The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full online for paying subscribers. Briefly, in summary: RNZ published its Reid Research poll1 for June this morning, showing support for National fell by 2.1 percentage points since March to 28.7%.

Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full for paying subscribers. Briefly, in summary: The Employers and Manufacturers Association has called on whoever wins the 2026 election to take Government action to stop New Zealand’s de-industrialisation1.

Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full for paying subscribers. Briefly, in summary: The Government is failing to meet its targets1 to reduce the number of people on the Jobseeker Support benefit and boosting student achievement2. Health NZ has backed down on plans to stop publishing waiting list detail3.

Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full online for paying subscribers.

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with regular guests Robert Patman & Cathrine Dyer about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics. This edition also included discussions with special guest: Green MP for Wellington Bays and Green Transport Spokesperson Julie Anne Genter, talking about the Government’s RONS U-turn yesterday.

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 guests Otago Uni Professor Robert Patman and Vic Uni’s Cathrine Dyer plus special guest Green MP Julie Anne Genter.

It’s just not working. We’ve known this for a long time, but we felt it being seared into the body of our political economy all over again yesterday. The Reserve Bank tightened monetary policy to slow economic activity again. It wasn’t a mistake. It hiked the key interest rate in order to reduce jobs and wages growth, as well as investment. All because it has one blunt tool, the Official Cash Rate, and one target, to keep inflation around 2%. This way of running our economy isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.

Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full for paying subscribers. Briefly, in summary: Nicola Willis argued yesterday’s rate hike was a sign of economic confidence from the Reserve Bank. Another two rate hikes are expected before the election, which some doubt will inspire voter confidence1.

Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full for paying subscribers. Briefly, in summary: The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is set to hike the Official Cash Rate by 25 basis points to 2.5% at 2pm this afternoon, tightening monetary policy for the first time in more than three years.

Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy around housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full online for paying subscribers.