TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:
Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit interviews and delivering a valedictory speech in Parliament where he again called for a tax on capital and wealth and said the Government could and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. See Monday’s email
The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent. Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state house was a privilege, not a right. He could not guarantee those evicted or their families would avoid becoming homeless. See Tuesday’s email.
The Government shocked Aotearoa’s disabled communities by abruptly stopping spending on what it deemed as non-essential items for the last three months of the fiscal year. Ministers are scrambling to cut spending to fill a multi-billion dollar hole in the coalition’s tax-cutting plans before the Budget on May 30. See Wednesday’s email.
The IMF warned the Government to fully offset promised tax cuts with spending cuts and/or tax increases elsewhere to avoid further stimulating inflation. It also again said Aotearoa-NZ should adopt a comprehensive capital gains tax, a land value tax and cut corporate taxes to improve investment and productivity. See Thursday’s email.
Auckland Council is opposing a Wave park and data centre development at Dairy Flat because it said the project could not cope with the effects of possible climate warming of 3.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels, which is its new assumption for climate change. See more in Thursday’s email and in the Hoon discussion with Troy Baisden from 41:20 onwards.
What we talked about on ‘The Hoon’ on Thursday night
In this week’s podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers at 5pm on Thursday night:
5:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
and Peter Bale opened the show with a discussion about Rod Oram’s death this week.5.10 pm - 5.20 pm - Peter, Bernard, and
talked about the tail risks of an extreme rise in global temperatures and the huge amount of energy AI will require.5.20 pm - 5.35 pm - Peter and Bernard spoke with Christchurch tech commentator and
about his new book Fast Forward Aotearoa. He is the author of5.35 - 5.45 - Peter and Bernard talked with
talked about the new book he edited called New Zealand's Foreign Policy under the Jacinda Ardern Government: Facing the Challenge of a Disrupted World.5.40 pm - 5.55 pm - Peter and Bernard spoke with Te Pūnaha Matatini Principal Investigator and co-President of the NZ Association of Scientists
about Auckland Council’s new 3.8 degrees of warming assumption when approving, or blocking, big new projects possibly affected by climate change. Troy writes the Substack.
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.)
Other places I appeared this week
I produced an episode of When The Facts Change via The Spinoff.
We also produce this 5 in 5 with ANZ daily podcast and Substack for ANZ Institutional in Australia, which you can sign up to via Spotify and Apple and Youtube for free.
Ka kite ano
Bernard
The Hoon around the week to March 22