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:
* A new official report quietly buried by the Labour Government in its final months in power identifies over 300,000 people are now living in housing and energy poverty so severe that they are unable to afford the power needed to stay warm in winter, have warm showers or cook their own food; Friday’s email
* European Union scientists estimated that 2023 was on track to be the hottest in 125,000 years, with October a full 0.4 degrees celcius warmer than the previous record; Thursday’s email
* PM Chris Hipkins was voted back in as Labour leader by his caucus after he told them he wanted a ‘clean slate’ on the issue of a wealth tax for the party to take into the next election. But can Hipkins, who ruled out a wealth tax “under a Government that I lead” credibly argue to an electorate, let alone his own caucus, that he is committed to such a tax? Wednesday’s email
* Tech entrepreneur Derek Handley launched a new first home buyers’ index showing they would need a $1 million deposit within 20 years if the last 20 years of increases house price, wage inflation and term deposit interest rates continued on at similar rates. He was launching a non-bank to help first home buyers save faster and get on the ladder faster by putting money into riskier deposits and assets returning more, and taking on fellow equity investors as a type of new ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’; and, Tuesday’s email
* Councillors and mayors in our two fastest growing cities pulled the plug on a National-ACT plan to build ‘out’ rather than ‘up’ by rejecting plans for more sprawling ‘greenfields’ developments, but they have also dialled back on up-zoning needed to add enough ‘brownfields’ homes for an extra 110,000 people per year. Monday’s email.
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 - 5.10 pm - Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale opened the show with a discussion about the targeting of journalists in Gaza.
* 5.10 pm - 5.20 pm - Bernard, Peter and Cathrine Dyer talked about Fonterra’s announcement of a scope 3 emissions reduction target of 30% and a UN Environment Programme report estimating Governments would produce more than double the emissions required to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
* 5.20 pm - 5.45 pm - Peter, Bernard Robert Patman talked about the Israel-Hamas war and the Pacific Islands Forum.
* 5.45 - 6 pm - Bernard and Dr Sea Rotmann talked about the Energy Hardship Experts Panel report released this week.
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.
Chart of the week
Other places I appeared this week
I talked to Derek Handley for When The Facts Change via The Spinoff about his non-bank for first home buyers called Aera.
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.
Cartoon of the week
Not for long
Ka kite
Bernard
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