Taxpayer Talk

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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