The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts and talking with regular guests & about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.

This edition also included discussions with special guest:

• Author and journalist about the gutting of safety reforms put in place after the Pike River disaster. Rebecca wrote Tragedy at Pike River: How and why 29 men died

This week:

• Bernard and Peter talked about the climate in Europe, social housing policy in New Zealand and the political news of the week locally.

• Bernard, Peter and Cathrine then talked about the Reality of Everything symposium Cathrine helped organise last week and the excess deaths caused by Europe’s heat domes last month, which were worsened by climate change.

• Then Bernard and Peter talked with Robert about the 60th Otago Foreign Policy school in Dunedin last weekend, which Robert helped organize and Peter attended and spoke at. Peter’s reports from the conference are linked to below.

• Bernard and Peter then talked with Rebecca about the health and safety law rewrite.

  Media News You Need - Curated by Peter Bale

  Fixing the rules-based international order

  Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin may have, in their own ways — separately and perhaps together — upended the post-war rules-based international order, but the concept of cooperation to solve global problems can be saved, according to academics, diplomats and others meeting in New Zealand last week…

  Read more

  2 days ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Peter Bale

Media News You Need - Curated by Peter Bale

Commentary: Journalism and the 'faltering rule-based order'

The conference theme was The Faltering International Rules-Based Order and New Zealand - a proposition in line with the thinking of one of the hosts, Robert Patman, Professor of International Relations at Otago University…

Read more

2 days ago · 4 likes · 3 comments · Peter Bale

Media News You Need - Curated by Peter Bale

'China not Trump threatens rules-based order'

The malign communist influence exerted by China, what one might call a “cunning devils” strategy, is the real threat to the rules-based international order rather than “honest” Donald Trump, according to a veteran former US diplomat…

Read more

2 days ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Peter Bale

Media News You Need - Curated by Peter Bale

Palestine injustice at root of crisis in global rules-based order, Israeli historian argues

The injustice of the imposition of a Jewish Israeli homeland on the people of Palestine is a root cause of the mistrust in and fragility of the post-war rules-based world order, according to a controversial Israeli historian…

Read more

2 days ago · 2 likes · 4 comments · Peter Bale

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 200 paying subscribers and was produced and edited by Simon Josey. Peter Bale will be back next week.

The Hoon won the silver award for best current affairs podcast in last year’s New Zealand Podcast awards.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full. Remember, all students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz and .school.nz email accounts are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free.

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

Kia ora

Come and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.

Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat with myself, and regular guests Otago Uni Professor and Vic Uni’s plus special guest .

Cheers

Bernard

Read more

Elsewhere in the news today:

• The Government has executed another handbrake turn under pressure from New Zealand First, delaying the start date for its widely-opposed and already-passed Health and Safety law rewrite until well after the election (See more below in my Picks n’ Mixes of scoops and deep-dives);

• Work on designing and consenting the Northwest Busway project has halted after a dispute between NZTA and Auckland Council over the fast-tracking of approvals for the $4.9 billion project to transform public transport in West Auckland, Thomas Manch reports1 for BusinessDesk-$ this morning; and,

• A conflict of interest controversy has engulfed National MP for Waimakariri and Associate Health Minister Matt Doocey over his cousin’s 850-section development in North Canterbury. The project was rejected twice by the local council, but is now being fast-tracked under legislation Doocey voted for2 without declaring his family’s interests, Stuff’s Nadine Roberts reports3 this morning.

(Usually, I put a paywall in at this point in the email and the podcast and video above is only available to paying subscribers, but I wanted to make sure this was available to all immediately today so have opened it immediately. The Kākā covers Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate. Subscribe to support more of this work being done in the public interest and being made available to the public.)

