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:
* National Leader Christopher Luxon announced last night he had agreed policies and ministerial roles with ACT Leader David Seymour and NZ First Leader Winston Peters yesterday, with final signoffs from party boards expected last night, before a signing and the release of policy details this morning, and the naming of a ministerial lineup this afternoon;
* Westpac last night cut its two-year fixed mortgage rate by 10 basis points to 6.99%, passing on some of a 50 basis point slump in wholesale rates in the last month and responding to growing pressure from those pointing to rising bank profit margins; See Wednesday’s email and chart below;
* MBIE said it had stopped considering a damning experts report on energy poverty because of the change of Government; See Tuesday’s email;
* Talks to form a Government dragged into a sixth week with no immediate end in sight, thanks to NZ First’s opposition to a foreign buyers’ tax and ACT’s drive, supported by NZ First, for a referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi; and, See Monday’s email
* Global temperatures rose 2.07 degrees above Pre-Industrial levels on November 17, the first day the planet has been that hot for at least 25,000 years. See chart below.
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 - Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale opened the show with a discussion about the just-announced announcement there would be announcements today of the new coalition Government’s policies and ministry.
* 5.10 pm - 5.20 pm - Bernard, Peter and Cathrine Dyer talked about the upcoming COP conference and the latest climate records
* 5.20 pm - 5.58 pm - Peter, Bernard, Robert Patman and Josie Pagani talked about the new Government’s tasks, the (only-just-started) ceasefire in Gaza and the rise of Trumpy populist leaders in Argentina and the Netherlands.
* 5.58 - 6 pm - Bernard and Peter talked briefly about OpenAI and Peter found a skateboarding dog.
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.
Charts of the week
Bank profit margins are rising
Temperatures rose 2 degrees over pre-industrial levels last Friday
Other places I appeared this week
I talked to Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey for When The Facts Change via The Spinoff about how to electrify Aotearoa properly.
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
Ka kite
Bernard
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