The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey & Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including:

* Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman on the week in geopolitics and climate;

* Michael Baker on the fifth anniversary of the arrival of Covid and the second anniversary of the launch of the Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC); and,

* Chloe Swarbrick on sanctioning Israel, RMA reform, infrastructure finance and Tamatha Paul’s comments about the police.

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 this 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

Mōrena. Long stories shortest: The news this morning is dominated by the crises cascading through our health system after 20 years of being starved of funding and staffing in real, per-capita terms. Auckland’s Starship hospital is now without a paediatric palliative care specialist, meaning there is none at all in Aotearoa. Hundreds marched against cuts in services in Napier. Almost a third of doctors who graduate here migrate overseas within a decade.

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers, we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing, although we’d love it if you subscribed to join The Kākā’s community and support making this journalism public. Students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz or .school.nz emails are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Our special are: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

Long stories short, my top six news items in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, March 24 are:

* Fears are growing that dying children are not getting the end-of-life care they deserve while the country's only publicly-funded paediatric palliative care specialist is on extended leave. RNZ’s Anusha Bradley

* Some doctors graduating from studies here, especially international students, are struggling to get intern jobs at hospitals because of funding shortages, forcing many to look at migrating. Medical Council records show 30% of doctors who spend five to six years training here have migrated within a decade of graduating, while the Medical Students Association says 25-30 graduates are not guaranteed internships. RNZ’s Ruth Hill

* Resident Doctors Association head Deborah Powell says some graduates are going straight overseas, where they could earn more and pay off their student loans faster.

* Powell said: "They [Health NZ] don't want to increase those numbers unless they get more money for it. It's bonkers, because we're short of SMOs [senior medical officers], and to get SMOs you need RMOs [resident medical officers]. And quite frankly, to get RMOs, you need medical school graduates."

* Hundreds of Napier residents marched in protest against those funding shortages yesterday, campaigning against cuts to the city's after-hours health services. Hoping to forestall the protest, Health Minister Simeon Brown last week said a decision to shut Napier’s after-hours medical centre at nights and on weekends would be reversed, but residents remain angry it won’t have a doctor on site. RNZ’s Alexa Cook.

* Napier protest organiser Sally Davenport said: “We have to do something - this is way not acceptable, particularly as we were totally and utterly cut off during the Cyclone. It's just wrong.” Napier does not have its own hospital. It was shut in 1998 in a round of previous cuts. Residents must currently drive to Hastings.

My Pick’ n’ Mix Top Six on Monday, March 24

* Health cuts deep-dive via RNZ: Fears for dying kids as country's only specialist takes extended leave

* Budget warning news by Jenee Tibshraeny in NZ Herald-$: ‘The price of borrowing has gone up’: Willis' pre-Budget warning

* Provincial protest news by Caron Copek in Stuff: ‘We need to keep fighting’: Mayor tells people worried about healthcare. A rally took place in Napier on Sunday protesting declining levels of urgent overnight healthcare services.

* Transport funding news by Sinead Gill in The Press-$: ‘Missing’ $78m for public transport in Christchurch reallocated to roads. The transport minister says the council gave up on accessing the funding intended for Greater Christchurch’s public transport, but a city councillor says that is “absolutely misleading”

* Health funding & migration news by Mary Williams in ODT-$: Risk fed-up staff could take off due to Hospital build delays in Dunedin

* Column by Andrea Vance in Stuff: David Seymour and the food fight he can’t win

My full Picks ‘n’ Mixes for today are here for paying subscribers.

Quotes of the day: Health Minister celebrates higher speed limit

In response:

“This is deranged. Health Minister can’t wait for more people to end up in hospital. Imagine being proud to have that on your conscience.” Auckland City Councillor Richard Hills via X in response. HT Stuff’s David Long

Number of the day

75% - Three quarters of seriously ill children in New Zealand don’t have access to specialist palliative care as the only specialist is in Auckland. Now that specialist is gone too. Reikōtuku report: “Unheard cries”

Substack essential

Charts of the day

Here come the landlord buyers. It’s only the DTIs that are stopping a much bigger credit-fuelled boom in our housing market with bits tacked on. This chart tells the story of New Zealand.

Video of the day

Cartoon of the day

Timeline-cleansing nature pic of the day

Ka kite ano

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

Long stories shortest this week in our political economy:

* Standard & Poor’s judged the Government’s council finance reforms a failure.

* Professional investors showed the Government they want it to borrow more, not less.