(I am considering removing the paywall on The Kākā’s entire archive and all emails and articles produced between today and the election on November 7. I am also considering offering half-price annual subscriptions to new subscribers until the end of 2026. I did this in 2022 and at the ends of 2023 and 2024, but not 2025. But I first want to ask permission of existing paying subscribers, almost all of whom now pay the full price for The Kākā and have come to expect it will not be available to all. I have created two polls for paying subscribers to ask for that permission over the next week. Non-paying subscribers cannot vote. I’ll proceed if over 50% of voting paying subscribers say yes to both questions.)

Half a million New Zealanders now living in poverty

The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZ CCSS), which represents over 100 non-Government social services organizations, has called for major structural change and the passing of a Poverty Reduction Act after publishing a major new report documenting a worsening of poverty and hunger across the Motu.

“Social service providers report increasing demand for support with the cost of living, including a rise in demand for financial mentor support and provision of food parcels and housing support.

“The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services calls for structural change to recognise and reduce the levels of poverty in Aotearoa. The introduction of a Poverty Reduction Act would help to identify and track cohorts who are experiencing high levels of poverty in Aotearoa, while changes to the welfare and housing systems would help to free New Zealanders from poverty and ensure that no one is left behind.” NZ CCSS CEO Alicia Sudden wrote in the foreword to the 85-page report titled: Kua Mahue | Left Behind Poverty in Aotearoa in 2026.

The report details how:

• 10.2% of New Zealanders experience income poverty;

• 16.5% of New Zealanders experience income poverty, after housing costs are paid;

• 9.1% experience material hardship, which is defined as going without essential items such as shoes, food or not being able to visit the doctor or dentist4;

• Almost half of benefit recipients with children reported they were in material hardship;

• 47% of beneficiaries without children reported being in income poverty;

• 473,000 people overall were estimated to be living in hardship in 2025;

• Over 900,000 people were given food parcels in the year to June 2025;

• One in three households reported food insecurity in the past 12 months;

• More than half of New Zealand’s lowest-earning 10% are spending more than 40% of their disposable income on private rentals, which is the highest in the OECD;

• The decline rate for applications for special needs grants for food has more than doubled to 7% since mid-2023; and,

• The decline rate for applications for special needs grants for housing have sextupled to 30% since mid-2023, while the number of applications has collapsed from over 8,000 per month in mid-2023 to just over 1,000 by the end of 2025.

There is much more detail in the report and in my interview above with Alicia Sudden.

Chart Pack of the Day

My Picks n’ Mixes

Scoops

• Craig McCulloch for RNZ: Govt pushes back date of health and safety shake-up

• Nadine Roberts for Stuff: Death threat, conflict claims and an 850-home subdivision: The row engulfing Matt Doocey

• Kate Green for RNZ: Rapid review to be carried out after patient dies in Waikato Hospital ED waiting room

• Justin Wong for LDR/RNZ: ACT candidate resigns after Chinese political group link revealed

Deep-dives

• Mary Argue for RNZ: In with the bulldozers, out with the gravel - flood-hit farmers want change in river management

• Phil Pennington for RNZ: The police back-office holding back the front line

• Reuben Smith for 1News: Severe specialist doctor shortage at Palmerston North Hospital. The hospital’s last gastroenterologist resigned two weeks ago.

• Interview with Combined Building Suppliers Cooperative Carl Taylor with Kathryn Ryan for RNZ’s Nine to Noon: Builders fear new home warranty rules will price them out of market

• Anna Whyte for Interest: Treasury’s internal issues pile up

• Shannon Pitman for RNZ: Former Whangārei Coin Saver owner Snehal Patel accused of blackmail and migrant exploitation

Cartoon of the Day: We get it.

Ka kite ano

Bernard

I spoke to Ganesh today about what an Economic Governance Act would aim to achieve and what’s wrong with the 35-year-old framework making deficit and debt reduction the Government’s main task, and enabling an independent Reserve Bank to dominate macro-economic policy through a single inflation target. The full video is available for all.

Here’s the full detail in his substack post today. I’d recommend a read, and/or a watch/listen of/to our chat above.

