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 with guests Robert Patman, Cathrine Dyer and Elaine Monaghan, who is a former Reuters correspondent and Washington correspondent for The Times.We discussed:* the US mid-term election results, including this feature article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution by Elaine;* New Zealand’s election this Saturday; and,* Climate change debate and this Op-Ed for The Conversation by Cathrine and Anne Bardsley: Trust in democracy is in decline in NZ. Could citizens’ assemblies help restore it?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

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 special guest Shamubeel Eaqub talking about fiscal, monetary and KiwiSaver policy. We referred to this substack post he wrote:And also the Zombie town documentaries he did, referred to in this substack post.Bernard’s three things of note this week were:1. Current polling shows the split vote chatter on the right might backfire on the Government. 2. The surprise RBNZ hold of the OCR is just a reprieve before hikes restart in December and February. 3. The shocking poll results that almost a half of young New Zealanders and half of all Māori and Pacifica want to leave the country should be the dominant feature of any election debate.His three links for further reading were:1. The story of the Franz Joseph dairy farmer selling up because of climate change via The Post-$ 2. The court reporting from the Loafers Lodge fire via RNZ 3. This Deep-dive by Tom Mann for Bloomberg-$ (gift link): Joe Rogan’s Microphone Goes Quieter on Trump ‘The world’s most popular podcaster has raised questions about the war with Iran and ICE’s tactics.‘Bernard referred to this podcast via The Rest is History about a Polish bear.Bernard and Peter referred to this interview in Haaretz by Ron Lauder.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

Thank you Virginia McMillan, PixieMatt, Alistair Schorn, Gill Franklin, Toni S, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ganesh R Ahirao! 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 Robert Patman talking about Donald Trump’s friendly relations with Vladimir Putin, events in the Middle East and what’s at stake for New Zealand.This week’s special guests were Drs david Galler and Malcolm Mulholland from Kaitiaki Hauora. They have just finished a ‘roady’ series of local meetings campaigning for public healthcare.Here’s a few reports from the trip from David on his Substack as well.Bernard’s three things of note this week were:1. We should all contact all the 18-24 year olds and make sure they’re enrolled. 2. Luxon keeps digging himself an ever deeper hole by saying he won’t deal with Opportunity. 3. I have a podcast recommendation. The Rest is Classified’s interview with Bourne series director Paul Greengrass about Spycatcher, the book he ghost wrote with Peter Wright.Peter’s three things to note this week were:⁠1 - Israel may be preparing to attack Iran which could have effect of delaying looming Israeli election and saving Netanyahu from defeat and prosecution.2 - Elon Musk proposes merging Tesla and SpaceX in what would be the biggest merger ever. Supposedly independent committees of each firm looking at it. Madness.3 - Oracle, Larry Ellison, appears may be overstretched in its huge investments in AI and his son’s takeover of Paramount. Could be the trigger for a much bigger retreat on markets and an unravelling of the AI market boom. (Peter holds a tiny amount of Oracle through Sharesies).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

I talked in the video above last night with Elliot Crossan about about his analysis of Labour’s fiscal plan, including how its National-like focus on returning to Budget surplus and cutting debt will force big real cuts in welfare and other Government spending. I have asked Labour spokesperson Barbara Edmonds for an interview.Here’s the essence of what Elliot is saying (bolding mine):Labour and National are both promising to increase real, per-capita health spending by 2.1% per year and 1.8% per year respectively; the Clark and Ardern governments both put nearly 5% per year into the healthcare system. This will not be enough to save our cash-starved health system.Outside of healthcare, Labour’s spending plans mean it will have to cut real, per-capita spending on public services by 1.6% per year. This will shrink the public sector, excluding health, to its smallest share of GDP in at least 30 years.This is not accounting for the new spending (excluding health and welfare spending) promised in Labour’s fiscal plan, nor for pay equity. All new spending and all spending on pay equity settlements will have to come out of existing departmental budgets. Labour may have to make deeper service cuts than Nicola Willis is currently planning in order to pay for pay equity (though not if National is seriously planning to double defence spending as a share of GDP).Labour’s fiscal plan is not only significantly more conservative than what the party promised in 2017 under the Labour-Green Budget Responsibility Rules, under which Ardern & Robertson promised to maintain the size of government at its existing level; Labour is promising a bigger reduction in the size of government than Bill English was planning in 2017.Here’s Elliot’s summary chart, but his analysis linked below has much more.Thank you Paul Singh, Alex Clarkson, Rana Hemi HUATA, 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 talked with Dr Mona Krewel in the video above about how New Zealand’s political parties and leaders are using Facebook so far in Election 2026. She is the director of the Internet, Social Media and Politics Research Lab at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington and was reporting back after the first week of the 2026 New Zealand Social Media Study, including analysis of 544 Facebook posts from the week of October 5 to 11. There’s a full text report here on the university’s website.Long story short: Monica told me National is doing the most posts, Labour is focusing on cost of living, the biggest spenders get the biggest impact, advertising spend matters more than sophisticated micro-targeting and that election campaign effects are real, but typically modest, short-lived, and dependent on the voter.We aim to talk again in the last week of the campaign to see how Facebook was used through the rest of October.Thank you Kaimataara, Kate, Andrew Riddell, Luke Maker, Kath, and many others for tuning into my live video with Mona Krewel! 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

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.Here’s the post from Rosie we discussed. 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 Ken Howell, Graham Collins, and many others for tuning into my live video with Huhana Hickey! Join me for my next live video in the app.Here’s the post we discussed. 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

University of Otago finance academic Morgan Edwards has discovered through an Official Information Act request to Treasury and the Reserve Bank that the Government ‘ran out of money’ 272 times since 1997 when the Crown Settlement Account went into overdraft, sometimes to the tune of billions of dollars.In theory, that’s not possible, but it happened.Here’s Morgan’s substack post documenting the instances and asking some basic questions about how we think about the Government’s finances. We had a discussion. The full video is above.Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.CheersBernard 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 discussion above is about Bryce Edwards’ substack post on this University of Otago survey published this week.I also covered the survey results yesterday.Thank you Felicity Letcher, Morgan Edwards, Paul Singh, Gaylene Middleton, Alex Clarkson, and many others for tuning into my live video with Bryce Edwards! 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