The Hoon around the week to June 7

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers features Bernard Hickey talking with:

* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer talking about the latest reports on a warming climate and the UN’s call this week to ban fossil fuel advertising;

* Robert Patman talking about the growing disquiet globally over the United States’ support for Israel in Gaza, plus the latest from Ukraine;

* Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton on the health funding crisis;

* Queenstown Lakes District Housing Trust CEO Julie Scott on social housing and the shortages of housing and transport in and around Queenstown; and,

* Commercial Communications Council CEO Simon Lendrum on the UN call for a boycott of fossil fuel money in advertising, PR and the media.

The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about in the Hoon above and via The Kākā and elsewhere in the last week included:

* Politics: Public and media reaction to Budget 2024 zeroed in on National’s breaking of election promises to fund 13 new cancer treatments and 50 new doctor training places, to not cut sick leave and holiday entitlements for part-time workers and to not cut funding for first-home buyer grants. See more in Monday’s email.

* Climate: Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown pushing ahead quietly with plans to water down emissions reduction rules for car imports. This move and the already-banned Clean Car Discount scheme could increase Aotearoa-NZ’s climate emissions by 30 million tonnes by 2030, which could cost taxpayers $680 million extra to buy emissions credits overseas, or risk the nation reneging on our Paris climate agreements in a way that would lock our farmers’ exports out of the European and UK markets. See more in Thursday’s email.

* Various cases emerged this week of ‘penny wise and pound foolish’ decisions by the Government to freeze or block funding for water infrastructure and public transport infrastructure that will dramatically slow the building of new homes, in direct opposition to the Government’s avowed ‘going for housing growth policy.’ See more in Monday’s email.

* UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres used the release of key reports this week on the warming climate by the World Meteorological Association (WMA) and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) to call in speech for a ban on all advertising by fossil-fuel companies, and for media agencies and media companies to stop working for such companies. See more in Thursday’s email. Also, see more in the weekly climate wrap from Cathrine and myself out this morning.

* Calls grew this week for deeper, more wide-ranging and more independent inquiries into Te Pati Maori’s use of data obtained during the Census and covid vaccination programmes by organisations associated with TPM President John Tamihere to promote voting for TPM.

* Ports of Auckland began telling clients last week it plans to increases its peak-time container pick-up fees by 84% to $175 per container. All because the Port has been told by Auckland Council to pay more dividends, again because both flavours of Government won’t fund councils properly for all the population growth Government has enabled. It’s another example of administered prices driving up domestic inflation, which is forcing the RBNZ to keep rates high for even longer.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was produced by Simon Josey. Regular co-host Peter Bale was off this week travelling.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, I’m 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.)

Other things we did elsewhere

We produced an episode of When The Facts Change via The Spinoff, including this interview with Flick Electric CEO Luke Blincoe about what really happened during last month’s cold-snap blackout scare.

We go deep into the mechanics of the electricity distribution system and market to look at how to solve the dry winter and cold snap problem without billions of dollars worth of spending on new generation and lines.

We also produce the 5 in 5 with ANZ daily podcast and Substack for ANZ Institutional in Australia, free to all via Spotify. Apple and YouTube

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe