The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

Mōrena. Voters are most focused on cost of living and underfunded hospitals in this election campaign. National leader Christopher Luxon was criticised in the second leaders debate last night for wrongly saying the minimum wage was keeping up with those living costs. This came as a big new survey published this morning has found the biggest group of New Zealanders (27%) now feel they’re struggling financially, up from 16.5% who felt that in 2020.

Here’s my selection of the news, analysis, comment, front pages and cartoons from the last 24 hours or so in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty, as of 6:00 am on Thursday, October 15: A major and long-running survey of consumer attitudes by the University of Otago has found 27% of New Zealanders …

Playback speed × Share post Share post at current time Share from 0:00 0:00 / Treasury’s forecasts wrong on jobs & wealth effect Willis relying on Treasury forecast for 220,000 new jobs, but it has wrongly forecast jobs growth since 2024; Treasury somehow sees household & business investment growth without higher housing wealth Treasury is still forecasting household and business investment growth (and both National and Labour are relying on those forecasts) despite the ongoing chilling...

Here’s my selection of the news, analysis, comment, front pages and cartoons from the last 24 hours or so in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty, as of 6am on Wednesday, October 14: Top Six News items of the Day • 1News: Poll: Hipkins and Luxon now neck and neck, Opportunity on track for 10 MPs; 1News/Verian poll results See the…

Playback speed × Share post Share post at current time Share from 0:00 0:00 / National & Labour fiscal plans lock in stagnation National & Labour plan sinking lids on non-NZ Super spending to cut size of Govt to under 30% of GDP from 32%; Both need households to spend & borrow more to replace the 2% cut, but it can’t be done.

Here’s my selections of the news, analysis, comment, front pages and cartoons from the last 24 hours or so in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty, as of 6am on Tuesday, October 13: National has released its fiscal plan, which matched its outlook in Treasury’s Pre-Election Fiscal Update (PREFU), in…

The Kākā by Bernard Hickey Opportunity appears to give up on tax reform 0:00 Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -12:29 -12:29 Paid episode The full episode is only available to paid subscribers of The Kākā by Bernard Hickey Opportunity appears to give up on tax reform Quilae Wong says considering ruling out tax reform to tempt Luxon into Govt-forming talks & ‘unrealistic’ to expect reform in 2026-2029; Labour’s fiscal shackle rules out real change from other side Quilae Wong says she’s being...

Justin Hu for 1News: Willis, Edmonds agree to cross-party accord on retirement, pension RNZ: Greens would establish programme to guarantee jobs for all young Kiwis

The Hoon The Weekly Hoon: National & Labour budget tracks near identical; Climate distrust; Foreign aid cuts 1× 0:00 Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -54:56 -54:56 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.

Kia ora Come and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat with myself, Peter Bale and regular guest and climate academic Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman See you all shortly cheers Bernard