EPISODE · Sep 7, 2026 · 46 MIN
Free to Disagree: Do celebrity candidates actually win votes?
from The New Zealand Initiative · host The New Zealand Initiative
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.
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Free to Disagree: Do celebrity candidates actually win votes?
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