Zealand’s 78 local authorities down to as few as 15.

They explain why bigger councils do not necessarily mean lower rates, better services, or fewer bureaucrats — and why amalgamation could actually make local government less accountable, less local, and even more expensive. From the Auckland Super City experiment to bloated town hall empires, unelected decision-makers, and the fight to bring councils back to core business, this is a must-listen for ratepayers wondering who really wins when Wellington decides bigger is better. 

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In this episode of Taxpayer Talk, Peter Williams is joined by former Finance Minister and Taxpayers’ Union Chair Ruth Richardson for a no-holds-barred warning about New Zealand’s worsening fiscal mess.

From exploding debt and runaway interest costs to bloated bureaucracy, superannuation reform, and a Government that still hasn’t found its “brave pills”, Ruth lays out why the country may be sleepwalking towards a fiscal crisis — and what needs to change before taxpayers are left carrying the can.

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In this episode of Taxpayer Talk, Jordan Williams is joined by Stephen Franks and Aly Miller from Franks Ogilvie to lift the lid on a worrying trend in local government: elected councillors being shut out, stonewalled, and treated like troublemakers for asking basic questions.

From “need to know” rules to slippery definitions of “documents”, they unpack how council bureaucracies can hide information from the very people voters elected to keep them accountable. It’s a punchy look at secrecy, the local government blob, and why ratepayers should be worried when town halls decide transparency is optional.

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Why did New Zealand’s education system "turn to custard" in 1971? In this episode of Taxpayer Talk, host Peter Williams sits down with Professor Elizabeth Rata to explore how the nation moved from a world-class, knowledge-rich curriculum to one dominated by "social constructivism" and "learnification”.

Elizabeth also lifts the lid on how the rejection of liberalism and nation-building has failed several generations of Kiwi children, and the challenge of turning around the "oil tanker" of modern education to restore academic excellence.

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In this episode of Taxpayer Talk, Peter Williams sits down with Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director of the New Zealand Initiative, to discuss why he believes the country’s public service is "fundamentally broken" and incompatible with implementing good policy.

Oliver explains how the 1988 reforms inadvertently created a  state where department heads are more beholden to the Public Service Commissioner than their own ministers, and how the bureaucracy can subvert political will.

Drawing on the German model of ministerial accountability, Oliver argues for a system that prioritises deep subject matter expertise over generic management skills to ensure that voters finally get a government with the power to perform its job.

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What if the world is actually getting better — and we just can't see it? In this episode, host Jordan Williams sits down with Marian Tupy, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and founder of HumanProgress.org, to challenge the doom and gloom dominating today's headlines. Drawing on his books Super Abundance and 10 Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know, Tupy makes a data-driven case that life expectancy, poverty, child mortality, and war are all trending in the right direction — and explains why our brains are wired to miss it.

From the hidden costs of Net Zero and NIMBYism, to the real story behind American inequality, housing affordability for young New Zealanders, and what AI might mean for the future of work, this is a wide-ranging conversation about progress, freedom, and what it takes to build a better world. A must-listen for anyone who suspects the catastrophists might be missing something important.

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Our latest Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll sent Wellington into a frenzy at the beginning of March. But in this week’s Taxpayer Talk, Peter Williams sits down with Curia founder - and Taxpayers’ Union co-founder - David Farrar to separate the signal from the spin.

Are polls actually driving political decisions, or just measuring them? And why do politicians pay attention, even when they ignore the results?

David lifts the lid on how polling really works (spoiler: no, they’re not ringing every Kiwi every night), why the trend matters more than any single headline-grabbing poll, and which numbers actually tell you if a government is in trouble.

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The New Zealand Initiative Chair Roger Partridge joins Taxpayer Talk with Peter Williams to discuss a new report arguing New Zealand could unlock more than $24 billion for essential infrastructure by recycling mature Crown-owned commercial assets.

Roger explains how redirecting capital tied up in government-owned companies such as Air New Zealand, Kiwibank and the mixed ownership electricity generators could help fund hospitals, schools, roads and water systems — without raising taxes or increasing public debt. Drawing on the successful New South Wales model, he outlines how a ring-fenced National Infrastructure Fund could convert government commercial holdings into the infrastructure New Zealand urgently needs.

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Federated Farmers National Board member Mark Hooper joins Taxpayer Talk with Peter Williams to critique the government’s "deeply flawed" replacement of the Resource Management Act with the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill.

Mark walks Peter through why the new framework fails to deliver a faster, cheaper, better system, arguing that a predicted 46% reduction in consents is insufficient and warning that farmers could face double the red tape through a combination of complex farm plans and discretionary consents.

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