Whakapapa, Whenua, Whai hua - People, Place, Value

The fix

Nothing short of aggressive changes are required…

Read more

3 days ago · 47 likes · Ganesh R Ahirao

cheers

Bernard

Elsewhere in the news this morning:

• Prime Minister Christopher Luxon admitted last night2 he was unaware Auckland doesn’t have a night shelter open after 5pm, but he said he was comfortable with his Government’s housing, despite record-high homelessness;

• A blood cancer specialist is migrating because he says3 a lack of specialists is making it too dangerous to work here; and,

• Nurses at the Hutt Hospital are in despair over leaks and building problems after decades of underinvestment in new facilities and maintenance, thanks to the 30:30 rule. (See more below in my Picks n’ Mixes)

Hipkins’ pitch is empty & performative, for now

Labour Leader and former PM Chris Hipkins was successful on Sunday in firing up Labour’s troops before the election on November 7, clearly identifying the frustrations of voters after years of real wage deflation and an exodus to Australia for a better life.

Here’s a sampler from his speech to Labour’s Congress in Wellington, which drew the calculated calls, responses and standing ovations (highlighting mine):

Are we ready? The fight is on! In just 137 days, we go to the polls and we choose our future.

We can choose better jobs, affordable healthcare, and household bills you can finally pay - a government that backs you to build your future here.

Or we can choose more of the same: more broken promises, more cuts, higher costs.

Hipkins went on to articulate the hopelessness many feel was leading to the young leaving:

We’re not going to accept higher costs and lower wages. We’re not going to watch more and more of our friends and neighbours packing up and leave.

Because Kiwis have been doing the right things for years and getting the wrong results. That isn’t a problem with how hard they’re working. It’s a problem with the system.

Neoliberal, trickle down economics is a hoax. Smaller government just for the sake of it doesn’t give people more choices and more freedom, it takes those things away.

He then went on to describe an aspiration for a different economy and results for workers:

Our next Labour Government will lead New Zealand to become a magnet for talent, enterprise and innovation.

A country where the brightest minds want to live, where entrepreneurs want to build, where creators want to create, and where working people share in the rewards of success.

Not because we compete by lowering standards, but because we lead by raising them.

We’ll be a nation that backs its people, investing in skills, research, clean technology and high-value industries, so that ideas born here, grow here, and jobs created here stay here.

And then the wrap-up:

The Kiwi Dream has always been simple and powerful: if you work hard, you can build a decent life. A warm home. A secure job. Good schools for your kids. Healthcare when you need it.

Under Labour, that dream won’t be reserved for a few, it will be delivered for everyone. It comes down to this. Your job. Your health. Your home.

Not promises we can’t keep, but a practical, funded plan, ready to start the day after the election.

I won’t pretend we can fix it all straight away. We’ll focus on what matters most, and we’ll deliver it.

Easing the pressure you’re feeling right now, while we build a stronger economy that lifts everyone over time.

How can you promise those things with the same Budget policy?

Those are all fine things to say, but could only be meaningfully achieved with fundamental changes in the tax incentives for saving and investment, along with a much more muscular approach to using the Crown’s balance sheet to achieve those aims.

In my view, none of those can be achieved with the Budget Policy principles both Labour and National have agreed to in the years since the Public Finance Act was passed in 1989, which include “reducing and maintaining debt to prudent levels, and once those levels have been reached, running operating surpluses on average.”

Treasury has interpreted that to mean the Government must always try to get net debt down to around 20-40% of GDP, with a current cap of 50%, and to use the sinking lid of slower Government spending growth than nominal GDP growth to reduce the size of Government to 30% of GDP. That’s its definition of ‘reducing debt to prudent levels.’

This 30:30 has been the main tool of neoliberalism embedded in legislation, alongside the Reserve Bank Act (1989) and the State Sector Act (1989). For the last 35 years, Labour and National have both agreed to the 30:30 rule or a version of it with functionally similar numbers, after definitional shifts. The Green Party even signed up to it before the 2017 election, although it has since dropped its adherence.

