Good Faith Yarns Queenstown
Description
The Free Speech Union New Zealand is proud to present the Good Faith Yarns Tour!
This winter, the Free Speech Union New Zealand is hitting the road. The Good Faith Yarns Tour brings honest, good-faith conversation to ten communities across the country, including the regional centres that so often get left out of the national conversation. With a general election on the horizon, public debate is getting louder and more polarised. We want to do something different.
Few places in New Zealand feel the pressures of growth quite like Queenstown. The town that tourism built is now grappling with questions that don't have easy answers: How do you build infrastructure fast enough for a city that never stops growing? Who gets to have a say when so many of your residents are transient? And what does the future of that infrastructure actually look like?
Joining Ani O'Brien for this conversation are John Glover, Mayor of Queenstown Lakes District, navigating these challenges from the inside of the council chamber and Mike Casey, entrepreneur, Central Otago cherry orchardist, and CEO of Rewiring Aotearoa, a charity dedicated to electrifying millions of fossil fuel machines across New Zealand as quickly as possible. Together they'll dig into growth, infrastructure, energy, and what it means to build a community fit for the future in one of the world's most extraordinary, and most stretched, places. Expect a frank, good-faith conversation about the trade-offs that come with being a place the whole world wants to visit.
📍 Sherwood Queenstown, 554 Frankton Road, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand
📅 Tuesday 21 July 2026
🕐 6:30pm-8:00pm
🎙️ Guest Speaker: John Glover, Mayor of Queenstown Lakes District & Mike Casey, Rewiring CEO
Speakers
Ani O’Brien
Ani O'Brien is one of New Zealand's most fearless political voices. A writer, commentator, and Free Speech Union Board Member, she's known for holding views that cut across conventional political lines and saying what others won't. Expect honesty, not headlines.
Mayor John Glover
Elected in 2025 on a clear mandate for change, John Glover is the man now responsible for steering one of the world's most in-demand destinations through its growing pains. Housing, infrastructure, trust in local government, he's dealing with all of it, in real time. This is your chance to ask him how.
Mike Casey
Mike Casey is an entrepreneur and cherry orchardist from Central Otago who has electrified all the machines on his farm. He is also the CEO of Rewiring Aotearoa, a New Zealand charity dedicated to electrifying millions of fossil fuel machines across the motu as quickly as possible.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
