The Initiative is independent and free from any party political affiliation, he says, speaking on this week’s Money Talks.
“We are also a business membership organisation, but we work predominantly as a think tank and that means we are thinking about the big issues affecting New Zealand.
“We are trying to make New Zealand a better country for all its people and we’re trying to do that through policy research.”
There is no question that the Wellington-based organisation’s research carries serious weight in New Zealand’s policy debate. As its executive director that puts Hartwich in an influential position in his adopted homeland.
Born in the industrial north of West Germany in the 1970s, Hartwich grew up through both the Cold War and a period of strong economic growth.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism loomed large in his youth and helped instil a passion for both economics and public policy.
“When the Wall fell, I was 14 and I was totally aware of what was happening,” he says. “I had visited East Berlin just a year before. So I spent a day in East Berlin, under communism. If you had asked me back then whether this wall would ever disappear, I would have said absolutely not because it looked so permanent.
“When it came down, that came as a big surprise, as a shock to all of us and it was the most exciting time.
“That was a time immediately after the so-called economic miracle. So after World War II, Germany, of course, was in ruins. It was also morally discredited,” he says.
“Out of those ruins came a surprisingly strong economy because of the policies introduced by one man, Ludwig Erhardt.”
Erhardt, first as Finance Minister and then as Chancellor, pioneered the idea of the social market economy, Hartwich says.
“It is an economy that is basically free and, as Erhardt argued, it was an economy that was inherently social because it produced prosperity for all.”
“That was his big slogan, prosperity for all people after the war. And that worked really well. After about 20 years under that prescription, Germany actually overtook Britain in GDP per capita for the first time ever.”
“So when I grew up, that was the period straight after that economic miracle. It was a time when West Germany at least had some enormous amounts of prosperity.”
Hartwich says economics was always his passion so it was a natural choice to study it at university.
Although he did a combined degree with business management and eventually did his doctorate in law - albeit focused on business competition.
It was his PhD that brought him to this side of the world - undertaking a comparative study of the regulatory environment in Australia.
Although, as Hartwich is happy to admit, he had an ulterior motive for focusing on Australia - his future wife.
“My connection with this part of the world is actually my wife. What I haven’t mentioned is that the real background to my PhD thesis was the desire to spend some time with her. We started off as pen friends when she was 15, I was 16. We started writing. We had a pen friendship for eight years.”
After hitting off in real life on his Australian study mission, the pair eventually moved back to London where Hartwich worked for the House of Lords and then a think tank called Policy Exchange, with David Cameron, before he became leader of the Conservative Party.
From there the couple headed back to Australia where Hartwich worked for the Centre for Independent Studies.
“I met a few New Zealanders while I was working in Australia. We had conferences and they often came over and so they knew me and when it came to the formation of the New Zealand initiative, they asked me whether I would be interested in leading a New Zealand think tank.
“It sounded interesting. Yeah. And then I thought, well, why not? 12 years ago. Initially, I thought this might just be another five, six years. Um, continuing my nomadic lifestyle. Yeah, yeah. But then, um, we had a son in Wellington and we bought a house and suddenly things felt a lot more settled.”
Hartwich is now a naturalised Kiwi and highly invested in the nation’s success.
Listen to the full episode to hear more from Oliver Hartwich about his life and money stories.
Money Talks is a podcast run by the NZ Herald. It isn’t about personal finance and isn’t about economics - it’s just well-known New Zealanders talking about money and sharing some stories about the impact it’s had on their lives and how it has shaped them.
The series is hosted by Liam Dann, business editor-at-large for the Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist, and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined the Herald in 2003.
Money Talks is available on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.