The first Hoon of 2026: Breman vs Peters; Trump vs everyone; Elections vs us

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts Bernard Hickey & Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman.

We talked about:

* US President Donald Trump’s attack on the US Federal Reserve’s independence and why it matters to us;

* RBNZ Governor Anna Breman’s defence of the Fed’s independence;

* NZ First Leader and Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ criticism of Breman, despite his votes in favour of central bank independence over the years;

* How Trump’s strike on Venezuela is upending ever more global norms;

* record-high sea temperatures and how climate change is already a major part of the affordability story; and,

* a rocky election year ahead of misinformation in the absence of 3News, Sunday, Fair Go and a larger number of climate journalists.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 200 paying subscribers and was produced and edited by Simon Josey.

The Hoon won the silver award for best current affairs podcast in last year’s New Zealand Podcast awards.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full. Remember, all students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz and .school.nz email accounts are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Also, here’s a couple of special offers: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

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