The New Zealand Initiative

In this episode, Michael talks with Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director of the New Zealand Initiative, about two new reports, New Zealand by Comparison and New Zealand by Numbers, which chart how New Zealand measures up against 28 other countries and how it has changed over recent decades.

They discuss why a country that attracts migrants from around the world keeps losing so many of its own people, how Australia matches New Zealand on almost everything but the economy, the Eastern European economies closing in, and wellbeing rankings that still sit near the top of the world but are slipping.

In this episode, Michael talks with Doug Blackmur, former chief executive of NZQA, about the qualification model developed in the late 1990s and how it became NCEA.

Their conversation ranges across the changes the model underwent, grade inflation in schools and universities, the argument for moving assessment to independent bodies, and the new system set to replace NCEA.

In this episode, Michael talks with Ben Stallworthy about the war in Ukraine and what it reveals about the changing character of modern warfare, from the near disappearance of tanks and armoured vehicles to the rise of drone swarms and the first signs of drone-versus-human combat.

They discuss Ukraine's strategy of trading ground to grind down Russian resources and pressure Vladimir Putin, the strikes on Russian oil, semiconductors and the supply routes into Crimea, and what the conflict means for a rearming Europe and the wider contest between autocracies and liberal democracies.

In this episode, Oliver talks with retired Major General John Howard about a crowded few weeks in global security, from the NATO summit in Türkiye and Trump's renewed comments about Greenland to Russian pressure on Poland's border. They focus on what China's submarine-launched ballistic missile demonstration on 6 July and Australia's new security agreement with Fiji mean for New Zealand, and why our national security system is not moving at the speed of relevance.

In this episode, Oliver talks with Michelle Palmer, Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association, about the retirement village business model and the debate over how quickly operators should repay residents and their estates once a unit is vacated.

They discuss the Consumer New Zealand petition, the Government's proposed 12-month repayment rule, and why applying changes retrospectively to existing contracts could raise costs for residents and put pressure on smaller operators.