The Hoon

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, along with special guest David Farrar, talking about his Op-Ed in the The Post-$ arguing it’s time New Zealand became the seventh state of Australia.
We talked about:
* The water treatment plant problems in Christchurch and Wellington;
* The gutting of the Washington Post’s newsroom;
* The effects of climate change on biodiversity, including the deaths of dugongs in Thailand, the deaths of bats in Western Australia, the freezing of iguanas in Florida;
* Insurance retreat in New Zealand; and,
* Rare earth minerals and a possible deal between New Zealand and the US;
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


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

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, along with special guest historian and author Jonathan Lyons.
We talked about:
* Likely issues in Election 2026 due on November 7, including anti-migration comments from Winston Peters and his comments backing Donald Trump on withdrawing from the World Health Organisation;
* The dramas this week in Global Financial Markets around the reserve currency status of the US dollar and another stalling in the New Zealand economy;
* The fallout from this month’s extraordinary weather events made worse by unaddressed climate change, and some solutions, including this EECA report on shifting power demand off-peak and this Manu Caddie post;
* Donald Trump’s latest threats to attack Iran, along with the history of revolutions in Iran and the situation there now, including Jonathan and Robert. Jonathan has written these books on Iran: The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization, and, Islam Through Western Eyes: From the Crusades to the War on Terrorism.
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


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

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, along with special guests Auckland University Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey and intensive care specialist Dr David Galler.
We talked about:
* Likely issues in Election 2026 due on November 7, including anti-migration comments from Shane Jones in the wake of protests against rockpool harvesting (RNZ) and the economy’s struggle to generate growth most can feel;
* This week’s extraordinary weather events made worse by unaddressed climate change, including this new UK paper on the environment and national security and the measures that should be taken to make Aotearoa more resilient;
* Trump’s latest rupturing of the global world order, including Mark Carney’s speech at Davos and Donald Trump’s latest threats to invade Greenland;
* How New Zealand adapts to the law of the jungle; and,
* What’s happening in our health system, and how to improve it, including discussions about this Andrea Black paper, this Deloitte paper and the launch this week of Kaitiaki Hauora, which is a national coalition of workers, iwi, union, and advocacy groups wanting to strengthen public health that includes David Galler.
Jane Kelsey has written these pieces for The Conversation on geopolitics so far this year:
* Trump is threatening more tariffs over access to critical minerals – will NZ be targeted?
* The World Trade Organization is on life support. Will Trump’s new rules finish it off?
Robert Patman has written this piece for The Conversation this year:
* As Trump rewrites the rules in Venezuela, NZ faces a foreign policy reckoning
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


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

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


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

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.
Our special guests this week were Philippa Yasbek, who heads Gun Control NZ and Doyen: NZ Jews Against Occupation, and Lee Feinstein, former US ambassador to Warsaw and senior diplomat under Democratic administrations, Dean of the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, long-serving board member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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


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