* GDP bounced out of recession by more than forecast in the December quarter, but data for the just-ending March quarter suggests the recovery is stuttering.

* Behind in the polls and facing growing provincial unrest over health cuts and higher speed limits, the Government relented on some of the speed limits and reversed a plan to close Napier’s Health Centre at night and on weekends.

* Contact Energy said New Zealand was actually closed for business and mired in a ‘culture of no’ after its 330MW Southland wind farm proposal was rejected .

* New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom criticised the Government’s inaction on homelessness in a Taranaki Daily News Op-Ed.

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers, we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing, although we’d love it if you subscribed to join The Kākā’s community and support making this journalism public. Students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz or .school.nz emails are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Our special offers right now are: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

Long stories short, my top six news items in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty in the week to March 23 are:

Debt referee judges Govt’s council finance moves a failure

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the ratings of 18 councils on Tuesday, saying the Government’s cuts to capital grants to councils and its abrupt reversals of Three Waters and RMA reforms gave it less confidence in council finances. S&P told me in an interview I’ll publish tomorrow that the Government would have been able to fund the necessary infrastructure development much faster and cheaper by simply borrowing more themselves through vanilla Government bonds.

The Government’s own capital spending cuts were supposed to force councils and private borrowers to take on the debt, but the U-turns on policy have backfired, making it harder and more expensive for councils to borrow and invest in infrastructure needed for housing and more economic growth.

Professional investors want much more Govt debt, not less

Banks and pension funds bid for four times the amount of bonds the Government offered in its weekly auction on Thursday, reinforcing the message that professional investors want the Government to borrow more, not less.

The Government’s determination to return to surplus within the forecast period and reduce borrowing is its single guiding force, but this austerity-driven approach is starving the economy of public investment catalysts for wider growth and has been proven by OECD studies not to work to either reduce debt or grow GDP.

GDP rose late in 2024, but the bounce looks dead-cat-ish

Stats NZ reported on Thursday that GDP bounced out of the mid-2024 recession by a higher-than-forecast 0.7% in the December quarter, but leading indicators from the almost-over March quarter show a much wobblier picture and the rise did not offset falls of 1.1% in each of the June and September quarters last year.

The services sector contracted in February, BusinessNZ-BNZ reported on Monday from their PSI survey, and Westpac reported its March quarter McDermott Miller survey found consumer confidence collapsed. Job ads fell in February, Seek reported on Wednesday and REINZ reported on Monday that house sales volumes rose just 3.4% in February from a year ago, while the median price fell 2.4%, weighed down by the numbers of homes for sale the highest they’ve been since 2015.

The Government’s strategy of reducing its own investment and borrowing to lower interest rates and create space for private borrowing and investment, mostly through the housing market, is failing because private investments require public infrastructure investment first and landlords are being restrained from borrowing more to spark a new housing boom by the Reserve Bank’s DTI limits

National responds to pressure from the regions

The drumbeat of bad polling for the Government continued this week, including Ipsos reporting a record low level of confidence in the Government’s performance and clear signs the health sector crisis is either number one or number two as the main issue of concern for voters, along with the cost of living. Local protests over hospital services being cut and speed limits being increased have also grown in recent months.

Napier was the latest provincial city up in arms over its healthcare services, with a march scheduled for today to protest a planned removal of after-hours and weekend care from Napier’s Health Centre. Napier hasn’t had its own hospital since 1998, forcing those who are sick after hours to drive themselves to Hastings.

Health Minister Simeon Brown announced on Thursday the dropping of the plan leaked in January to Hawkes Bay Today’s Rafaella Mello to close the centre at night and on weekends. But locals still plan to go ahead with the march, saying the new plan will still not have a doctor in the centre on weekends and nights.

Protests about Brown’s reversal of speed limit reductions when he was Transport Minister are also slicing away at the Government’s popularity in heartland electorates, which was no doubt a factor in NZTA’s quiet announcement on Tuesday that it would review 16 of the state highway sections with planned speed limit increases.

‘NZ is actually closed for business,’ Contact CEO says

A panel of experts rejected Contact Energy’s 330 MW Southland wind farm consent application under covid-era fast track law on Tuesday, saying they were worried about losing some vegetation for some bats and lizards. They prioritised the vegetation over generating enough renewable power in the right place to use the South Island’s lakes as effective wind-power batteries. The panel was also ok with not creating around 250 jobs with $250 million a year of local spending from the 55-turbine wind farm, which local councils and iwi supported.

