The Prosper Podcast

Francisco Hernandez is a Green Party list MP, the Greens' Tertiary Education and Public Services spokesperson, and their candidate for the Dunedin electorate in the 2026 election. A former OUSA president and Climate Change Commission analyst who calls himself a market socialist, he sat down with ProsperNZ two weeks out from election day for our last Dunedin candidate interview of 2026. We go through Kiwi Mart and the plan to force a South Dunedin Woolworths to divest, a universal student allowance versus fees free (he floats roughly $400 to $420 a week), the wealth tax and the Greens' tax priorities, reversing about $3 billion of public service cuts, his 29,000 written questions to ministers, ACT's push to make the student services fee optional, and what the Greens did when Labour cut Dunedin Hospital's beds and theatres. We also ask why a young voter who cares about climate but disagrees with the Greens on tax should still tick green.

David Bainbridge-Zafar is Opportunity's spokesperson for transport, housing and infrastructure, number eight on the party list, and its candidate in Dunedin. He spent his New Zealand career as a public servant: in property at the DunedinCity Council, then running infrastructure for Health NZ across the southern region, and now as a general manager at the Gore District Council. He told us he left Health NZ because he couldn't sign off on cuts he believed would cost lives. With free public transport now in Opportunity's costings, we started with the obvious question for the man who pushed for it: did he change the party, or did the party change him? We get into Chris Bishop's mega-ministry and why he thinks bigger government is less efficient, New Zealand's 40mm walls and the passive house standard, the 16 Kāinga Ora homes that cleared Gore's social housing waitlist, the 12-year New Dunedin Hospital build and the $20 valves that need replacing every five years, why 60% of infrastructure spending should go on maintenance, and why he turned down a ribbon cutting for an unfinished maternity ward. Plus fast-track, free fares versus better buses, Roads of National Significance, a five-hour wait for an ambulance, the five bottom lines and a universal basic income, co-governance, NZ First and the Peters/Davidson comparison, why he doesn't expect to win Dunedin, the old hospital site, Warmer Kiwi Homes for student flats, and why he calls standing a "reluctant civil duty". ProsperNZ,because we all deserve to prosper.linktr.ee/prospernz

Hon Mark Patterson is New Zealand First's Minister for Rural Communities and Associate Minister of Agriculture, and the party's candidate for Taieri. A farmer before entering politics, Patterson went from advocating for farmers through Federated Farmers to being a minister as part of the current coalition government.We get into what surprised him most about the transition from lobbying government to being in government, what farming taught him about solving problems, and the biggest challenges he's faced as a minister. We also discuss the cost of living, housing and tertiary education, including what Patterson thinks young New Zealanders need from the government as they graduate university and enter the workforce.Also covered: New Zealand First's priorities for the election, the party's approach to young people and why MMP is so important to NZ First, how the government can create more opportunities outside Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and what Dunedin and the Taieri need to do to retain young people after university. We also ask what the biggest economic opportunity for the region is over the next decade, what Wellington overlooks about the Taieri, and how voters in the electorate should approach the local and party votes to give NZ First the best chance of returning to government.ProsperNZ, because we all deserve to prosper.linktr.ee/prospernz

Victor Billot is the Alliance Party's candidate for Dunedin and communications officer for the Maritime Union of New Zealand, one of the party's first big institutional backers since it relaunched. He joined the original Alliance (a merger that included the New Labour Party) as a 17-year-old in 1989, watched it win 10% of the vote in 1996, go into government with Labour in 1999, split over the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, and deregister in 2015 after dropping below 500 members. Now it's back, campaigning on a wealth tax, a 35-hour working week on the same pay, and public ownership of the parts of the economy still in private hands.We get into how he'd tax a farming couple with $6 million in land and $80,000 a year in income, why the GST-off-food promise from his February speech didn't make the final policy, what a financial transactions tax with no published threshold actually means, and the difference, in his own words, between business and capitalism. Also covered: the Maritime Union's dual affiliation to both Alliance and Labour, buying back the 49% of Meridian, Mercury and Genesis the Crown doesn't already own, opposing new coal mines while wanting the existing ones renationalised, and why he doesn't think an Alliance vote is a wasted vote for National.ProsperNZ, because we all deserve to prosper.linktr.ee/prospernz

Wellington is down to one high-reach ladder truck. On Saturday 19 September a 32m ladder truck from Thorndon caught fire in its own engine bay, not even on a call-out. It came in the same week the Minister said she'd lost confidence in Fire and Emergency's chief executive over information withheld for a year, and FENZ confirmed the matter is with the Serious Fraud Office. Harrison and Tyler go through the fire levy you pay on your insurance, the trucks ordered in 2017 that never arrived, a fleet that's now 52% past its target age, up to $254,000 spent on PR and lawyers for a select committee, and why this lands hardest on young Wellingtonians in high-rises.We open with digital ID: Westpac becoming the third accredited issuer into the government wallet, NEC and the unnamed second company, the UK's flip-flop and Australia's audit, and why the "slippery slope" argument might actually hold this time. Then the government's plans to make the Official Information Act harder to use, a $50m immigration IT write-off, Woolworths moving 130 jobs to Sydney, the Regulatory Standards Act failing twice in a month, $40m in concert funding, the new stalking and citizen's arrest laws, Liz Dotcom's run in Kaipara ki Mahurangi, new policy from National, Labour, the Greens, ACT, NZ First, and Te Pāti Māori, the Taxpayers' Union debate boycott, and the numbers.New episode every week, available wherever you get your podcasts.ProsperNZ, because we all deserve to prosper.linktr.ee/prospernz