{"podcast":{"title":"Cross Party Lines","slug":"cross-party-lines-7562106","podcast_index_feed_id":7562106,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/6741293.rss","website_url":"https://crosspartylines.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/6741293/e9a8cf48c31f0e62acfae7772e0130fd.jpg","author":"Cross Party Lines","episode_count":50,"summary":"A show and community that help you unpack New Zealand politics in a fast-changing world order, hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-22T16:18:12.660915+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106"},"episode":{"title":"Hospital Crisis, Dirty Money and Trumps Midterm Nightmare","slug":"hospital-crisis-dirty-money-and-trumps-midterm-nightmare","published_at":"2026-08-24T16:33:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/hospital-crisis-dirty-money-and-trumps-midterm-nightmare","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106","url":"https://crosspartylines.substack.com/p/hospital-crisis-dirty-money-and-trumps","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/212529643/9be197991b2fa493f14bbcb7dbab7ea3.mp3","summary":"Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson , Cross Party Lines returns to its usual programming for an episode that is almost entirely about the health of democracy itself: in New Zealand’s hospitals, in its political donation system, in its local body elections and in the United States with 74 days to go. Thanks to Frank Risk Management, the 100% Kiwi owned insurance brokerage. Get more info at frankrisk.co.nz. In this episode: * Health, housing and the election’s tier-one issues — Phil opens with a forensic and at times furious account of New Zealand’s hospital emergency departments: patients waiting up to fifty hours for a bed, wards operating at two to three hundred percent capacity, people in acute pain sitting in bright lights unable to sleep. Chris adds property rights as his personal tier-one issue — invoking the OECD Secretary General Matthias Cormann’s argument that the rule of law is the single most important ingredient in a wealthy, functioning economy, and connecting it to the greyhound racing shutdown, the MACA amendment and sixty Treaty settlements he signed. * Cleaning up New Zealand politics — donations, lobbying, ballot theft and postal voting — Phil walks through a list of reforms both men broadly support: a Parliamentary Budget Office (Labour has now officially adopted it as policy, prompting an alleluia from Chris); a lobbyists’ register; a strengthened Official Information Act with real enforcement; and caps on political donations. The $245,000 donated by thoroughbred breeder Peter Feller to New Zealand First — whose leader is the Minister of Racing — and the half-million from Graham Hart to the National Party are held up as symptoms of a system that allows money to buy access in ways that undermine equality. * Trump’s five outrages and the American…","meta_description":"Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson , Cross Party Lines returns to its usual programming for an episode that is almost entirely about the health of de…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3089,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cross-party-lines-7562106/episodes/hospital-crisis-dirty-money-and-trumps-midterm-nightmare/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/hospital-crisis-dirty-money-and-trumps-midterm-nightmare.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}