When the Facts Change

Billions has been spent on the construction of Auckland’s City Rail Link, largely at the cost of taxpayers and ratepayers. The current Auckland council zoning rules, however, prevent the building of high-rise residential and commercial buildings at Mt Eden, Kingsland and Morningside stations. Sooner or later, something has got to give. CBRE director of residential research Tamba Carleton joins Ber...

The Reserve Bank gets another chance to cut interest rates next week. So far 2025 has seen the RBNZ make three consecutive cuts to the official cash rate, which was widely expected by economists up and down the country. But next week, for the first time this year, there’s doubt. Kiwibank economist Sabrina Delgado joins Bernard Hickey to assess our central bank’s options leading into next week’s mo...

Many bosses now want their workers back in the office full time, but for a while in the immediate aftermath of Covid, workers had the power to demand the flexibility to stay home. Now the jobs market has sagged, the balance has shifted and a new hybrid way of working is becoming more common. Bernard Hickey speaks on this week’s When The Facts Change with Robert Half NZ MD Megan Alexander about the...

It’s no secret that Aotearoa is facing a range of monumental infrastructure challenges — much has been made lately of the state of our water pipes, ferries, railways and roads. Successive generations of decision makers have kicked the infrastructure maintenance can down the road, and now we are facing a huge bill if we want to keep pace with our growing population. Infrastructure NZ chief executiv...

‘Abundance’ is the hottest word in the political economy right now all around the world. A book by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein called ‘Abundance: How we build a better future’ argues the centre-left should adopt urbanisation and electrification as central aims to improve affordability of housing and transport, rather than framing emissions reduction as an expensive and painful necessity that the...

The Reserve Bank cut the Official Cash Rate this week, as expected, but one of the six members of the bank’s rate setting committee voted to hold the OCR. That surprised markets and pushed up the wholesale interest rates that drive fixed mortgage rates. Bernard Hickey speaks with Kiwibank’s Mary Jo Vergara about a very uncertain outlook for rates in the wake of Donald Trump’s Liberation Day shock....

In the year of growth, Nicola Willis has presented a growth budget. But does the Investment Boost initiative, which speeds up depreciation for businesses, promise the kind of growth that the economy needs? In this special Spinoff pod for budget day, Toby Manhire asks Bernard Hickey for his take on the headline changes, and whether or not David Seymour’s earlier commentary that his colleague Brooke...

Fresh off a pre-Budget speech that took aim at the recent changes to pay equity, Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins joins Bernard Hickey to discuss the government’s plans to cut $4.4 billion of spending over the next four years. What are the potential downsides of Nicola Willis’ austerity approach to budget management? What other types of debt might we be accruing without realising it? Listen in to...

In 2010, the NZ Green Building Council introduced the Homestar sustainability certification, a framework that aims to allow designers, architects and builders to build better, more environmentally friendly, energy efficient housing. The upfront cost of building to the Homestar certification can be more, but the potential savings over time - not to mention the quality of life improvements - are sig...

This week, Bernard Hickey dives into the psychology of the housing market and talks to realestate.co.nz CEO Sarah Wood about why so many home sellers are holding on and simply not selling, rather than lowering their price to “meet the market” and “clear the market” in a way other markets do when there’s too much supply and not enough demand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adc...

More than half of consumer spending is dominated one way or another by a collection of monopolies, duopolies and quadropolies that generate higher prices and profits than would be normal if there was true and tough competition, as a myriad of market studies and inquiries have found for supermarkets, fuel retailing, building materials, electricity, banking, insurance and real estate agencies. Twent...

