The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā for paying subscribers in the last week included: * The Kaka’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer reported on how banks’ and insurers’ models of climate change’s financial impacts underplay massively the likely costs and risks of rises in temperatures of over two degrees, relative to th...

TL;DR: Labour PM Chris Hipkins yesterday revealed cross-harbour transport projects that could cost up to $45 billion in the decades to come, but he wants road tunnels built first, which will increase climate emissions for decades to come. The projected cost also ignores a climate emissions credits bill that add well over $20 billion to the real cost to taxpayers because Auckland’s higher transport...

TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā for paying subscribers in the last week included: * The Opposition suggested this week the Labour Government’s books had fallen into a $20 billion ‘fiscal black hole’. I wrote and podcasted about how this claim was wrong and irresponsible in Friday’s email . * National proposed building...

TL;DR: There is no ‘fiscal black hole’ and the politicians and news editors who gave the vague and unsourced suggestion of one unelected politician should be ashamed of themselves for giving it public airtime, let alone asking Parliamenary questions about it. Lizzo’s HR problems are more of a news story. Paying subscribers can see more detail below and hear more in the podcast above. Join them in...

TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā for paying subscribers in the last week included: * David Parker’s decision to give up the Revenue portfolio after PM Chris Hipkins’ ruled out the wealth tax switch he and Grant Robertson put together for Budget 2023. Wednesday’s email * Kiri Allan’s resignation as Justice Minister and d...

TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that I wrote and spoke about via The Kākā for paying subscribers in the last week included: * The revelation that 480 families are living in cars. Friday’s email * Detail emerged about the thousands of low-skilled temporary workers given high-skilled work visas under the new ‘reset’ immigration policy. Thursday’s email * Both Nat...

TL:DR: This will be a short email and not that sweet, but I think it summarises where Aotearoa is deep in the winter of 2023. There were 480 families in Aotearoa who told authorities when they were listed on the housing register that they lived in a car, up from 102 families in October, 2017. Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment Priyanca Radakrishnan gave the figures in the ans...

TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that I wrote and spoke about via The Kākā for paying subscribers this week included: * PM Chris Hipkins ruling out a wealth or capital gains tax for his time as PM Friday’s email ; * two political opinion polls showing support for Labour dropping, which is increasing the chances of a National/ACT victory in the General Election o...

TL;DR: This week’s decision by PM Chris Hipkins to give up on reforming the taxation of capital gains or wealth begged the question for many of: what is the point of politics anymore if you can’t seem to change an obviously wrong policy? Listener columnist and political thinker Danyl McLauchlan has written extensively about how modern politics has created a type of administrative and captured stat...

TL;DR: That’s it. It will now be almost impossible for a wealth or capital gains tax to be implemented within the next decade or two. The future of Aotearoa’s political economy will now remain frozen in its stagnant, unequal, unjust, unproductive and unhealthy state for the forseeable future. That’s what our leaders, and ultimately the only voters that matter, have decided. Those hoping to change...

TLDR: The week’s news in Aotearoa’s political economy I covered via The Kākā for subscribers included: * The Opposition’s reckless talk about a ‘mortgage bomb’ hitting the housing market and economy, which I showed was out of line with what home owners and their banks are actually doing. Friday’s email . * The Human Rights Commission ’s conclusion in the final report from its landmark housing mark...

TL;DR : The Greens have proposed a smorgasbord of $15.5 billion worth of wealth taxes annually for Labour to pick and choose from, or ignore completely, in any government-forming negotiations after Election 2023 on October 14. So now the rule-in-rule-out game begins. Labour started carefully yesterday, saying it would roll out its own tax policy in the coming weeks. National and ACT leapt to assig...

TL;DR: National has released its infrastructure policy for the election, opting for a tweaked version of a bipartisan and 30-year-long low-infrastructure-investment and low-public-debt strategy that created our housing and climate crises and has dug a $200 billion infrastructure hole for future generations to live with or fill. Elsewhere, there’s news in our political economy on climate, housing a...

