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 the 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.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
It is hard to convince anyone they need to change when they think nothing is broken. The story of the emperor’s new clothes captures it. Read more
Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan in 1651, amid the wreckage of the English Civil War. We know him for his defence of the state: without a sovereign authority to impose order, human life reverts to a “war of every man against every man”, where existence is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Read more
The guns have paused in the US-Iran conflict but Oliver Hartwich and John Howard argue New Zealand should take little comfort from that. All parties are struggling to find an off-ramp, damage to Qatar's refineries alone means a two-to-three-year rebuild, and New Zealand still lacks the energy strategy promised in 2024. Read more
Bob Davies joined the New Zealand Army at 16 and served 31 years, rising to Sergeant Major of the Army. He deployed to Vietnam in 1968, took shrapnel wounds, caught malaria twice, and was exposed to Agent Orange. Read more
On Tuesday morning, President Trump told CNBC he did not want to extend the ceasefire with Iran. Yet on Tuesday afternoon, he extended it. Read more
New Zealand's defence investment is landing the same way it always has: slowly, bureaucratically, and after the need has already been declared. In this webinar, retired Major General John Howard presents his new report God Defend New Zealand, which argues the country must move from an industrial-age acquisition model to one that operates at the speed of technological change. Read more
In May 1935, as Winston Churchill later told the story, Pierre Laval travelled to Moscow to sound out Stalin about an alliance against Hitler. Late in the talks, the French foreign minister asked whether the Soviet leader might ease his persecution of Russian Catholics. Read more
Last Friday, New Zealand signed its first city deal, a formal agreement between central government and Auckland, the country’s largest city. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called Auckland “New Zealand’s economic engine room” and promised to get it “firing on all cylinders.” Among the deal’s headline commitments are a plan to roof the Auckland Tennis Centre, a review of the ownership model for Eden Park, the national stadium, and $10 million to relocate Auckland Cricket to Colin Maiden Park. Read more
With energy prices spiking, an old idea has gathered fresh momentum: break up the big electricity companies. New Zealand First put the proposal on its agenda at the party’s State of the Nation address, calling for the four gentailers, companies that both generate and retail power, to be split apart. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich talked to Peter Williams on Taxpayer Talk about his paper arguing New Zealand's public service system is fundamentally broken, with the Public Service Commissioner, not elected ministers, controlling the appointment of department chief executives and shaping their career incentives. Drawing on Germany's model of ministerial responsibility and contrasting it with the American and Australian systems, Dr Hartwich proposed a transition toward giving ministers direct control over their departments while maintaining safeguards such as qualification requirements and a duty to object to unlawful orders. Read more
Imagine hiring someone to run your business. Except you did not hire them. Read more
Try running a company where the board is accountable to shareholders but cannot choose the CEO. Instead, the CEO is appointed by an independent commissioner. Read more
New Zealand’s ministers answer to Parliament for departments they cannot control. They cannot choose, direct or remove the chief executives who run those departments. Read more
Who runs the country? New Zealand’s system stops elected governments from governing Wellington (Wednesday, 8 April 2026) - New Zealand’s ministers answer to Parliament for departments they cannot control. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich was featured on the news segment of Newstalk ZB discussing The New Zealand Initiative's push for legislation allowing ministers to help choose public sector chief executives. Dr Hartwich says New Zealand should look to Germany's system, which gives ministers a say in appointments while including safeguards such as whistleblower protections and a duty to object to unlawful instructions. Read more