Different Matters Season 3
It’s 2025 and even though it has been a bit of a slow start, there are some really great guests lined up for the year already. Check back to see more soon.
Dr James Lindsay
Dr. Lindsay is an American-born author, mathematician, founder of New Discourses, and self-described professional troublemaker. Known for his sharp wit and thought-provoking insights, he is a leading critic of Critical Race Theory and "Woke" ideology.
His bestselling books, including Cynical Theories and Race Marxism, have sparked global dialogue and been translated into over a dozen languages. Through his podcast, speaking engagements, and media appearances on platforms like The Joe Rogan Experience, Fox News, and NPR, Dr. Lindsay challenges divisive ideologies and invites audiences to think critically and engage meaningfully with today’s cultural issues.
Jonathan Ayling
Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union (New Zealand) has worked in Wellington for 8 years across roles as a Beehive staffer, senior political advisor, and in the NGO sector.
Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.
David Henwood
Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union (New Zealand) has worked in Wellington for 8 years across roles as a Beehive staffer, senior political advisor, and in the NGO sector.
Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.
Dr Paul Wood
Wood left high school early, associating with drugs and violence, committing crimes to maintain his habit. At 18 years old, he went to prison in Paremoremo Prison for murdering his 42 year old drug dealer, after he attempted to sexually assault Wood. Wood was convicted of murder and served 11 years in prison.
Wood's mother passed away three days before the murder. He served part of his sentence in Paremoremo Prison, which he described as "New Zealand’s toughest facility."
Wood completed his undergraduate and master's degrees while imprisoned, and he commenced a PhD, which he completed in 2011. He is the first New Zealander to have achieved both feats. In 2019 he published a biography titled, How to Escape from Prison.
Musa al-Gharbi
Musa al-Gharbi is an American sociologist. He is an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University.
Al-Gharbi is the author of the 2024 book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, a study of the history and political economy of the knowledge professions from the interwar period through the present, published by Princeton University Press.
Barbera Oakley
Dr Barbara Oakley is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University. She conducts research on learning, cognition, and educational practices, bringing insights from neuroscience and psychology into the classroom. A New York Times bestselling author, she has written and co-authored numerous books, including A Mind for Numbers, Learning How to Learn, Mindshift, and Uncommon Sense Teaching. Her work has been featured in outlets as varied as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Benedict Collins
Benedict Collins is a political journalist working for 1News in the press gallery in Wellington. From his first days as a reporter, he's had a strong interest in covering anything to do with illicit drugs and enforcement.
He's covered punitive drug-testing sanctions applied to beneficiaries, the battle to legalise pill-testing at festivals, the 2020 cannabis referendum, and in 2018, helped expose a meth-testing scandal that had government, landlords and homeowners wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.
Benedict's book on the subject, Mad on Meth: How New Zealand Got Hooked on P was published in 2023. Tune in as controversial writer and podcast host, Damien Grant, interviews a wide selection of interesting and entertaining individuals, authors, business people, politicians and anyone else actually willing to talk to him.
Oliver Hartwich
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.
According to Hartwich, "...more than half of New Zealanders think the country is going in the wrong direction. Trust in Parliament, the courts and the Reserve Bank has fallen sharply since 2021. What is broken?"
"The answer lies in the foundations we rarely notice. Prosperity rests on an invisible architecture. We notice air only when it is hard to breathe. We see institutions only when they fail."
Mike McRoberts
One of New Zealand's most recognisable faces, Mike McRoberts was the TV anchor of the six o'clock news bulletin on Newshub for over two decades.
Damien Grant interviews Mike McRoberts about his book, Speaking My Language. For much of his life, Mike felt burdened by not knowing his own language - te reo Maori.
Growing up at a time when te reo was scarcely spoken in daily conversations, and within a mixed-race family with little connection to Maoritanga, his experience mirrored that of many other New Zealanders.
Dr James Kierstead
Dr James Kierstead is a Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative focusing on higher education policy, including academic freedom.
James holds a BA in Classics from Oxford, an MA in Ancient History from the University of London, an MA in Political Science from Stanford and a PhD in Classics from Stanford.
He is also the co-host, along with Michael Johnston, of Free Kiwis!, a podcast dedicated to discussing free speech in a New Zealand context. In his recent report, Amazing Grades, Kierstead shows that Grade Inflation at New Zealand Universities is a problem.
Between 2006 and 2024, the percentage of A grades (A+, A, A-) grew by 13 percentage points, from 22% of all grades to 35%. A grades spiked during COVID, with almost half (49%) of grades awarded at the University of Auckland in 2020 in the A range.
Bariz Shah
Bariz Shah, originally from Afghanistan, grew up in New Zealand in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, grappling with a sense of identity shaped by the tension between his cultural roots and his new environment.
At age 18, Bariz ended up in an Auckland prison. He spiralled from schoolyard fights into crime and drugs - until prison made him rethink the story of his life.
Years later, in Christchurch, Bariz had turned everything around when a terrorist walked into the local mosque and took the lives of 51 people in his community. Driven by a new purpose, Bariz and his wife Saba raised money to return to Afghanistan and establish 51 small businesses in honour of those they lost.
In this memoir, Beyond Hope, he deals with finding self-belief, belonging and positive change.
Helen Joyce
Helen Janeith Joyce is an Irish journalist and gender critical activist. She studied as a mathematician and worked in academia before becoming a journalist.
Joyce began working for The Economist as education correspondent for its Britain section in 2005 and has since held several senior positions, including finance editor and international editor. She published her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality in 2021. In April 2022,
Joyce took a leave of absence from The Economist to become the director of advocacy for Sex Matters. She wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian arguing that gender identity change efforts should not be included in a bill banning conversion therapy.
Recently Joyce visited New Zealand as a speaker invited by New Zealand Free Speech Union and The New Zealand Women's Rights Party.
Stephen Rowe
Stephen Rowe is full-stack digital strategist by profession, innovator by passion, and a storyteller at heart.
With over a decade of experience under his belt, he has mastered the art of bridging and blending cutting-edge technology with human connection.
After graduating in 2015, he left Montana to join Charlie Kirk’s newly founded organization, Turning Point USA, at its headquarters in the Chicago area.
Within a month, he was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of Hypeline News, a new digital platform that served as the early foundation of Turning Point USA’s influencer program. In just one year, he scaled the site from startup to over 12.8 million page views and millions more across social media. By September 2016, the newsroom had over 200 contributors nationwide.
David Cohen
David Cohen is a Wellington writer and the author of eight books. In 2025 he released his political biography, Jacinda: The Untold Stories, co-authored by Rebecca Keillor, in November 2025.
After Jacinda turned down Cohen's request to interview her for the book, he decided to create a platform for the voices that haven't been heard.
Drawing on more than 100 interviews and extensive research, David and co-author, Rebecca Keillor track the rise, fall and re-emergence of former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern onto the global stage.