99 Comments

Excellent initiative Bernard - I look forward to it. I would add a word for the Biodiversity Crisis as well, at least as important as our climate crisis but one with no serious "adaptation" response.

I saw somebody recently wonder how we can respond to the apparent influence of Atlas, Heritage etc on our body politic. Seems like getting some clear progressive thinking is a good start.

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Excellent comment Quentin. As I was reading this all I could think was 'is all this worth aiming for if we don't address the biodiversity crisis'.

I know your three things are climate change housing and poverty Bernard, but biodiversity should be in your 6 questions for 2050!

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

Excellent idea. The aims I more or less understand, I mostly agree with, in principle. The headings will make for an organised approach and I very much look forward to having the chance to learn more to be able to think more about the plans.

Hand wringing and despair we can do in our own time. The Kaka will focus on solutions!

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

Bravo!! I need time to digest details of your plan, but the idea behind it is just what we need in Aotearoa. I look forward to open and informed discussion, sadly lacking in the present tense.

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

Happy to support the plan as a paid subcriber - we need a dose of realistic hope from somehwere that housing, poverty, and climate change are not intractable problems, and that accepting they cant be changed is not helping

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

Excellent Bernard.

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting on this.

I agree completely about this National government being different, and having a brutal right wing inclination. And are following Steve Bannons directive to " bury the public in shit"... I've thought that very obviously what they are doing..

Look forward to more on this worthy project of yours..

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Aug 18·edited Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

I like this idea too. I do also wonder whether producing another set of policies is what we need.

What would happen if you stopped at coming up with a range of well thought through ideas and some thinking about the pros and cons of solutions and the ways in which unintended outcomes tend to happen. (I'm thinking about something like Project Drawdown here). If you aren't aiming to be political why would you want to produce a set of policies? At the same time, no matter what the end result is I'm sure the process will be really useful and interesting.

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

YES, I totally agree - an excellent initiative Bernard.

There is obviously too much to respond to in your summary of how you envisage it, but if the six questions are taken one at a time, backed up with expert opinion and scientific evidence it should lead to considered and valuable discussion, as you suggest. I was just thinking this morning how important it is for educated people like yourself and many others to write publicly with solutions. We can see at a glance how disgusting the policy and direction we're heading is. What we want is a constructive vision that will appeal to a wide range of voters, not just the deep pocketed by default.

BTW, Nate Hagens interviewed Cory Bradshaw recently and his top priority for democracy was to outlaw political donations. Nate has a substack with links to the video.

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Nate Hagens interview with Corey Bradshaw is a 'must view' for all those concerned with the future of humanity and the planet, a real eye-opener.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJwsJhFK98o

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That was a great interview. One of Corey's top 'magic wand' ideas was banning all political donations, which fits well with Bernard's cleaning up the democratic process.

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Cleaning up our democratic process was the first thought I had too! How about also all politicians, journalists, opinion piece writers, broadcasters, whether on substack, in 'legacy' media, online news, radio, podcast etc. publish an annually-updated full disclosure of income sources, assets, etc on a publicly-available website? Like George Monbiot does ( https://www.monbiot.com/registry-of-interests/)

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

I am so overjoyed to read this, which, I must say, is not a common occurrence with my reading these days. You have my utmost support. I am a retired pensioner forced to support a relative unable to work. I am a paid subscriber but I am willing to help further and will do so to the best of my ability. Kia kaha

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Kia ora Terry - *waves* - nice to bump into you here. Thanks very much for the history lessons in the '80s, you helped formulate my social conscience & that of many others. Much respect. Like you, heartened to hear what Bernard is planning.

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Thank you for your lovely comment

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Yes yes yes! Let’s stop repeating the governments narratives (even if to refute them, which often sadly serves to amplify them) and flip the script to tell our own narrative.

Looking forward to following this! Nice one Bernard!

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

Yes please (and thank you) Bernard. I suggest interviewing the people behind this initiative https://pledgeme.co.nz/investments/581-te-whare-hangahanga who have just met their $100k PledgeMe target for papakainga solutions for both housing and climate.

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I wholeheartedly support this initiative - important to avoid operating like a silo...TKP26/50 vmcan helpit 'join the dots' for many disparate initiatives

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scuse my typos

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

Nice. Thankyou for reining in the panic Bernard. There will likely need to be some serious protesting on the streets but such activity can be aside and apart from this critical strategic work.

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Aug 18Liked by Bernard Hickey

TKP26/50 sounds like an excellent idea. Food for thought and a uconstructive escapoe from the Coalition's abuse and gaslighting of intelligence and sensibilities. I've been hoping that the Oppositions' silence is because they are coming up with a rational plan which can actually work

The time between now and the next election might be shorter than we expect so no time should be lost in getting progressives together and acquaint us all with positive stratagems.

ka kite ano.

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Great plan, Bernard. I could add another disastrous announcement of the week, too, Judith Collins opening the door to GE, but you do have enough. Yes, you will have lots of support for this. Find ways to build the network.

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I agree Bernard a worthy project. Let us know how we can support you.

Patrick Medlicott

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Thanks for this Bernard. It has felt pretty unrelenting and overwhelming. I saw this from Nick Cave, on hope, and think it's appropriate...it is not passive, it requires effort

"Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position — it is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism."

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Thanks Bernard. I like the idea in principle but would be keen to see some of the questions expanded to consider 3 additional areas which I think are important in considering the challenges we face (some of these may be implied in what you have proposed) :

1. Our system of democracy is broken in so many ways with a very polarised population. I think we need to be giving thought to what type of government do we want and how can we become more actively involved in policy and decision-making. In line with an excellent book "Citizens" by Jon Alexander we need to find a way to shift from thinking and acting like consumers to thinking like Citizens - what would that look like in the context of our democratic structures?

2. Funding for Infrastructure. The first few months of this government has highlighted the ridiculous situation that currently exists in New Zealand. Infrastructure has become a political football with each successive government undoing and cancelling the work of the previous government effectively wasting $billions. There are currently no 'bi-partisan' structures to ensure that ensure that infrastructure not only doesn't slowly collapse over the long term but actually reflects progress towards a more liveable, sustainable and viable country for all of us.

3. Related to 2 (and 1) - I think we need an adult conversation about tax and how we should be funding the needs of our country - this should involve more democatic approaches to the discussion such as citizens assemblies.

Just my two-cents worth but really keen on exploring and contributing to the possibilities.

The only other comment I have is to be careful that the Kaka Project of 2026 doesn't get compared with Project 2025 from The Heritage Foundation.

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Totally agree, we need far more Citizens Assemblies to bring democracy back to our so called democracy.

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Bernard, a great proposal - I’ll want to read again (on my phone atm). As with David, my fear is great ideas/policies risk falling at the (first) political hurdle. We desperately need more innovation in our politics and if this doesn’t change then good policies are too easily ignored.

We all need to help to build a strong consensus that has commitment (probably over decades) and thus political force in Aotearoa. How to do that?

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