[2] The Initiative’s main areas of focus include economic policy, housing, education, local government, welfare, immigration and fisheries.

The Wellington-based Business Roundtable, founded by Roger Kerr in 1986, was among the main proponents of New Zealand's neoliberal economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s.

[16] The chief editor of the New Zealand Initiative, Nathan Smith, resigned from the position in December 2020 after news reports emerged that he was the author of a far-right blog.

[17][18] In this blog he said, amongst other things, that the media controls people's thoughts and authors lengthy posts tying together "Muslim rape gangs" and incel ideology.

[20][21][22] On its website, The New Zealand Initiative says its mission is "to help create a competitive, open and dynamic economy and a free, prosperous, fair, and cohesive society"[23] and describes itself as "strictly non-partisan."

[27] In an earlier report, the Initiative had criticised the New Zealand government for introducing new teaching methods in mathematics that led to worsening numeracy of students.

[28] In September 2022, the NZ Initiative asked the Ministry of Education to provide evidence that large, open-plan classrooms helped improve students' learning.

[30] In November 2015, Hartwich and the Labour Party's housing spokesperson Phil Twyford published a joint opinion piece advocating the abolition of height and density controls, infrastructure bonds, and an end to the rural-urban boundary.

[31] The article was interpreted as a shift from traditional Labour positions on land-use planning[32] and regarded by international commentators as a sign of a new emerging consensus on housing policy.

[39] Based on comparative research, the Initiative proposed to establish a new agency to represent recreational fishing interests, modelled on the Western Australian body Recfishwest.

[45] The Labour Party's Immigration spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway welcomed the report while criticising its alleged ignorance of migrants' infrastructure needs.