The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, September 9 : * Chris Hipkins widens Labour’s tax debate to include the 30% limit on the size of Government. * Chris Bishop wants plenty of bipartisan infrastructure investment, but remains a small Government and pro-markets guy, which makes that hard. * In s...

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 : * The month of August was 1.49˚C warmer than pre-industrial levels, tying with 2023 for the warmest August ever, according to the EU’s Copernicus climate dataset. This is despite the absence of El Niñ...

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 debate about how to responde to climate disinformation; * Robert Patman and special guest Helen Clark on the latest fr...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, September 6 : * The Government keeps arguing its cuts on spending in real-percapita terms in health, education, child welfare, housing and public transport are needed to both pay for ‘income tax relief due to a cost of living crisis’ and to deal with ‘the dir...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty: * Simeon Brown is cutting planned investment on cycling and walking over the next three years to $460 million from the $1 billion planned from 2021-24, but there is actually no new funding for 2024-27 as the $460 million is coming from money not spent over the last thr...

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 : * The Government announced changes to the Fast-Track Approvals Bill on Sunday, backing off from the contentious proposal to give final say on development projects to just three government Ministers. I...

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 science of changing sea temperatures and which emissions policies actually work; * Robert Patman on the latest from Ukraine, Gaza and AUKUS II; * Journalist and auth...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, August 29: * A quietly-administered and arbitrary freeze on funding ordered by Social Development Minister Louise Upston effectively means disabled people currently living with carers will only have a chance of getting into residential care if they’ve commi...

Kia ora. The Sunday before last 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. That would give us time during 2024 to: * Ask six fundamental questions about what Aotearoa wants and how to ge...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, August 27: * Chris Hipkins says Labour is revisiting its decades-long and bipartisan commitment to Government spending and debt being less than 30% of GDP. * Economists overseas are also challenging the austerity thinking of the last 40 years designed to red...

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 : * Scientists are not entirely sure why sea surface temperatures have been accelerating so quickly over the past year, at the same time as air surface temperatures. * A study on the effects of storms i...

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 science of changing sea temperatures and how most of the solar generation installed is too far north; * Robert Patman on the latest from Ukraine, Gaza and AUKUS II;...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, August 23 : * Medical specialists have called for an independent inquiry into health funding, warning $1.4 billion of cuts by Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy will cut into the bone of a health service underfunded for decades. * New research shows elderly p...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, August 22 : * PM Christopher Luxon appeared to torpedo his own ‘Government of Infrastructure’’s agenda for ‘Going for Housing Growth’ with an angry rant of a speech telling mayors and councillors they would have to build half the infrastructure to deal with...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, August 21 : * Winstone announced yesterday it would close its pulp mill and sawmill near Ohakune permanently because wholesale electricity prices tripled since July 1, costing 230 jobs and escalating a nationwide manufacturing and exporting crisis. * New p...

Mōrena . Long stories short; here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, August 20 : * The Human Rights Commission reports Aotearoa’s biggest visa scheme for temporary migrants “may be enabling potential human trafficking, with signs of systemic migrant exploitation and modern slavery”. * A international report calling for a ‘fea...

Mōrena. Here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, August 19: 1. When the myopia of cutting now is more expensive How Oranga Tamariki’s night of the long knives is counter-productive The last week has been dominated by Oranga Tamariki contractors telling media about how they were being told without warning or reason that their fu...

Kia ora. I got up yesterday morning to write my usual end-of-the-week reflections of the six main things that happened in our political economy in the last week or so, and why they mattered. Lately, my daily emails and weekend ‘soliloquies’ have become laundry lists of policy vandalism, where I point to the most obvious announcements from the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government that are set...

TL;DR: Here’s the top 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 : * Two new academic studies attempt to pinpoint tipping risks. One modelled tipping risk from four interconnected tipping elements, based on current policy paths that overshoot 1.5˚C, and estimated the tipping risk to...

TL;DR: 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 science of climate tipping points and Project 2025‘s plan to banish the phrase ‘climate change’ from a Trump administration; * Robert Patman on the latest fro...

Kia ora. Long stories short: * The RBNZ was forced to make a dramatic about-turn yesterday, cutting rates after the slowdown it wanted was turbocharged into a recession by the Government’s abrupt closure of construction pipelines for state-funded building of homes, schools, hospitals and water networks, and its slashing of thousands of public sector jobs shocked parts of the economy to a standstil...

Morena. Long stories short: * Simeon Brown is pushing ahead with a congestion charging plan that centralises control in Wellington and fails to first show the benefits to drivers or offer public transport alternatives, guaranteeing an easy policy-killing ‘brand new tax’ backlash . * Louise Upston has launched an evidence-free new toughening of benefit sanctions and plans electronic controls of hal...

TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Monday, August 12: 1. Thinking differently about what matters I attended a two-day seminar in Auckland over the weekend called Economics for Sustainable Prosperity that was run by Steven Hail , a professor at Torrens University in Australia, in which he talked about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)...

TL;DR: 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 : * The WHO reports a 30% increase in heat-related deaths worldwide over the past two decades with numbers set to swell (as we all swelter). * Wait and see , says Zeke Hausfather : Climate scientists are holding out...

TL;DR: 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 this week’s explosion in wholesale electricity prices; * Robert Patman on the latest on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, the conflicts in Gaza and the Middle East, and o...