TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā for paying subscribers in the last week included:
Reports emerging that hundreds of migrants on new Accredited Employer Work Visas paid as much as $30,000 for their visas, only to find no work and ending up stranded in overcrowded rentals. Eventually, after weeks of denial, Immigration Minister Andrew Little launched a ministerial inquiry into Immigration NZ’s operation of the scheme, effectively throwing the ministry under the bus over Labour’s rushed loosening of migration settings last year. See more in Tuesday’s email and Friday’s email
Labour released its tax policy for the election, including removing GST from fresh and frozen fruit and veges, but not other forms of food. It also tweaked Working For Families settings, albeit insufficiently and too narrowly to provide the necessary help for those most in need. See more Monday’s email.
Labour released its transport policy in the form its Government Policy Statement (GPS) for the next three years for Waka Kotahi (NZTA), which pivoted to spending more on road repairs, new motorways and bridges, and away from focusing mostly on expanding light rail, improving safety and reducing emissions. We spoke about this more with Cathrine Dyer in the first 10 minutes of Friday night’s Hoon in the podcast above.
The Labour Government and Climate Change Minister James Shaw announced the opening of consultation and a Select Committee Inquiry for a Climate Change Adaptation Act, which is designed to settle questions around how to manage and fund retreat from land likely to be deemed unlivable due to climate change. We talked with Cathrine Dyer in the Hoon about how the consultation conveniently obscured some of the more radical and necessary suggestions contained in a ministerial options paper and an officials’ technical report.
The Labour Government announced delays in measuring and pricing on-farm climate emissions until well after the election. We talked more about this on the Hoon with Cathrine.
What we talked about on ‘The Hoon’ on Friday night
In this week’s podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers at 5pm on Friday night:
5.00 pm - 5.05 pm - Bernard and Peter Bale opened the show with a discussion about politicians in the debating chamber and the Koru Lounge.
5.05 pm - 5.20 pm - Bernard and Peter and
talked about Labour’s policies on transport, climate adaptation and farm emissions.5.20 pm - 5.40 pm - Bernard and Peter and
talked about fresh hopes for a peace deal in the Middle East, the latest dramas in the Ukraine War and the troubles inside China’s economy.5.40 - 6.00 pm - Bernard, Peter and columnist for The Post, Josie Pagani, talked about the timidity of policy proposals by both parties, about National’s massive billboard advantage over Labour up and down the country, and how Labour’s low-energy campaign might hurt it.
The Hoon’s podcast version above was produced by Simon Josey.
This is a sampler for all free subscribers. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, I’m able to spread the work from my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction around in other public venues. I’d love you to join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments.
Quote of the week
An accreditation scheme where documents were not checked
"It's been happening under everybody's nose. Everybody knows about it. I know about it. Agents know about it. Lawyers know about it. The only people who didn't know about it, clearly, are the three ministers.
"The review will find that there has been a general instruction delivered by Immigration New Zealand which says 'stop verifying documentation'. I can tell the minister that in five minutes, he doesn't need a review." National Immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford via RNZ
Chart of the week
What should be on the front pages of all today’s papers
Map of the week
Three years of rain expected in a day or two
Other places I’ve appeared this week
My podcast for The Spinoff this week: Steaming to 100% renewable
This week in my weekly podcast via The Spinoff, When The Facts Change, I spoke with CoGo founder Ben Gleisner about the potential to use bank data on spending to help businesses and consumers monitor and tweak their climate emissions. Gleisner talks about Aotearoa’s rocky and long pathway to open banking and the options for a type of ‘nudge’ economy towards decarbonisation.
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One fun thing
This Michael Parkinson interview with David Bowie is lovely
Ka kite ano
Bernard
The Hoon around the week to Aug 19