The Kākā by Bernard Hickey
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The week that was to Feb 11
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The week that was to Feb 11

Including the weekly 'hoon' podcast featuring co-hosts Bernard Hickey & Peter Bale and guests Robert Patman, Gavin Ellis & Josephine Bartley on global affairs, the TVNZ-RNZ merger & stopping flooding
The proposed TVNZ/RNZ merger is one of the unpopular policies to go in Hipkins’ clearing of the decks. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

TLDR: The Labour Government cleared its decks this week of some unpopular policies ahead of the election and has tried to make employers happier, which may extend new PM Chris Hipkins’ early-2023 polling honeymoon.

One of the unloved policies biffed overboard was a proposed merger of TVNZ and RNZ. Hipkins also stopped work on a social insurance scheme the Opposition has painted as a new tax on workers and employers, partly to offset the perceived pain of a 7.1% rise in the minimum wage starting on April 1.

Elsewhere, there was great news from Christchurch of a big new solar farm with more to come, and the battle of wills is heating up between global investors wanting lower interest rates and central bankers warning of higher interest rates to beat inflation.

In this week’s recording above of our ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers at 5pm last night, I joined co-host

to talk with regular guest University of Otago Professor Robert Patman about the week in geo-politics, former NZ Herald Editor-in-chief Gavin Ellis about the death of the TVNZ-RNZ merger, and Auckland City Councillor Josephine Bartley about the Jan 27 flood fallout, including a renewed NIMBY campaign against housing intensification.

The big five things this week

This week’s key news events in Aotearoa’s political economy, geo-politics and the global economy were:

  • Decks cleared - PM Chris Hipkins clearing the Labour Government’s decks of distracting and (some) unpopular policies to make it easier to attack National’s plans to govern after the October 14 election; Tuesday’s email

  • Ratepayers revolted - NIMBY land-owners and their councillors in Auckland and Christchurch pushed back even harder against housing intensification directives from the Beehive, using Auckland’s flood damage to argue (wrongly) that new houses caused the flooding; Friday’s email

  • Penny-pinching exposed - University of Otago public health researchers recommended dropping the $5 prescription fee, publishing a study showing sick people avoided expensive hospital visits when they didn’t have to pay, which would easily compensate for lost revenues; Wednesday’s email

  • Fed fightback - Central bankers warned traders and investors again they may be underestimating how high they would have to lift interest rates to control inflation, deepening a ‘markets vs Fed’ clash that could end in dramatic falls in asset values (or not); and,

  • Lightbulb moment - Lightsource, an Australian-based solar power joint venture with BP, teamed up with Contact Energy and Christchurch Airport to announce they would build Aotearoa’s first grid-scale solar farm next to the airport, with plans for more solar farms across the motu using Lightsource’s $2.9 billion cashpile.

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Chart pack of the week

NZ retail spending was better than expected in January

Retail sales via electronic card transactions rose 2.6% in January from December in seasonally adjusted terms, which was more than double market expectations. Stats NZ data

NZ manufacturing activity bounced into expansion territory in January

BusinessNZ-BNZ’s Performance of Manufacturing Index survey found a bounce back into expansion territory in January from December. BusinessNZ data

Minimum wage rise slows to nil in real terms

This ANZ chart shows how minimum wage increases have exceeded private sector wage growth during Labour Governments.

Map of the week

Where MetService sees Cyclone Gabrielle by Tuesday morning

MetService forecast as of late Feb 10

My weekend reading and listening for sharing

Here’s my longer reading and listening for the weekend for sharing with paying subscribers below the paywall fold. I also welcome their suggestions for others in the comments below.

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The Kākā by Bernard Hickey
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The latest daily snapshot of the news, detail, insight and analysis on geo-politics, the global economy, business, markets and the local political economy for citizens and decision-makers of Aotearoa-NZ.