This week the team takes you through their peaks and pits of the week. This week we discuss Karen Chhour’s advocacy of safety measures for pets living in households with domestic violence, New Zealand’s first private Building Consent Authority and the post Budget 2025 polls, facial recognition in supermarkets, the future of hydrogen and a potential ban on fireworks.

The Iron Duke Podcast takes you through Budget 2025. The goods, the bads and the uglies.

This week on the Iron Duke Podcast we take you through our peaks including the Government’s new public EV charging infrastructure programme, the Australian election and the Crown now covering the fee to renew licenses for teachers. Our pits are Trump cutting off the universities/colleges, the conclusion of the Early Childhood Education review and the striking of 5000 doctors across the country.   

We should be thinking about this new Government spending as a big opportunity to effectively involve New Zealand industry and build our own private-sector defence industry capability. This should be done in such a way as to enable Kiwi businesses to engage, not just with our New Zealand Defence Force upgrades, but also those that will be taking place in neighbours and allies such as Australia, Singapore and further afield.

This week the Iron Duke team take you through Luxon’s speech on free trade, the shopping list for New Zealand’s new defence spending, Andrew Little entering the race for the Wellington Mayoralty, local government amalgamations, an update on Trump tariffs and this week’s spicy content – pregnant people…

It is instructive to note that on the day President Trump announced his tariffs against Mexico and Canada, every single major US business organisation made public statements opposing the tariffs and proposing alternatives. Those statements were constructive, sober and based on evidence.

All three of your favourite podcasters are back in the studio this week. Making us smile this week are the (marginally) improved education attendance stats, Nicola Willis threatening to drop the hammer on our uncompetitive supermarket duopoly and the King of Rail Winston Peters announcement regarding the Cook Strait ferries. The not so good include Trump breaking records with his approval ratings, LIBERATION DAY and Tamatha Paul’s comments about the poor old beat cops.

Welcome back! This week the team discuss HealthNZ running their financials through a singular spreadsheet, the initial outcomes of Luxon’s Investment Summit, how New Zealand is ascending the rankings in best places to live as an expat, Labour’s continuous flip flop in view on public-private partnerships, the cat fight between Mayor Tory Whanau and Luxon and the the latest results of the Performance of Services index.

We also give you the inside scoop on our first LIVE PODCAST event – listen in to see how you can get yourself some free tickets.

After a patchy start to the year, the Iron Duke podcasters are back in the studio giving you a run down on the latest in the world of policy and politics. We discuss Luxon’s mighty Investment Summit, the new Government Procurement Rules, school lunches, the wild west of online gambling and the not so flash looking polls for the Nats. See you next week!

After an unintended hiatus, Jesse and Henry are back with another episode of the Iron Duke Podcast. Given it seems like so much has happened in the last few weeks, we run you through the latest and greatest with Trump, Germany’s 2025 election, the Cook Islands, Chinese warships and (ex)Minister Andrew Bayly. A big episode today to get you all back on track with what is happening in the world of policy and politics. 

Happy New Year listeners and welcome back to another season of the Iron Duke Podcast. It’s good to be back. 

We kick the year off with a download on Trump’s first week back in power, how DeepSeek has taken the AI world by storm, political chat around a potential privatisation of state assets, how the Government’s push to get digital nomads visiting New Zealand, the reversal of speed limits and the 80th  Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.

The trio also pose a question to listeners around whether there would be interest in a monthly 45min deep dive into a single policy and politics topic – let us know!

The question now is how can the Government and businesses collaborate over the next year to transform this hopeful confidence into tangible results - faster business growth, improved infrastructure, more jobs, and increased prosperity?

To wrap up the year, the Iron Duke Studios team unravel all that was the year of 2024.

Many countries that compete with us for investment are busy developing industrial policies that heavily favour their domestic sectors. They are subsidising investment in things like green technology, electric vehicles, hi-tech manufacturing, digital, and much more besides.

A Jesse and Henry special this week while Maddy is abroad. We discuss Luxon’s performance and the changing priorities as the Coalition Government passes their first year in power, the benefits and future of the Healthy Homes programme, how maybe things are not quite as great over in Australia as some of our peers make out, and the latest in Auckland with Brown vs Brown.

Your Iron Duke trio are joined today by Jamie Miller, a former Executive Director and expert campaigner for the Republican Party in Florida. Jamie is also an author and continues to write on the Reasonable Arguments Substack. We discuss with our first ever international guest what happened in the US election, including on the ground insights from Florida, where Trump succeeded, where the Democrats lost it and what this all means going forward.

All three podcasters are back in Iron Duke Studios to discuss the latest in policy and politics from New Zealand and around the world. We discuss our highs of this week including the Government’s formal apology to those abused in state care, the not-so-bad change in the unemployment rate and the rallying US share market. Getting us down include Trump’s clean sweep and potential first policies, the introduction of the Treaty Principles Bill to Parliament and the latest in the IRD data breach.

2024 US PRESIDENTIAL SPECIAL – votes are still being counted, but we have a clear winner. President Donald Trump will become the first to win non-consecutive terms since the 19th century. Jesse and Henry discuss what has happened, how it happened, possible implications going forward for the next four years, and the biggest winners and losers of this outcome. Tune in so you can keep up with all the presidential chat down at the pub on Friday night - no doubt we will be back again next week with some extended details too.

Get ready to learn more about space than you ever thought you needed to know! Also on this week's episode, Henry has an alarming Ozempic hype segment, we talk the Labour party, the banking review, silly thoughts on taking GST off sunscreen and builders self certification.

Another hefty week in policy and politics in New Zealand and around the world. The Iron Duke Studio trio peaks of the week include the end (hopefully) of the Darleen Tana saga and now Golriz appealing her shoplifting conviction, the US presidential election coming in hot and how the candidates are lining up in the polls, and David Seymour’s controversial potential success over the school lunches reform. Getting us down this week includes Central Government’s failing of promised localism agenda with the WCC intervention and preventing Otago from implementing their own fresh water plan, plus the Minister Andrew Bayly dilemma.