The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

A record-high 201 New Zealanders emigrated each day on average in the year to the end of July, with 58% going to Australia. Australia’s labour market is now accelerating ahead of New Zealand’s stalled market, further widening the 30% wage premium over the Tasman and providing job openings there while there are none here. Both long and short term policy decisions by the New Zealand and Australian G...

Briefly in my Picks ‘n Mixes and Daily Chorus on Wednesday, September 10, the top news, scoops and deep-dives in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are: * To justify continued health sector wage and hiring restraint, the Government has repeatedly argued New Zealand’s health spending was actually higher than similar OECD countries as a share of GDP, having risen during...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman about the global economy, local and international politics and climate change. This week’s special guests were tech activist Julian Oliver and The NZ Herald’s Wellington Business Editor Jenee Tibshraeny....

Briefly in this deep-dive below on the political economy of Reserve Bank independence : * A debate is now raging around the Government’s pressuring of the Reserve Bank on interest rates and bank capital policies, along with the opaque and messy exits of both its Labour-appointed Governor, Adrian Orr , and its long-time Chairman, Neil Quigley . * Both Finance Minister Nicola Willis and PM Christoph...

Briefly in this deep-dive below on the political economy of administered inflation below: * The Government was elected in 2023 on a wave of public revulsion at inflation, which voters blamed on the then-Labour Government. Initially, inflation fell through 2024 because global oil and food prices had fallen in the previous 18 months. But it has come surging back in 2025, thanks to another burst of g...

Just briefly, RBNZ Chief Economist Paul Conway talks in the interview above about the central bank's meetings with politicians and how it remains "fiercely independent." Governments that interfere in monetary policy get higher inflation, he said. Also, Conway said: * The RBNZ was doing a ‘mini-review’ of whether it should have taken a more moderate approach to hiking interest rates in the current...

Briefly in my Picks ‘n Mixes and Daily Chorus on Thursday August 28, the top news, scoops and deep-dives in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are: * The Lead: Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis decided yesterday not to pursue a structural separation of the supermarkets duopoly, opting instead to bring supermarkets into the fast-track regime and hope that the like...

Briefly in my Picks ‘n Mixes and Daily Chorus on Tuesday August 26, Wednesday, August 27, the top news, scoops and deep-dives in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are: * The Lead: The Government has announced a new ‘Business Investor Visa’ (BIV) that awards residency to migrants who buy a business for at least $2 million, and a three-year fast-track work-to-residency...

Briefly in my Daily Chorus on Tuesday August 26, the top news, scoops and deep-dives in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are: * The Lead: PM Christopher Luxon let slip yesterday he met with Reserve Bank Governor Christian Hawkesby last week just before the bank’s surprisingly dovish rate cut. Luxon told Hawkesby the central bank had been too slow to cut rates. He al...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman about the global economy, local and international politics, climate change and the future of trade. This week’s special guest is Ganesh R Ahirao . This week’s Hoon featured: * A discussion between Peter a...

Briefly in my Daily Chorus for all subscribers on Monday August 18, the top news, scoops and deep-dives in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are: * The Lead: Senior figures in the business community are openly questioning the Government’s 1991-style strategy of restraining Government spending to create space for lower interest rates to stimulate household spending an...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman about the global economy, local and international politics, climate change and the future of trade. This week’s Hoon featured: * A discussion between Peter and Bernard about how ACT continues to dominate...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with special guests Felicity Roxburgh , the executive director of the New Zealand International Business Forum , and Patrick Reynolds , the transport activist and Auckland Council candidate. This week’s Hoon featured: * A discussion between Peter and Berna...

Briefly in my Picks ‘n Mixes and Dawn Chorus for full subscribers on Friday August 8, the top news, scoops and deep-dives in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are: * The Lead: Auckland Chamber of Commerce CEO Simon Bridges has electrified the political and economic landscape by calling for Government stimulus to help Aucklanders struggling with 6.1% unemployment. * B...

I spoke with Victoria University of Wellington political scientist Natalia Albert this week about her excellent substack post titled: The Politics of Trust: What the Wellbeing Era Got Right (and Wrong). I highly recommend it, along with Natalia’s many previous posts on the quirks and features of Aotearoa’s deeply frustrating political economy. She wrote this week about trust in Government, in part...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman , plus special guest Auckland City Councillor Angela Dalton . This week’s Hoon featured: * a discussion about the events in Gaza and New Zealand’s position on recognising the Palestinian Authority as a st...

There are thousands of hectares worth of hot steel roofs on warehouses and factories in our biggest cities, but few have solar panels on them that could act as virtual power plants for those factories and the homes, schools, hospitals, offices and shops that are often nearby. Anyone flying into Auckland and Christchurch airports can look down and see the biggest missed opportunity for renewable en...

Briefly for all subscribers, the key things to know from Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Tuesday, July 29 are: * Speaking on the first anniversary of tax cuts mostly received by owners of multiple homes, PM Christopher Luxon spent half an hour defending his Government’s record on cost of living, economic growth and homelessness at his post-cabinet news confer...

Briefly for all subscribers, the key things to know from Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, July 28 are: * Jessica Roden had the scoop last night on 1News about the scale of the postcode lottery now evident in Aotearoa-New Zealand’s health system after decades of under-funding and rampant population growth. See more below in The Lead and the podcast and...

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman , plus special guests Jessica Palairat from Lawyers for Climate Action and Alan Pollard from Civil Contractors New Zealand about the news of the week. This week’s Hoon featured: * a discussion about the I...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thekaka.substack.com Briefly for all subscribers, the key things to know from Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Friday, July 25 are: * I.D.EA. has proposed a jobs guarantee and ‘Jobs launchpads’ to connect 400,000 people looking for work with employers in a major new report . See more below in The Le...

Briefly for all subscribers, the key things to know from Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Thursday, July 24 are: * Housing Ministers Chris Bishop and Tama Potaka have finally released an official Homelessness Insights report sent to Ministers in June. It shows rough sleeping has risen between around 25% and 225% in our biggest cities in the last year since the...

Briefly for all subscribers, the key things to know from Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Tuesday, July 22 are: * Inflation figures have confirmed the Government’s economic strategy is failing, with the economy sinking into stagflation just over a year out from the next election. See more below in The Lead and in the podcast above. * Unlike after previous big...

Briefly for all subscribers, the key things to know from Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, July 21 are: * The Government tried to paint a $6 billion announcement on infrastructure yesterday as new news that would boost the economy and jobs. It isn’t. See more below in The Lead and in the podcast above. * PM Christopher Luxon visited the Tasman region ov...

Earlier this week I interviewed Mark Wilkshire, the CEO of the Co-operative Bank , from his Wellington office. We talked about: * the current situation in the economy and housing market; * how changes to capital requirements for banks is affecting the bigger and smaller banks, and the need for a level playing field; * the effects of the renewed Loan to Value Ratio restrictions and the new Debt to...