No signs of dropping adherence to those fiscal rules

Hipkins did not specify Labour’s fiscal or Budget strategy in the speech, and Labour has been tightlipped about when it would release it. But one indication was given during the news conference after the speech (video below from 8 mins on), where he was asked where Labour would find the money to pay for pay equity deals. He said Labour would use the same $2.4 billion per year operating allowance used by National, which is itself one of the outputs allowed under the 30:30 rules, given Treasury’s economic forecasts.

Labour’s Finance Spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds also agreed to the same debt targets as National, in an interview with Tom Pullar-Strecker from The Post-$ in May last year.

Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds has confirmed in the run-up to Thursday’s Budget the party supports the existing cap on government debt recommended by the Treasury.

She also affirmed that achieving an operating (Obegal) surplus by the end of the Treasury’s forecast period, which currently terminates in the year ending June 2029, remained the appropriate goal.

Edmonds said Labour had agreed with the 50% cap when last in power and said it would continue to do so “unless Treasury gives us advice otherwise when we come into government”.

“It’s based on a number of pieces of advice. We clearly need to make sure we have fiscal headroom for ‘shocks’.” Finance Spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds in an interview with Tom Pullar-Strecker from The Post-$

Unless there is a massive about face from Labour in the coming weeks, it is in exactly the same position with exactly the same fiscal strategy as National. That would mean no room for extra state house building, little room for substantial pay equity upgrades, little room for increasing operational and capital spending on health, and little room for electrification.

Hipkins risks falling into the same ‘Third Way’ trap of UK Labour PM Keir Starmer, of promising many good things, but ultimately deciding pleasing the bond markets is more important.

My Picks n’ Mixes

Today’s Top Six Scoops and Breaking News

1. Ethan Griffiths for NZ Herald: Three MPs rack up $20k in domestic travel bills in three months

2. Giles Dexter for RNZ: National abandons 2023 campaign policy to allow KiwiSaver for rental bonds

3. Chelsea Daniels for NZ Herald’s The Front Page: Luxon raises coalition doubts as Labour and Act unveil election priorities

4. Stuff: ‘I’d be so embarrassed’: Shane Jones should pay back limo bill, says David Seymour

5. 1News: ‘Health system is dangerous for Māori’ says Dr Lance O’Sullivan

6. RNZ: Most households see an average 8% increase in power prices this winter

Today’s Top Six Deep-dives

1. Ethan Manera for NZ Herald-$: Inside Andrew Little’s inner circle: The former Beehive staffers now running the mayor’s office

2. Explainer for RNZ: What is the Opportunity Party and what are its policies?

3. Analysis by BNZ Chief Economist Mike Jones for Newsroom: House prices have been flat for three years. Here’s what the numbers tell us.

4. Ron Bousso for Reuters: Hormuz oil exodus sets stage for chaotic rebalancing act

5. Column by Joel Maxwell for Stuff: An unprecedented attack: 24 ways this Government has targeted Māori

6. Op-Ed for The Conversation: As communities face more frequent hazard warnings, we need better systems to avoid ‘emergency fatigue’

Cartoon of the day: Wrong track

Ka kite anō

Bernard

Get more from Bernard Hickey in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Elsewhere in the news this morning: more MPs are exposed for taking accommodation allowances for living in Wellington, and there’s a striking case of how staffing and infrastructure shortages are crippling the health system. (See more below in my Picks n’ Mixes)

Where growth isn’t paying for growth

Today I wanted to focus on the idea that growth pays for growth. You may have heard this phrase used, particularly in council meetings and around the discussion of how we deal with the growth of our population and in particular the growth of housing. A home can’t be built until there are water networks underneath it, and they’re expensive.

