The Hoon

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.
It included regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman and discussions about climate change science distrust, National’s election policy to cut foreign aid and the near identical fiscal policies offered by National and Labour.
Bernard’s three things of note this week were:
* Labour’s fiscal track is virtually the same as National’s, which means it can’t fix the underfunding it accuses National of in health, transport etc.
* The Greens & Opportunity face a tough choice. If they join a Labour-led coalition they risk being tied to a do-nothing Government.
* If they want to get rid of the current coalition, they could do a supply and confidence deal and sit on the cross benches in opposition on everything else.
Peter’s three things of this week were:
* Peter recommended a deep analysis on Zionism and what it means in The Atlantic (gift). He does not always agree with the slant taken by the writer but the last line is: ‘The work of Zionism will remain incomplete until Jews and Arabs live in peace in the land that both have the right to call home.’
* ⁠Keep an eye on the Russian pneumonic plague death and associated cover-up. Did Russia ever really withdraw its bio-weapons programme. Peter has an anecdote about a friend’s husband who died young after leading US initiative to clean up Soviet bioweapons.
* Death of Jeffrey Archer — total ratbag. Wonderful obituary in The Times (gift) which says rather nicely: ‘His elastic relationship with the truth made telling his life’s story a tricky task, since it became clear that nothing Archer ever said about himself could be accepted without independent corroboration.’
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.
Listeners’ Choice nominations can be made at the NZ Podcast Awards site between now and 9th October, and then voting on the Listeners’ Choice award is open between 12th October - 26th November.
(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

Thank you Maurizio Piglia, Brian Rathbone, Ken Howell, Tim, Tony Pomfret, and many others for tuning into my live video with Elliot Crossan! 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 had a great chat this evening with the University of Otago’s Michael Swanson about MMP and vote-splitting after he produced this excellent substack post:
The Bastardisation of MMP
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

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics.
It included regular guest Cathrine Dyer, plus special guests Auckland University Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey, intensive care specialist Dr David Galler, who also publishes this substack david Galler, and Dr Malcolm Mulholland.
Jane talked about the challenge to New Zealand’s FTA with the EU by Both ENDS because of New Zealand’s climate policy backsliding.
David and Malclom talked about the ongoing crises in the health system because of decades of underfunding. They are doing The Roady on Public Health.
Bernard’s three things of note this week were:
* The Government and RBNZ are underestimating the chilling effect on the economy of falling house prices and falling real wages.
* Labour’s commitment to cap the size of Government at 33% of GDP means it can’t deal with our housing and health crises because Crown spending is already at 33% and an ageing population naturally pushes up NZ Super and health spending. Staying under the cap could only be done with massive cuts to other benefits and/or education spending.
* It’s great to see the climate backsliding come home to roost in the Both ENDS’ application to cancel NZ’s FTA with the EU. We’re in the ‘find out’ stage of ‘f*** around and find out’ strategy.
Peter’s three things of this week were:
1.⁠ ⁠Daniel Dale of CNN on his 10-years of factchecking Donald Trump: ‘His relentless dishonesty has become a central feature of US and world politics.’
2.⁠ ⁠Russia threatens Europe over Kaliningrad. FT-$ (gift): “Russia will be ready to use the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, in order to defend its territory should Nato countries undertake any attempt aimed at isolating the Kaliningrad Region from the rest of the country,” the document stated.
3.⁠ ⁠An astounding White House statement that immigration from majority Muslim countries has fallen 96 percent from 2024.
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.
Listeners’ Choice nominations can be made at the NZ Podcast Awards site between now and 9th October, and then voting on the Listeners’ Choice award is open between 12th October - 26th November.
(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 and Peter Bale talking about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics with regular guests Robert Patman and Cathrine Dyer, plus special guest:
* Former NZ Herald Editor Gavin Ellis, who talked about his article on the Official Information Act, the future of media and Nicky Hager’s new book Dirty Work.

During the show:
Bernard mentioned this chart on the recent collapse in visits to US mainstream news sites

Gavin mentioned this example of officials ‘lying in unison’ from 2003 and Bernard pointed to this Audrey Young article in the NZ Herald on the issue. He also talked about a lack of party policies on media so far in the campaign. He wrote about that here
Peter talked about Donald Trump and Javier Milei attacking the UN at the UN, referring to this article in The Guardian.
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