The New Zealand Initiative

Here is a full episode of Free to Disagree, our new weekly show with Oliver Hartwich and Damien Grant.

Three polls landed this week, with National under 30 per cent on the party vote while holding 44 electorate seats, and Opportunity sitting either side of the threshold depending on which poll you read. The question is whether National’s voters have gone tactical or left the party altogether.

From there to diesel, after Donald Trump pressured Europe into releasing its reserves, with New Zealand holding about 28 days of supply and no plan for what happens next. The episode ends on whether New Zealand needs a written constitution, or whether what actually protects property rights is something no document can supply.

Recorded on 9 October 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.

Free to Disagree lives on its own feed where you will find every episode. So if you are enjoying it, follow the show directly. Search Free to Disagree in your podcast app and follow it there.

Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/free…ee/id6800933200

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/03465zUGiOtfO38Yg0wVip

Produced by The New Zealand Initiative.

In this episode, Dr Eric Crampton talks to Nick Clark and new senior fellow Paul Melville about the two new acts replacing the Resource Management Act and what the new system gets right, including standardised zoning and a new Urban Land Market Officer. They also weigh up how much has been left for ministers to decide later, and where the acts could still end up in court.

In this episode, Oliver talks to Major General John Howard about Russia's escalating pressure on NATO, the diesel squeeze working its way through global supply chains and why New Zealand's just-in-time fuel system leaves it exposed. They also discuss John's new paper with Dr Reuben Steff on how Cabinet gets its information, before turning to the NZDF personnel whose use of Strava exposed their locations while deployed overseas.

New Zealand has new planning laws. They passed in September and replace the Resource Management Act. Right at the end, Parliament added something no other country has: a land markets officer.

Think of the officer as a referee. Councils make rules about what can be built and where. If those rules leave too little land for homes, land gets scarce and prices climb. People then expect prices to keep going up, so buyers rush in before they miss out.

The officer will keep a close eye on land prices and check council plans. If a council's rules are pushing prices up, the officer can say so in public. The council must then fix its plan, and do it in good time. Councils still get to choose where new homes go.

In this episode, Eric Crampton and Benno Blaschke are joined by Chris Parker, Director at Principal Economics. They talk about the efforts to help shape the idea. They explain why the officer works a bit like the Reserve Bank, which tries to stop prices rising too fast. They tell the story of the debate in Parliament, when Minister Chris Bishop and Labour's Phil Twyford put party politics aside to make it happen. Then they look at the work still left to do.

Benno also shares why watching it made him proud to be a Kiwi.

Here is a full episode of Free to Disagree, our new weekly show with Oliver Hartwich and Damien Grant.

The Treasury's pre-election update showed spending up, revenue down and debt rising after three years of a government elected on restraint. Oliver and Damien ask who ends up as finance minister after 7 November, and whether any of them will confront superannuation and interest heading for $44 billion by 2031. They then turn to John Key, who has warned the National Party conference against tactical voting, with a National overhang now a real prospect. They finish the episode on National and Labour's combined share falling to 56 per cent, a historic low, which Oliver's new Quadrant essay traces to the big parties losing their members, their loyalty and their links to the communities they once represented.

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.

Free to Disagree lives on its own feed where you will find every episode. So if you are enjoying it, follow the show directly. Search Free to Disagree in your podcast app and follow it there.

Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/free…ee/id6800933200

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/03465zUGiOtfO38Yg0wVip

Produced by The New Zealand Initiative.

In this episode, Michael talks with Dame Elizabeth Rata about her documentary lecture series on the history of education in New Zealand. They discuss the 19th-century origins of free, compulsory and secular schooling, why Māori leaders pushed for village schools taught in English and Rata's argument that sociocultural knowledge has displaced subject knowledge in New Zealand classrooms.

Here is a full episode of Free to Disagree, our new weekly show with Oliver Hartwich and Damien Grant.

Nicky Hager's new book on the Taxpayers' Union has had several of its claims publicly contradicted within days of publication. Oliver and Damien discuss the fallout and what it has already cost the organisation. Next, 51 prominent New Zealanders signed an open letter to every party leader about property rights and freedom of contract, and Oliver explains why several chief executives who agreed with every word would not put their names to it. And finally, they turn to the economics behind the proposed Foodstuffs breakup, and the report the government says backs its case.

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.

Free to Disagree lives on its own feed where you will find every episode. So if you are enjoying it, follow the show directly. Search Free to Disagree in your podcast app and follow it there.

Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/free…ee/id6800933200

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/03465zUGiOtfO38Yg0wVip

Produced by The New Zealand Initiative.

In this episode, Oliver talks with Eric Crampton, chief economist at the New Zealand Initiative, about his new paper "Breaking up the supermarkets is hard to do... and a bad idea", which finds the promised savings rest on an untested assumption about how Foodstuffs prices its supermarket banners.

They run through the Newstalk ZB interviews on splitting Foodstuffs, hearing Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis in their own words and weighing their key claims against the evidence.

In this podcast episode, retired Major General John Howard joins Oliver live in a webinar to discuss his new research note "Worth Defending" and why New Zealand needs a stronger, combat-capable Defence Force.

Howard, who served forty years and retired only last year, describes what decades of declining capability looked like from the inside, explains why he thinks the $9 billion of new defence money is not enough, and sets out what it would take to rebuild across two or three successive governments.

Here is a full episode of Free to Disagree, our new weekly show with Oliver Hartwich and Damien Grant.

National has announced it would split Foodstuffs into separate Pak'nSave and New World chains, in the name of more competition. Oliver and Damien ask whether breaking up a family-owned cooperative is likely to persuade an Aldi or a Lidl to come here, or convince them to stay away for good. Next, Oliver watched every party leader speak at a recent conference, and came away wondering why the campaign is being fought on such small ground. And finally, plans to overhaul the 2028 census have fallen apart after Labour withdrew support, and they ask whether the country still needs one.

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.

Free to Disagree lives on its own feed where you will find every episode. So if you are enjoying it, follow the show directly. Search Free to Disagree in your podcast app and follow it there.

Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/free…ee/id6800933200

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/03465zUGiOtfO38Yg0wVip

Produced by The New Zealand Initiative.