You have to build not only the pipes and the interconnectors to the rest of the network, but you often need to build brand new sewage treatment plants. And as we’ve seen, particularly in Wellington and in Christchurch, these things don’t often work and need to be maintained regularly and upgraded.

Before 1990, a lot of these networks were funded by councils and by the government through debt. This is plain old government debt. The government or a council would borrow overseas or locally and service the debt from taxes and rates.

That means a developer wouldn’t necessarily have to pay a huge development charge to connect to that network. And the networks grew as fast as the population grew, particularly through the 40s, 50s, and 60s. You could argue it was easier then because there was more easily available space on the edges of cities and people were comfortable living in standalone houses on reasonably large sections, and it was easier to jump in the car and commute away.

That’s obviously more difficult now and certainly more expensive. And since the 1990s, governments and councils have argued that it shouldn’t be the taxpayer that pays for growth, it should be whoever buys that marginal new house. And often that is restricted because every time a developer has to pay a larger charge, that makes it more difficult to build a new house or build a new subdivision.

The numbers get much larger, particularly when you start talking about large-scale subdivisions. The upfront costs are very high, and various attempts to try to create financial vehicles just haven’t worked.

I wanted to focus on a particular story1 that came out in The Press in Christchurch on Saturday, which illustrates this problem and shows how growth doesn’t pay for growth within the current system of the 30-30 rule, which restricts government borrowing to no more than around 30 percent of GDP and restricts central government spending to no more than around 30 percent of GDP. You can’t build all this extra water infrastructure for all these extra people and maintain it unless you’re able to allow the state to have a higher share of GDP.

I wanted to point you to what’s going on on the fringes of Christchurch particularly in the Selwyn District Council and around the area of Hallswell. Increasingly, those sections are getting quite small, and the houses are taking up a larger chunk of them. And that’s because buyers want as much land as they possibly can, but can only afford a certain amount. And that really packs in a lot of people into a small space, which of course means you have to really beef up your order networks.

Christchurch sprawls

So you can see that how Christchurch has sprawled out. This is partly because of the earthquake. There was a real drive to develop new suburbs, build new houses to replace the ones that were broken, if you like. And Christchurch has increasingly seen its ability to build lots of new houses fast as a competitive advantage to pulling people into the the region. And that certainly helped. It helped because it was it was it was helped by the government effectively paying for the and underwriting the redevelopment of water networks across Christchurch after the earthquake.

That broke the normal 30-30 rules and of course the effective suspension of the Resource Management Act in many of those areas. But it’s meant there’s been very strong growth in the number of houses. It means now the growth isn’t paying for that growth.

Mike Blackburn, a consultant who deals with the building sector in Christchurch, is quoted in Th Press on Saturday as hearing from builders that they are being told by the Selwyn District Council and Selwyn Water that there’s now no more space for new developments in and around Christchurch because they don’t have the water network and treatment.

He’s spoken to 15 builders that have confirmed the same thing. They’ve been told by Selwyn Water that there are capacity restrictions, particularly in the east of the district.

Selwyn District Council’s executive director for planning and building, Robert Love says that Selwyn’s growth has been among the fastest in the country. This has put enormous pressure on infrastructure. And that as he points out is in large part because the government has intervened to force councils to open up areas/

They’ve been fast track tracking, but the government isn’t providing additional funding for the extra investment. So the 30-30 rule, is stopping these new houses from being built.

Government won’t share fruits of growth

The larger problem, of course, is that the government benefits from the extra population growth through income and GST receipts, but doesn’t pass that on to councils. But councils are the ones who have to pay at least half of the infrastructure costs for population growth but aren’t given the funding for it and are restricted in their growth of debt.

That’s because the local government funding agency is owned by the Crown Government. And so, in effect, that 30-30 rule applies not just to the government but to councils.

