The New Zealand Initiative

In this episode, Michael talks to Kevin Donnelly, an Australian educator and author who co-chaired the review of Australia's national curriculum. They discuss why schools across the Anglosphere turned away from knowledge-rich teaching in the 1970s and 1980s. Donnelly argues that the knowledge-rich curricula now being developed in New Zealand and Australia will change little unless teacher training is also reformed, with the university faculties that train teachers being the source of many of the bad ideas that continue to shape classroom practice.

In this episode, Oliver talks to John Howard, senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative, about the CIA director's public visit to Moscow and what it says about the security of Western Europe. They also discuss Germany's decision to name Russia over the drone attack on Leipzig Airport, the vote for Russia-friendly parties in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, the stalled Middle East conflict and its consequences for New Zealand's fuel supplies, and the new Cook Islands port deal.

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

Paul Henry is standing for ACT and Taine Randell for New Zealand First. Oliver and Damien ask whether celebrity candidates actually win votes, and why New Zealand tends to produce the reverse, politicians who become famous through politics. They then unpack deadweight loss and why higher taxes change behaviour in ways revenue forecasts often ignore. And finally, they turn to MBIE's failed biometric project and whether New Zealand has created a permanent bureaucratic class too insulated from ministers and too weakly accountable when things go wrong.

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.

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

National has introduced a bill banning under 16s from social media, and both coalition partners have refused to back it. Oliver and Damien ask whether such a ban could work, and whether the state should be involved at all. Next, Oliver reports back from a capital gains tax event at a centre-left think tank, where nobody in the room liked Labour's version of the tax. And finally, Iceland votes on Saturday on whether to resume talks about joining the European Union, and they get to the Cod Wars, a banking collapse and what a country of 400,000 people manages to do.

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: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/free-to-disagree/id6800933200
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/03465zUGiOtfO38Yg0wVip

Produced by The New Zealand Initiative.

In this episode, Michael talks to Tenby Powell ONZM, former mayor of Tauranga and leader of KiwiKARE, about his team's humanitarian work in Ukraine and how nearly five years of war have transformed the battlefield. Tenby describes evacuating civilians from areas too dangerous to stay in, and the stoves his workshops build from scrapped water cylinders to keep people alive in winter when energy infrastructure has been destroyed. They go on to discuss the transformation of the battlefield by drone technology, and Ukraine's success with long-range attacks on Russia's strategic assets and interdiction of Russian supply lines.