TL;DR: There’s more awkward political news for Chris Hipkins this morning, with a fresh revelation of an appearance of a conflict of interest for just-stood-down Transport Minister Michael Wood. Elsewhere, there’s news in our political economy on climate, housing and poverty, as: * National dumps its support for He Waka Eke Noa, which was supposed to price farm emissions before a Zero Carbon Act d...

TL;DR: There’s another call this morning to lower the voting age and to lower the threshold for parties to get into Parliament under MMP. Elsewhere, there’s news: * most social homes in Wellington’s high rise apartments don’t have sprinklers; * Michael Wood faces accusations he breached the Cabinet Manual because he didn’t disclose ownership of Auckland Airport shares while Transport Minister; * C...

TLDR: The week’s news in Aotearoa’s political economy I covered via The Kākā for subscribers included: * The Labour Government’s announcement it would share the costs with councils and insurers of buying back about 700 now-uninhabitable homes (~$1 billion) and protecting another 10,000 at-risk homes (un-estimated) from extreme climate events after Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle, but couldn’t say how...

TL;DR: Our planet is now warming and generating extreme climate events faster than our politicians, voters and institutions can agree to reduce the costs and share the burden of those events fairly now and in future. That was evident in a range of delays, non-responses, finger-pointing fudges and distractions thrown up yesterday by Aotearoa’s politicians, who by default have decided to force today...

TL;DR: There are fresh signs this morning the housing market-with-bits-tacked-on economy is brightening up going into winter, and just four months to the day before voting starts. Data this morning from CoreLogic and Realestate.co.nz show a bottoming out of an 18-month slide in house values in a tightening market, with listings at a 16-year low in May. Sellers are happy and able to sit on their ha...

TL;DR: There are increasing signs in economists’ forecasts, auction clearance rates, migration rates, divergent tax policies and house building rates that a clear victory for National/ACT in the October 14 election could unleash an immediate 10-20% bounce in house prices in auctions and open homes in late October and November. A similar thing happened in the wake of the mid-September 2014 election...

TL;DR: NIMBY groups are cock-a-hoop this morning, calling on councils and the Government to completely abandon the MDRS housing densification rules in the wake of National’s backflip on a bipartisan deal once seen as the hope of a generation. The residents’ groups also called (in reports in The Press-$$$ and The NZ Herald this morning) for a halt to greenfields housing developments in our two bigg...

TL;DR: Chris Bishop has detailed National’s new housing policy for Election 2023 that confirms a National Government would not force councils to allow the building of three three-storey townhouses on a regular section without a resource consent — known as MDRS. Rushed into the announcement after his leader Christopher Luxon let slip in a public meeting last week that the formerly bipartisan ‘Town...

TLDR: The week’s news in Aotearoa’s political economy I covered via The Kākā for subscribers included: * The Labour Government’s announcement it would pay NZ Steel $130 million to install an electric arc furnace to cut 800,000 tonnes of emissions a year. Lynn and I travelled to the Glenbrook steel mill south of Auckland for the announcement event. Here’s the analysis and podcast I sent in Monday’s...

TL;DR: National/ACT could govern alone after October 14 if last night’s 1News/Kantar poll was replicated in the election, although Christopher Luxon remains less popular than Chris Hipkins , who is honing in on trust as a weakness for National. Elsewhere in the news in our political economy this morning * Wayne Brown looks set to lose his bid to sell Auckland’s airport shares; * Nicola Willis is b...

TL;DR: National Leader Christopher Luxon looks set to abandon within weeks the bipartisan ‘Townhouse Nation’ policy agreed and championed by his deputy Nicola Willis and his housing spokesman Chris Bishop. He has caved to the NIMBYs in his party who are campaigning to stop houses being built anywhere near them for all the migrants they (paradoxically) want employed to provide the services they nee...

TL;DR: The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) is looking at a ‘carbon dividend’ scheme that would recycle cash from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) back into the pockets of consumers. That would be popular at a time when many are struggling with living costs, especially if it was done with a simple equal cash payout to residents. But such a policy would also be inflationary and work against the...