My Picks n’ Mixes

Today’s Top Six Scoops and Breaking News

1. Chris Knox for NZ Herald-$: MP Housing Perks: See how the number of MPs claiming the full allowance has skyrocketed

2. Michael Morrah for NZ Herald: ‘Standing room only’: Nurse describes worst day in 18 years at Waikato ED

3. Andrea Vance for The Post-$: Climate activist Mike Smith takes Government to court over bid to halt landmark lawsuit

4. Tom Pullar-Strecker for The Post-$: Deadline on future of Clean Vehicle Standard looks set to quietly come and go

5. Tom Hunt for The Post-$: ‘Withered on the vine’: New water entity spends as promised users’ group fades

6. Kate Newton for RNZ: The big switch: Electrifying NZ homes could save billions

Today’s Top Six Deep-dives

1. Jack Tame for Q+A: ‘Perverse incentive’: MSD staff metrics include emergency housing grantsSome staff receive regular grading on eleven measures, including the number of people in their region who receive emergency housing grants.

2. Emily Simpson for 1News: ‘The cost of living in NZ is so high, we can’t afford children’House and food prices led a Wellington woman and her American husband to make some tough decisions.

3. Q+A: Labour ‘won’t’ work with ACT, but NZ First ‘highly unlikely’ – McAnultyWinston Peters has previously been emphatic that the door is shut from his side.

4. Mildred Armah for Stuff: ‘It’s gonna be a death sentence’: The 16-year-old New Zealand says is too sick to stay

5. Isaac Davison for Stuff: What is TOP? A left-wing party in disguise, pure hype, or something else?

6. Janika Ter Allen for Stuff: Will Labour cancel ‘tax breaks for landlords’? Here’s what it could mean for rents and house prices

Cartoon of the day: ‘You, sunshine’

Ka kite anō

Bernard

Get more from Bernard Hickey in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts and talking with regular guest from Dunedin about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.

This edition also included discussions with special guests:

• Author , who publishes the substack, about the history of Iran; and,

• Alliance Party Leader Victor Billot on the party’s history, re-registration and policies.

This week:

• Bernard and Peter talked about the climate in Europe, social housing policy in New Zealand.

• Then Bernard and Peter talked with Robert and Jonathan about the Iran conflict.

• Bernard and Peter then talked with Victor about the Alliance Party.

• Victor read a poem written especially for The Hoon at the end. The skateboarding dog story was about Larry the Cat from 10 Downing Street, who has outlived six British Prime Ministers1.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 200 paying subscribers and was produced and edited by Simon Josey. Peter Bale will be back next week.

The Hoon won the silver award for best current affairs podcast in last year’s New Zealand Podcast awards.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full. Remember, all students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz and .school.nz email accounts are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free.

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

1. Disabled people are more than twice as likely to be hungry as non-disabled people and almost half of disabled people can’t afford food sometimes, a study shows.

2. Younger New Zealanders are increasingly getting bowel cancer and report major delays being diagnosed and treated, a study shows.

3. National is backing a Local Government NZ and Rewiring NZ proposal for low-interest, 20-30-year loans to homeowners to install solar panels, repaid via rates.

4. The Government has dropped clauses in its Conservation land reform bill that would have allowed land sales, but opponents want the entire bill scrapped.

5. A revolt by homeowners is forcing Dunedin’s councils to look at installing pipes and pumps to deal with floods worsened by climate change, rather than pay up to $2.5 billion to buy out 1,700 home owners for a climate retreat.

6. Christopher Luxon has told a business audience his Government’s goal is to “brutally commercialise our science system.”

Please join us as a paying subscriber to get my full daily curation of the news, analysis, commentary, links, charts, front pages and cartoons below, and to support this work sorting the signal from the noise in our political economy.

Subscribe now

Today’s Big Six News Bites

Read more

Kia ora

Come and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.

Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat with myself, and regular guest Otago Uni’s Professor , plus special guest Alliance Party leader Victor Billot and regular guest .

