TLDR: Bernard Hickey and the NZ Herald’s senior political reporter Thomas Coughlan talk through the events in the political economy this week in the podcast above, including closer looks at:
Te Waihanga’s estimate of our infrastructure deficit and how much more we’d need to build to cope with future population growth, improve our water quality and prepare for climate change ($1t in today’s money over 30 years or a doubling of investment to 10%/GDP per year);
Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response that such a doubling was not financially or politically possible, and that we can’t build our way out of our infrastructure deficit;
Robertson’s unveiling of a new 30% of GDP debt ceiling, which is effectively 30 percentage points higher than the last one, but that he doesn’t want to use the spare fiscal headroom, yet;
The Government’s decision to freeze new capital spending and leave its $6b operating allowance unchanged in the May 19 Budget to avoid adding to inflation;
Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr’s comments this week that a 30% fall in house prices was feasible and that our banking system could cope with that just fine, along with an estimate that sustainable house prices were 5-20% below current levels in his select committee clashes with Green MP Chloe Swarbrick and National MP Nicola Willis; and,
PM Jacinda Ardern’s painful prevarications and eventual capitulation on whether she would propose a wealth tax in her political lifetime.
Enjoy. And many thanks to the paid subscribers to The Kaka who support this sort of work I do reporting on and analysing issues around the political economy, in particular housing unaffordability, climate change inaction and child poverty.
This is a semi-regular feature open for all subscribers in which I talk with one or more of the other Parliamentary Press Gallery ‘wonks’ with an interest in fiscal and monetary policy, among other issues in the political economy. A ‘hoon’ is the plural for The Kaka.
A hoon of gallery wonks with Thomas Coughlan