Jump on the weekly hoon now

Peter Bale and Bernard Hickey take a 'hoon' around the news of the week in geo-politics, the global economy and Aoteoaroa-NZ's political economy with special guests Robert Patman and Jarrod Kerr

TLDR: It’s that time of the week where paying subscribers to The Kākā can jump on a zoom webinar with myself and co-host Peter Bale for a ‘hoon’ around the news of the week in geo-politics, the global economy and Aoteoaroa-NZ's political economy. Here’s the link.

We do this every Friday for an hour at 5pm and it’s one of our most popular features, along with my Ask Me Anything session from midday on a Friday. Today’s was a cracker. This week’s guest on the ‘hoon’ are University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor Robert Patman and Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr.

This week I’m in the Parliamentary Press Gallery and Peter joins us from Tamaki Makaurau.

The five things of note I’ve focused this week include:

• Christchurch City Council voting against the Government’s densification directives and doubling down by promising to charge developers extra if they don’t have enough trees;

• The Government completely dumping the ‘traffic lights’ system of Covid controls, including vaccine mandates and mask mandates, but not seven-day isolation for Covid sufferers;

• REINZ figures showing Auckland City and Wellington City house prices down 17-23% from the peak in October/November, but with signs the market is warming up again in Auckland in particular;

• Wellington City Council voting to limit speeds on most city streets to 30 km/hr, triggering accusations of being ‘anti-car’ as voting papers are mailed to potential council voters; and,

• An inflationary surprise in the United States unnerving investors hoping the Fed won’t have to crunch the global economy into a recession with sharply higher interest rates.

But also overseas:

• Ukraine’s amazing counter-offensive that drove Russian troops out of 6,000 square kilometres of eastern and southern Ukraine, and have sparked the glimmerings of dissent in Russia;

• Vladimir Putin met with Xi Jinping overnight and Putin reported Xi was not thrilled with his invasion of Ukraine; and,

• Europe announced windfall taxes on energy firms.

Here’s Peter’s always excellent weekly bulletin email on international affairs that goes out on a Thursday via the Spinoff. Sign up here