The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

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 : * A year of record-breaking surface temperatures has spawned a month of global extreme weather chaos in May, including howler monkeys falling dead from trees in Mexico during a ferocious heatwave that is also thre...

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with: * The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer about extreme heat in India and Mexico and the prospects climate migration to Aotearoa-NZ; * CTU Chief Economist Craig Renney and Good IDEAs founder Max Rashbrooke about Budget 2024; and * Community Housing Aotea...

TL;DR: Finance Minister Nicola Willis has delivered her first Budget , deciding to go ahead with long-promised tax cuts despite a weaker economy that is forcing the new Government to borrow a net extra $68.3 billion by mid-2028. The income tax cuts are costing $14.7 billion over four years. Net debt will rise by 68.3 billion to over $220.7 billion over that period, which is $12 billion more than T...

TL;DR: The new Government’s first Budget due today at 2:00 pm is focused on delivering ‘cost of living relief’ in the form of income tax cuts for middle income families, but many of the coalition’s actions have already pumped up costs and lowered incomes, especially for the poor and disabled. This Budget will include tax cuts and an expected $10-15 billion increase in borrowing to up to $167 billi...

TL;DR: The National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government won last year’s election with a pledge to ‘get things done’ and ‘get New Zealand back on track,’ while also reducing inflation in living costs. But the exact opposite has happened because it: * abruptly cancelled and suspended billions worth of transport and school building projects; * urgently repealed water industry and RMA reforms without re...

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 : * Private industry’s failure to set and maintain course toward sufficient emissions reduction goals provide a backdrop to Microsoft’s recent announcement that it exceeded its emissions reduction goals by more than...

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about this week’s Kainga Ora and first home loan news, along with regular guest Robert Patman on China’s warning to New Zealand and special guests Michael J Field on the riots in New Caledonia and Giorgi Lomsadze on the escalating protests in Georgia against Russian...

TL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English -led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build or buy homes with capital grants, house transfers rent subsidies until next year. That leaves the building sector, developers and social housing providers in limbo for longer, and further delays the de...

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale , along with regular guest Robert Patman and special guest former PM Helen Clark on Aukus II and much more. We also spoke with Ngāti Toa CEO Helmut Modlik about why his iwi opposes the Fast-track Approval bill. The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wr...

TL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in the March quarter, driven partly by abrupt freezes in Government funding for housing, transport, school and hospital investment. That happened as an average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during those 90 days, which was up 54% from...

TL;DR: An unseasonally early icy blast at the same time as some long-overdue maintenance almost caused Aotearoa-NZ’s electricity system to black out this week. That’s because a quadropoly of gentailers have prioritised paying dividends from their rising profits and adding debt over investing in 1.5 GigaWatts of new wind farms that were already consented over the last decade. Official inquiries, th...

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale , along with regular guest Robert Patman on geopolitics, and special guest Jesse Richardson from A City for People on a big victory for YIMBYs in Wellington this week. The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewh...

TL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown that carving Watercare out of Auckland Council can be done easily and cheaply without clear guarantees on the new Watercare bonds from the Government or Auckland Council . Industry sources have told me Watercare would get a BBB+ or A- credit rating at best u...

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and Cathrine Dyer on climate change. Special guest Craig Renney talks about public sector job cuts this week and the Government’s big investment freeze at the end of the podcast. The six things that mattered in Aotearo...

TL;DR: Here’s the top five 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 experts are demanding the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) retract a seminal food systems transition report recently presented to the world at COP28 , saying that it ‘seriously distorts’ their wor...

TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 9:06am on Monday, April 29: * The Lead: A 1News-Verian poll published last night showed the collapse in business, consumer and voter confidence about the country’s direction in March and April has translated into the worst polling performance for any first-term Government since the int...

TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:06am on Monday, April 29: * The Lead: The Government's constant talk of inheriting a financial mess, its freezes on transport, housing and water project grants and decisions, and a cavalcade of state sector job cuts has unnerved businesses and consumers into snapping shut their own w...

TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25: * Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling NZ First and ACT ministers in place. His coalition partners already see Luxon as...

TL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included: * A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is growing beyond Parliament and including iwi, political columnists, editorial writers, legal scholars and campaigners who fear it gives three ministers more power than Robert Muldoon ....

TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and Cathrine Dyer on climate change. The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included: * Climate: Ongoing double-digit hikes in council rates and...

TL;DR: Here’s the top five 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 is systematically dismantling environmental and climate policy architecture, while claiming that targets are safe. This is not credible and suggests a plan to ‘fail quietly’. * Submissions for the...

TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature . (S ee more detail and analysis below, and in the video above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying a...

My pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond from the last 24 hours to 9:46 am on Thursday, April 18 are: * The Lead: Ongoing double-digit inflation in council rates and insurance linked to climate change is pumping up domestic inflation and is helping to delay mortgage rate cuts until late this year or even early 2025. So should the Reserve Bank look throu...

TL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are: * The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced yesterday he had asked Waka Kotahi-NZTA to again consider digging a 4-km-long four-lane motorway tunnel from The Terrace to Kilbirnie, shocking Wellington’s transport planners yesterday, who said the $10-billion-plus cost was prohibitive and wasteful. (See more...

TL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me at 7:26 am today are: * The Lead: Casey Costello never passed on to Cabinet official advice with an analysis for the BMJ showing that keeping Labour’s smokefree changes would have boosted consumer disposable incomes by $51 billion by 2050, more than offsetting $19 billion in net losses for the Government. Newsroom Marc Daalder (S ee more analysis and...