The Weekly Hoon: The ‘find out’ stage of NZ’s climate + FTAs strategy; A roadtrip to focus on NZ’s health crises

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.