Bernard Hickey talks to the co-founders of Christchurch-based AI start-up, Contented. Lucy Pink and Hannah Hardy-Jones tell their story from meeting over coffee and jam, to working with US news publishers to turn live-streamed council meetings into news articles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump’s bigger-and-stupider-than-expected tariffs have upended the global trading system and are threatening to create a new financial crisis. Bernard Hickey talks with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the latest day “when the facts changed”, and what might happen next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If New Zealand’s economy was a grass paddock, it would be in pretty rough shape. We’re coming out of a pretty bad drought (economic recession) and there’s widespread political disagreement about how to get our worn-out field of brown grass back to the lush green pasture it once was. Bernard Hickey speaks to Kiwibank economist Sabrina Delgado about what looks promising (green shoots) and what look...

For 30 years, a little-known number in government circles has quietly stymied investment for future generations. Set by Treasury, the ‘discount rate’ was once set at 10%, and it meant future benefits and costs were heavily devalued, becoming worth almost nothing after six or seven years. In a nutshell, higher discount rates discourage long-term investment and incentivise short-term projects. Treas...

Bernard Hickey chews the monetary policy fat with returning guest Reserve Bank chief economist Paul Conway. Was inflation targeting (a policy framework first introduced in Aotearoa 35 years ago) actually our greatest invention? Was quantitative easing a success? Is inflation different now? And should Reserve Banks and Governments work more in tandem, rather than against each other? Listen in to fi...

This week we dive deep into the worlds of AI, defence technology businesses and the great technological arms race between China and the US. Bernard is joined by Sean Gourley, a New Zealander who founded US-based tech success story Primer, an AI intelligence company helping governments understand the mathematical patterns underlying modern warfare. Gourley shares his insights about New Zealand’s po...

Adrian Orr resigned as Reserve Bank Governor this week after 7 years in the job, but three years early, effective immediately and without explanation. Bernard Hickey talks in an emergency edition of When The Facts Change with NZ Initiative executive director Oliver Hartwich, an Orr critic, about his legacy and how his replacement should change the bank, and with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Ker...

Even as New Zealand’s economy was in the depths of a recession, the Reserve Bank kept a firm grip on monetary policy, only easing up in mid-2024. This week, Bernard Hickey sits down with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr to discuss whether the Reserve Bank should be hitting the accelerator now, rather than simply lifting its foot off the brake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone....

Described by The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive as “the most important figure in New Zealand technology you’ve never hear of”, Rowan Simpson has had a guiding hand in Aotearoa’s most successful tech companies. His new book “How to be Wrong: a crash course in startup success” shares the close calls and near misses that happened on the way to success (read: the staggering purchase of Trade Me by Fairfax Me...

Retail spending figures from shops, cafes, restaurants, hotels and holiday hotspots over December and January are the ultimate barometer for spending appetites, income levels and general confidence in job security. Kiwibank senior economist Mary Jo Vergara joins Bernard Hickey to discuss a note she published this week, diving in to the latest spending data collected over the summer break. How rela...

Free trade agreements are the global political economy’s hottest topics at the moment, especially since a tariff-toting Donald Trump recently argued (to great political success) that the rising tide of global free trade wasn’t lifting all boats. While global economic growth has lifted many out of poverty, the benefits have been unevenly distributed, leading to increasing wealth inequality and stag...

Our social welfare system is complicated, expensive - and incredibly necessary. How do we know when it’s working properly? And when it’s not? ImpactLab CEO Maria English joins Bernard to unpack the data and evidence-based metrics they use to assess the “social return on investment” of social services funding, and how the company uses their insights to help make Aotearoa a better place. Learn more...

Last June the economists at Kiwibank published an article titled “Survive ‘til 25”, outlining what they saw as a tough six months ahead for our economy. Well we’ve made it to 2025, but is the economic year ahead going to be about surviving or thriving? Kiwibank economist Sabrina Delgado joins Bernard Hickey to try and find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In order to reduce debt, the coalition government wants to cut spending from 34% of GDP down to 30%. In practice, that means cutting spending on people with disabilities, even though those cuts often increase hospital and care costs in the long term. Bernard is joined this week by disability rights lawyer (and distant cousin) Huhana Hickey, for an in-depth look at what austerity actually means. Le...