The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

Long stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer : * “Why does everywhere seem to be flooding right now, Vox asks, as a new study predicts that 70% of humanity will be hit by extreme weather events within the next 20 years. * Distilled examines insurance...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey & Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with: * The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on the latest climate news, including another extreme climate event in the United States; * Robert Patman on the escalating conflict between Israel, Iran and Hezbollah in Southern L...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, October 2: * PM Christopher Luxon was able to escape having to pay ‘brightline’ capital gains taxes of up to $70,200 on the sale of his Kate Sheppard apartment in Wellington because the sale was delayed until after his Government changed the rule by the P...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, October 1: * PM Christopher Luxon has made $460,000 in tax-free income this year from capital gains on the sale of two of his rental properties, almost as much as the $484,200 gross income from his actual job, which he, like other earners of wages, has to p...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, September 30: * Over 35,000 people marched in Dunedin on Saturday to protest against the Government’s plans to downgrade the new hospital being built there. * In the scoop of the day, Labour’s internal polling shows the left bloc just two percentage points b...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey & Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with: * The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on the latest climate news, including research suggesting a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could trigger 8° of warming in the long run; * Robert Patman on the escalati...

Long stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer : * A seventh planetary boundary, for ocean acidification will soon be breached, and may have already done so, according to a new report from The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) . * A n...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, September 27: * Treasury’s Chief Economics Adviser Dominick Stephens gave the year’s most important speech yesterday, saying real and per-capita cuts in public spending implied by the Government’s surplus ambitions for 2028 would have to be unprecedented wit...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, September 26: * Days after realising hundreds of thousands of tax-free gains on the sale of one of his rental properties, PM Christopher Luxon responded yesterday to ANZ CEO Antonia Watson’s comments in favour of a tax on realised capital gains on rental p...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, September 25: * Ad agency climate activist group Comms Declare today launched the New Zealand version of the globally compiled ‘ F list ,’ which names 14 local agencies “which have ignored the scientific consensus and kept promoting fossil fuel clients,”...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, September 24: * Australia’s competition watchdog has launched legal action against Woolworths and Coles , alleging they both systematically misled customers by promising ‘every day low prices’, but only on products just after price increases. * In scoop of...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, September 23: * The Government was advised in the Budget process that sticking to Labour ’s child poverty reduction targets would cost $3 billion, which is less than 1% of GDP and about the same as the cost of tax reductions for landlords, but Social Develop...

Long story short, I interviewed transport and energy activist Patrick Reynolds this week about the bid to run Entrust by a new campaign group he’s part of called More for you; better for Auckland . There’s a lot more detail in this GreaterAuckland post and on ‘Better’s’ website. They’re campaigning to win the trustee seats of Entrust off the conservative Citizens and Ratepayers’ (C&R ) group that...

Long stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer : * Central Europe is reeling from the devastating effects of Storm Boris, which has so far caused 21 deaths and left a wide swathe of destruction. Climate scientists say they aren’t surprised by the in...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-host Bernard Hickey talking about the week’s news with: * The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on the latest climate news, including media coverage of extreme events and how big tech is gobbling up so much renewable power growth; * Robert Patman on exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Le...

Long story short, the Government’s myopia of only choosing transport policies that reduce travel times means we’re missing out on the health benefits of more cycling and walking, along with the health cost savings from fewer accidents, less pollution and mentally healthier ways of getting around. In our first solutions interview in T he Kākā Project of 2026 for 2050 (TKP 26/50) , University of Can...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, September 18 : * Locals gathered in Woodville last night to protest at the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s decision to toll the new road linking the Manawatu and Hawkes Bay, saying it will hurt vulnerable workers and dump repair costs for the free alte...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, September 15 : * The Government’s faster speed limits will: kill more people; put even more drivers, pedestrians and cyclists in already-full hospitals; and increase emissions and other health costs, dozens of experts have told the Government. * In scoop of...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, September 14 : * The National/ACT/NZ First Government is considering shunting elderly patients out of hospitals and lifting thresholds for entry to try to ‘free up’ 200,000 bed-nights in a drive to save $1.4 billion. * In scoop of the day, Climate Change Min...

Long stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer : * A Trump victory in the November US elections would doom global progress on climate change and reverberate through the geological record for a million years, according to Bill McKibben. * Up to 68% o...

This week we learned: * The new National/ACT/NZ First Coalition Government ignored advice from Treasury that it didn’t have to reduce net public debt to an arbitrary range of 20%-40% of GDP and could instead borrow up to $80 billion in coming years to create an investment pipeline to grow productivity; * instead, the new Government created a series of blunt and arbitrary instruments to cut spendin...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with: * The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on the latest climate science on rising temperatures and the climate implications of the US Presidential elections; * Robert Patman and special guests Janet Anderson and Stephanie...

Kia ora . Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, September 13 : * Treasury told the new Government it considered a 50% net core crown debt limit fiscally prudent under the Public Finance Act (PFA) , but the National/ACT/NZ First coalition decided in Budget 2024 to go ahead with a 20%-40% target range. * Tr...

I spoke with Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie yesterday, just before the Trump-Harris debate, about how Substack is doing its thing during the US elections. He talks in particular about how Substack’s focus on paid subscriptions rather than ads has made political debate on the platform calmer, simpler, deeper and more satisfying than in other social media, where the ad-driven need to maximise o...

Kia ora. Last month I proposed restarting The Kākā Project work done before the 2023 election as The Kākā Project of 2026 for 2050 (TKP 26/50) , aiming to be up and running before the 2025 Local Government elections, and then in a finalised form by the 2026 General Elections. A couple of weeks ago I asked the first of TKP 26/50 ’s six fundamental questions: What population growth rate do we want o...