The New Zealand Initiative

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.