Cheers

Bernard

Read more

• Half of New Zealanders report their homes are still too cold;

• Shane Jones claimed expenses for using a luxury limo, despite his meeting being next to his hotel room;

• Oil prices fell overnight to pre-war levels of US$70/barrel;

• MSD spent $241,243 on TikTok last year;

• Shamubeel Eaqub says the RBNZ would be wrong to hike in two weeks time, and I agree;

• House sales fell for a fifth consecutive month in May and mortgage brokers expect the market to stagnate until February; and,

• Labour has pledged to extend a Government guarantee to Community Housing Providers’ bonds so they can borrow more cheaply and build more homes.

Please join us as a paying subscriber to get my full daily curation of the news, analysis, commentary, links, charts, front pages and cartoons below, and to support this work I do sorting the signal from the noise in our political economy.

Subscribe now

Today’s Big Six News Bites

Read more

1. Support for National fell one percentage point to 29% in the latest 1News/Verian poll published last night, but Labour also fell five poi…

Read more

• A Freshwater/Infrastructure NZ poll published in The Post-$ this morning shows 71% support making Kiwisaver compulsory1.

• Waka Kotahi…

Read more

• The Green Party published its first major policy1 of the 2026 election campaign yesterday, reducing the scope of its 2.5% tax on the net a…

Read more

• Tax Minister Simon Watts says he doesn’t have a view about the fairness of global tech giants arranging their finances so they don’t have to pay $600 million per year in taxes in New Zealand, Jenée Tibshraeny reports this morning for the front page of the Weekend NZ Herald-$ (See more below in Today’s Top Six Pick n’ Mix & in Front Pages in the Early Bird.)

• The Government’s over-arching aim to reduce state spending to below 30% of GDP is behind the lack of funding for about 80 new abuse-in-care claims coming through each year. Julia Gabel had the scoop for NZ Herald last night. (See more below in Today’s Top Six Pick n’ Mix.)

• That same sinking lid policy, which is framed as being focused on squeezing more value from the same money by reducing back office staff rather than front office staff, is responsible for Oranga Tamariki being short of 180 social workers, which in turn means they’re not turning up to crucial regular meeting with whanau, Police and others, as Phil Pennington reported last night for RNZ. (See more below in Today’s Top Six and Poverty Picks n’ Mixes.)

• Consumer confidence is closely inversely correlated with CPI inflation and petrol price inflation. Consumer confidence is also correlated with confidence in any Government, as expressed in polling on questions about whether the country is on the right track or wrong track. That polling is often a leading indicator of support for the main governing party. (See more below in Chart Pack of the Day.)

(This email and the video above is a sampler for all free subscribers. A much more detailed version went earlier as the Early Bird to paying subscribers, who also have access to a live recording of my Dawn Chorus video above. Please join us as a paying subscriber to support my work and get much more detail in the Early Bird posts and below the paywall fold)

Subscribe now

My Picks n’ Mixes

Today’s Top Six

1. Scoop by Jenée Tibshraeny for NZ Herald-$ (front page lead): ‘I don’t have a view’: Revenue minister deflects fairness query on big tech firms’ tax ‘According to a “conservative” estimate by Tax Justice Aotearoa, New Zealand missed out on more than $600 million of tax revenue from eight of the biggest tech companies over the past five years.’

2. Scoop by Julia Gabel for NZ Herald: Abuse in care: Officials estimate up to 80 new claims a year under expanded redress system ‘Officials predict up to 80 additional abuse in care claims for redress could be lodged each year as the Government expands the state system to include more contemporary claims of abuse. Advice prepared for the minister in charge of the scheme, Erica Stanford, and obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, includes warnings from officials to ensure the right level of funding is provided for these additional claims. Stanford’s office said funding decisions were still being considered by ministers. Officials, in their advice to her, said extending the system would require reallocating existing Crown Response Funding as the Finance Minister Nicola Willis did not invite a bid for additional money in the latest Budget. The Ministry of Health and Health NZ also did not have funding available from baseline for these additional claims.’

