The Hoon

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts Bernard Hickey talking with regular guest Cathrine Dyer from Wellington about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.
This edition also included discussions with special guests:
* BusinessDesk-$ podcaster and Listener tech columnist Peter Griffin on SpaceX’s float and what it means for RocketLab; and,
* Former NZ Herald-$ columnist and former Metro, Cuisine & Consumer magazine Editor Simon Wilson on Auckland Council’s housing de-intensification vote and Labour’s $20 fare cap policy this week. Simon has just launched his substack; Hopetown by Simon Wilson. I highly recommend subscribing.
This week:
* Bernard and Peter began the show with their three news items of the week, including Peter pointing to the Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swann scoop in the New York Times-$ (gift link) about Donald Trump’s Epstein files mess and Bernard pointing to the self-firing of CBS’ 60 Minutes host Scott Palley.
* Bernard, Peter and Cathrine talked about Treasury’s advice to the Government that it might have to buy up to $6.5 billion worth of climate emissions credits on onshore markets or from other Governments because New Zealand is on track to miss its Paris Accord commitments, which are now hard-coded into our trade agreements with the EU and UK.
* Then Bernard and Peter talked with Simon and Peter about SpaceX, RocketLab, Auckland housing and Labour’s new transport policy.
* Peter finished with Donald Trump’s ‘I Love Inflation’ quote as the ‘skateboarding dog’ item.
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. Peter Bale will be back next week.
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.
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

This evening I spoke with I spoke with Victoria Coleman about the Disability Support Services Bill, which will gazump a court ruling that parents working as carers are full-time employees of the Government.
Victoria works full time as a carer for her son, who has autism, Down Syndrome and two rare bowell disorders. She is campaigning against the Bill and has launched a petition against the bill.
“It will wipe out 40 families’ court cases. They are extinguishing live court cases They have used that as a smokescreen for an almighty power grab. So they’ve gone, we’ve got this massive fiscal risk, let’s wipe that out, but let’s also grab all the power we can get over these vulnerable people.” Victoria Coleman
Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.


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

I spoke with Victoria Crockford from the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness this evening. She detailed the findings of the Coalition’s latest report, ‘Children and Young People Experiencing Homelessness,’ published today, including:
* there are 33,000 children and young people experiencing homelessness and they face significantly higher rates of harm across multiple areas of their lives;
* Children and young people experiencing homelessness are nearly three times more likely to have experienced abuse;
* Young people experiencing homelessness are more likely to disengage from education and interact with the justice system;
* Children under five experiencing homelessness are two times more likely to never have been enrolled with a Primary Health Organisation;
* Children under five experiencing homelessness are 1.6 times more likely to never have been enrolled in early childhood education;
* Children under five experiencing homelessness are significantly more likely to experience preventable hospitalisations, including respiratory illness and vaccine preventable disease; and,
* Māori and Pacific children continue to be disproportionately impacted by homelessness and most of the tamariki are located in Auckland, Northland, or Gisborne.
“What this research tells us about is who we are as a society, and I don’t think you can even read the headline and believe that enough is being done.” Victoria Crockford, co-lead of Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness.

Thank you Kaimataara, Andrew Riddell, Max Du Frene, Alex Clarkson, and many others for tuning into my live video with VictoriaC! Join me for my next live video in the app.


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 talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer from Wellington and Robert Patman in Dunedin about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.
This edition also included discussions with Louisa Wall, a former Labour MP and member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
This week:
* Bernard and Cathrine talked about Guyon Espiner’s interview on RNZ with Johan Rockstrom on economic growth’s ‘saturation point’ and this week’s UN report on the footprint of data centres.
* Then Bernard talked with Robert and Louisa Wall about Donald Trump’s latest moves to add tariffs to countries not complying with US standards for imports made with forced labour, and China’s sanctions on four MPs who visited Taiwan.
* Bernard referred to this FT-$ article on China’s repression of people in its western provinces.
* Bernard finished by mentioning this Reuters article about the discovery of the New World screw worm in Texas.
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. Peter Bale will be back next week.
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.
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 from Wellington and Robert Patman in Dunedin about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.
This edition also included discussions with Arab News Editor in Chief Faisal Abbas and disinformation researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa.
This week:
* Bernard and Peter began with a chat about the Government’s Budget delivered yesterday afternoon.
* Bernard, Peter and Cathrine then talked about the Government’s failure to disclose lobbyist contact on behalf of Z Energy and Fonterra with the PM’s Office over a rewrite of climate laws that shut down a climate lawsuit against Z Energy, Fonterra and others. See the background on that here.
* Then Bernard, Peter, Robert talked with Faisal Abbas about the Iran conflict.
* Bernard and Peter finished with a discussion with Sanjana about disinformation flooding into New Zealand in election year, including his report this week on how it has spread and deepened since 2023. We also mentioned this Microsoft report from 2022 that showed on page 79 how Russian troll farms flooded 30% more anti-vaxx disinformation into New Zealand in late 2021 and early 2022 than pumped into Australia and the United States.

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.
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