Free Kiwis!
A podcast focussing on freedom and free speech in a New Zealand context, hosted by two Wellington-based academics, Drs. Michael Johnston (VUW Education) and James Kierstead (VUW Classics).
Episodes
36 episodes
Toby Young
Toby Young is the founder of the Free Speech Union and The Daily Sceptic, an associate editor of The Spectator, and a former associate editor at Quillette. We talked to him about the prospects for free speech and academic freedom in the Anglosp...
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Season 5
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Episode 46
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1:00:05
Peter Ridd
Peter Ridd was formerly head of the Physics Programme and the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Queensland. We asked him how and why he was forced out of JCU, as well as about the Great Barrier Reef and climate change in...
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Season 5
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Episode 45
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59:09
VUW free speech event debrief (FKs! Dialogues 5)
The morning after Victoria University of WELLINGTON's free speech event, Michael and James met to discuss the event, including both its set-up and points made by the speakers.
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1:16:12
Jonathan Rauch
Jonathan Rauch is a US writer whose books include The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 (2018); Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America (2004); Government's End: Why Was...
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Season 5
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Episode 44
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55:14
Free speech at VUW (FKs! Dialogues 4)
A conversation about Victoria University of Wellington Vice-Chancellor Nic Smith's decision to postpone his original panel on free speech and about the two new panels he's now announced. Topics we discuss include: Is the new panel more balanced...
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Season 5
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Episode 43
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39:15
Cynical Theories (Book Club 3)
The topic of our third Free Kiwis! book club was Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay's book Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - And Why this Harms Everybody.We talked about i...
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Season 5
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Episode 42
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1:15:55
Graham Linehan
Graham Linehan is the co-creator of Father Ted and other popular UK comedy series. We talked to him about Ted's origins, comedy in a time of censorship, and trans issues. Graham's time in NZ was hosted by the Free Speech Union:
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Season 5
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Episode 41
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1:06:20
Eric Kaufmann
Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham. He talked to Michael about whether the Amish will inherit the earth, whether wokeness is a religion-substitute, and how we can protect liberal science and civilization.
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Season 5
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Episode 42
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1:10:20
Iona Italia
Iona Italia is Managing Editor of Quillette and a former Editor-in-Chief of Areo. We talked to her about her life and career; the virtues of letter-writing; and her work with heterodox online publications like Areo and, now, Quillette. ...
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Season 5
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Episode 40
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1:12:21
Jonathan Sumption
Lord Sumption is a historian and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018. He is also a widely-respected commentator. We talked to him about our current free speech predicament in English-speaking c...
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Season 4
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Episode 39
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56:54
Melissa Derby
Dr. Melissa Derby is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Waikato, where she teaches at the Tauranga campus. We talked to her about why she prefers not to be introduced as a 'Māori academic'; whether the concept of 'inter-generatio...
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Season 4
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Episode 38
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1:04:46
Rodney Hide
Rodney Hide entered parliament in 1996, was elected leader of the ACT party in 2004, and was appointed Minister for Local government in 2008 in the fifth National government. He retired from the ACT leadership and from parliament in 2011. Rodne...
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Season 4
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Episode 37
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1:22:54
Te Maire Tau
Prof. Te Maire Tau is Pou Whakarae at the Ngāi Tahu Centre at the University of Canterbury. We talked to him about Māori traditional knowledge and (Western) science; local traditions and New Zealand democracy; and whether Polynesians discovered...
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Season 4
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Episode 36
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1:01:47
Nadine Strossen
Nadine Strossen is Professor Emerita at the New York Law School, a past national President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a member of the advisory boards of the ACLU, the Academic Freedom Alliance, the Foundation for Individua...
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Season 4
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Episode 35
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57:41
Kathleen Stock
Recent events in Auckland have reminded us that a tiny minority of radical activists are determined to shut down the speech of so-called TERFs ('Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists') and stop trans issues being openly discussed. So we invited ...
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Season 4
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Episode 34
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1:04:10
David Lillis
Dr. David Lillis is a statistician and data scientist who has worked for the Royal Society of New Zealand, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and the New Zealand Institute for Sport. We talked to him about some recent studies of the repr...
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1:03:05
Nick Matzke
Dr. Nick Matzke is Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland. We talked to him about what phylogenetic biogeography is; his involvement in the debate over creationism (including 'intelligent design' theories) in the U...
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Season 4
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Episode 32
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1:21:21
Roger Openshaw
Roger Openshaw is Emeritus Professor of Education at Massey University. We drew on his rich knowledge of NZ educational history as we discussed the changing relationship between central government and NZ schools over the past century or so; the...
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Season 4
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Episode 31
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1:07:13
Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media (FK! Book Club 2)
In this second Free Kiwis! book club, we were joined by Dane Giraud of the NZ Free Speech Union to discuss our previous guest Jacob Mchangama's book Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media.The book: https://www.amazon.com/F...
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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1:13:10
The Coddling of the Kiwi Mind? (FKs Reviews #1)
On many American university campuses over the last few years speakers have been shouted down, students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly, and rates of anxiety and depression are rising. 'Deplatfor...
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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53:35
Eric Crampton
Dr. Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. We talked to him about how much Kiwis know about their political system, and how much it matters; content regulation, on- and off-line; and why Wellington's latest regulations ...
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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1:00:22
David Rozado
David Rozado is an Associate Professor of Information Technology at Otago Polytechnic. One of his interests is in word frequencies and word associations in large collections of texts, especially from the news media.We talked to David ab...
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1:10:02
Catherine Healy
Dame Catherine Healy is a spokesperson and founding member of the New Zealand Sex Workers' Collective. We talked to her about all aspects of sex work in New Zealand, from the legislative environment to social attitudes. The NZ Sex ...
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Season 3
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Episode 34
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50:08