3. Reportage by Torika Tokalau for LDR/RNZ: Church’s plan for low-cost cafe to feed hundreds shunned by locals

4. Deep-dive by Phil Pennington for RNZ: ‘A risk to life’: Social workers called out for no-shows on keeping kids safe ‘Oranga Tamariki’s new CEO said earlier this month it was 180 social workers short and staff shortages were hampering efforts to hit targets responding to urgent concerns over children.’

5. Op-Ed by Otago Uni Associate Professor Bernardette Jones for The Waikato Times-$: The health system failed an 11-year-old child at every step, and two reports fall short of saying why ‘What neither report does is ask whether this child’s status, as Māori, as disabled, as autistic and as non-verbal, shaped what was done to her, and neither analyses the obligations owed under Te Tiriti o Waitangi or under the United Nations conventions on the rights of the child, of persons with disabilities, and of indigenous peoples. The statutory iwi Māori partnership board for the region, Te Tiratū, was not consulted in the inquiry at all.’

6. Op-Ed by AUT’s Sarah Maessen, Bridget Dicker & Heather Hutchinson for The Conversation: Time is critical when someone’s heart stops – portable defibrillators could save more lives ‘More lives could be saved if community responders were equipped with portable automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to get treatment to patients sooner.’

Scoops & Breaking News this morning

• Scoop by Hanna McCallum for Newsroom Pro-$: Australian firm advises Stanford on ‘winning hearts and minds’ of NZ teachers

• RNZ: National election policy announcement expected as party gathers for AGM‘National leader Christopher Luxon is expected to announce an election policy, which RNZ understands will be in the economic space.’

• Investigation by Katie Harris for NZ Herald-$: ‘Culture of fear’: Leaders quit, probe at hockey association over alleged staff conduct

• Reuters: Lebanon ceasefire agreed after US-Iran talks in Switzerland scrapped

• Reuters: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards set up covert Iraqi cells to attack Gulf neighbors

The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

Saturday's Early Bird: Scoops, my Picks n' Mixes & Front Pages

Here’s my curation of this morning’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only for paying subscribers…

Read more

14 days ago · 4 likes · Bernard Hickey

Thank you to all paying subscribers who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Bernard Hickey in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

• Tax Minister Simon Watts says he doesn’t have a view about the fairness of global tech giants arranging their finances so they don…

Read more

1. New Zealand’s GDP figures1 published yesterday showed some growth in the March and December quarters, but a closer look shows the e…

Read more

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts and talking with regular guests from Wellington and from Dunedin about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.

This edition also included discussions with special guests:

• Transport analyst talking about Greater Auckland’s call for the Te Hana to Warkworth section of the Northland RONS to be rescoped; and,

• Public Theologian and Civic Technologist Brittany C Farbo on the role of religion in the Ukraine War and Russia’s attacks on churches in Ukraine.

This week:

• Bernard, Peter and Cathrine talked about Wellington’s Golden Mile decision and South Dunedin’s attempts to deal with climate retreat.

• Then Bernard and Peter talked with Robert about the Iran conflict MOU.

• Bernard and Peter then talked with Britt about Ukraine.

• They finished with a chat with Connor about the RONS and transport policy.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 200 paying subscribers and was produced and edited by Simon Josey. Peter Bale will be back next week.

The Hoon won the silver award for best current affairs podcast in last year’s New Zealand Podcast awards.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full. Remember, all students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz and .school.nz email accounts are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free.

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

Kia ora

Come and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.

Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat with myself, and regular guests and Otago Uni’s Professor , plus special guest Britt Farbo and Connor Sharp.

Cheers

Bernard

Read more

1. Westpac’s June quarter consumer confidence survey1 yesterday showed consumers cutting back on discretionary spending in early June…

Read more

• The Government agreed yesterday to most of the Infrastructure Commission’s recommendations1 in its 30-year plan released in February, including a formal …

Read more