Oliver is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative. Before joining the Initiative, he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, the Chief Economist at Policy Exchange in London, and an advisor in the UK House of Lords. Oliver holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Business administration and a PhD in Law from Bochum University in Germany.
Oliver is available to comment on all of the Initiative’s research areas.
Submission: A New Zealand Income Insurance Scheme (2022)
Policy Essay: Effective and affordable – Why the ETS is sufficient to deal with the climate emergency (2020)
Research Note: The Unreserved Bank of New Zealand: Why unorthodox monetary policy needs boundaries (2019)
#localismNZ: Bringing power to the people (2019)
Submission: Future of Tax (2018)
Submission: Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (2018)
Scroll down to read the rest of Oliver's work.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
Nearly a decade ago, I first encountered millennials’ strange fascination with avocados. A younger colleague in Sydney often prepared her office lunch with fresh avocado, spread thick across a slice of bread. Read more
To start this column with a disclaimer, I greatly respect Labour’s candidate for Ōhāriu, Greg O’Connor. Perhaps it is because the former Police Association president’s views remind me of my father, who was also a copper. Read more
Die Mutter aller WahlkämpfeNeuseelands neue Labour-Chefin Jacinda Ardern hat beste Chancen, Premierministerin zu werden. Noch vor kurzem interessierte sie das Amt nicht, weil sie eine Familie gründen wollte. Read more
The Prime Minister had the “personality of a rock”. The Minister of Health was “Dr Death”. Read more
Every three years, this wonderful country with its friendly people goes nuts. It gets itself into a state of frenzy that it normally reserves for rugby world cups. Read more
We probably all remember those school exams in which we desperately tried to copy the answers from our much better neighbours. Ahem, I meant of course we all remember those school exams in which our struggling neighbours desperately tried to copy from us. Read more
With the selection of Jacinda Ardern as Labour's new leader, New Zealand's election has become more exciting and much harder to predict. But beyond our own domestic politics, it is not clear how it fits into the global state of Centre-Left politics. Read more
If you are a regular Insights reader, you will know that housing has been a key issue for the Initiative since we started in 2012. In our reports, speeches and opinion pieces we have repeatedly made the case for reforms to planning, local government and infrastructure finance. Read more
Following the release of Superu's report on land use planning on Thursday 20 July, the Initiative's Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich spoke to Larry Williams on Newstalk ZB about our housing research and recommendations.
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Should you be familiar with German children’s literature, you would have encountered a curious character: the illusory giant (Scheinriese). In the works of Michael Ende, best known for his The Never-Ending Story, there is a fearsome giant called Herr Tur Tur. Read more
Some people fear rising sea levels, asteroids hitting the earth or global pandemics. It is easy to be scared of such threats because one can easily understand them. Read more
To get the disclaimer out of the way, Mainfreight’s founder and chair Bruce Plested is not only a member of the Initiative. Bruce is also someone I admire. Read more
The Initiative's Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich speaks to SBS Radio (in German) on our recent business delegation to Switzerland.
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In blocking the NZME/Fairfax and Vodafone/Sky mergers, the Commerce Commission again demonstrated its crucial role in shaping New Zealand markets. Both decisions were subject to close public scrutiny and attracted support and criticism, almost in equal measure. Read more
So here we go again. It is an election year, and we are witnessing the political equivalent of a soap show – only interrupted by the occasional attempted election bribe. Read more