Contact Energy CEO Mike Fuge told BusinessDesk-$’s Ian Llewellyn on Wednesday the rejection was a sign New Zealand was actually closed for business, contrary to PM Christopher Luxon’s ‘Going for growth’ State of the Nation speech on January 23, which called for a ‘culture of yes’ to projects such as this. Here’s Fuge’s comments (bolding mine):

“If you were a board sitting in Vienna or Copenhagen or Munich or Geneva, and you just laid down $20m on a project that every bit of legal advice, consenting advice, environmental advice, expert advice, said this is a good project in every sense of the word, and it got tripped up, what would you be thinking now?

“The question is, ‘is New Zealand really open for business?’ or is a significant portion of the country saying actually, no, we're not. Yeah, we quite like our lawyers’ fees and our concerns. Because, look, we'll go through the process. We'll take a year, two years; we will spend another $10 million on lawyers’ fees, consultants’ fees.

“There will be another dozen late-model Audis and BMWs going down Remuera Rd, The Terrace, when we've finished this. But this project will be two years late. We will go through two more tense years of security of supply. The poor New Zealand electricity consumer will ultimately bear the cost of that. And you've got to ask yourself, come on, is that fair? Is that right? Is that the right outcome? And so, you know, I think we've … got to get in behind the Prime Minister and go, actually, we are open for business. And this is not right.” Contact Energy CEO Mike Fuge via BusinessDesk-$

My Pick ’n’ Mix Six of the week

These links to scoops and deep-dives are my pick of the bunch this week.

* Housing infrastructure deep-dive by Luka Forman via RNZ: ‘Gobsmacked' - Developers slam call to stop new connections to wastewater network

* Migrant worker deep-dive by Nikki Macdonald in The Post-$: Who are our biggest migrant employers? Covid-shutdown staff shortages exposed the country’s reliance on overseas workers.

* Budget cut deep-dive by Marin Lourens in The Press-$: ‘The point of crisis’: Nearly 300% more youngsters ending up in Christchurch Hospital ED for mental health.

* Homelessness deep-dive by Maddy Croad in The Press-$: A baby in a tent, a granddad sleeping in a slide: The growing homelessness ‘epidemic’.

* Local politics report for RNZ/LDR: Western Bay of Plenty District Council quits LGNZ, calling it 'far left'

* Health news scoop by Glenn McConnell for Stuff: ‘Chilling effect’: Why doctors fear they’ll no longer be able to talk freely.

Journal of record for the week to March 23

Politics, government, the economy & geopolitics

* Stats NZ cited an increase in travel service exports for a drop in the seasonally adjusted current account deficit to $5.9 billion in the December 2024 quarter.

* International tourism also contributed to a 0.7% quarterly rise in GDP, Stats NZ said. The real estate, retail, and healthcare sectors also led GDP growth, whereas media, construction, and IT activity fell from the September 2024 quarter.

Housing, transport & infrastructure

* Two thirds of 2024 building consent applications were subject to council requests for additional information, adding what Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk claimed are often "unnecessary" processing delays to applications.

Poverty, health, education, justice & crime

* Atamira Platform Charitable Trust's new report on mental health and addiction NGO services in NZ found that roughly 73,000 people accessed such services in 2023/24.

* Construction began on a new Christchurch mental health facility at Hillmorton Campus, Health Minister Simeon Brown and Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey announced. The facility, expected to be completed at the end of 2027, will provide 80 beds for adults with acute mental health needs.

* A study in the Lancet found that a slowdown in the decline of smoking coincided with the rise of vaping in NZ, with the study authors suggesting that vaping may be contributing to adolescent uptake of smoking, rather than reducing it.

Climate, environment, air, land & water

* Resources and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones attended a hui with Rotorua mana whenua to discuss developing geothermal energy. GNS Science presented new research on possible sites for exploratory wells, and Jones expects to release the Government's formal geothermal strategy later this year.

* The Guardian and AFP will spearhead a journalism campaign exploring popular support for government action on climate change. The campaign was inspired by a University of Oxford global survey finding that 86% of respondents want their countries to set aside differences in order to co-operate on climate change.

* The World Meteorological Organisation's global climate report for 2024 found Antarctic sea ice has been at its lowest recorded levels for the last three years, and glaciers are also retreating at a record rate. NZ climate researcher James Renwick said the resultant sea level rises would take centuries to reverse.

The Kākā’s diary for the week to March 30, and beyond

Monday, March 24

* Post-cabinet news conference expected around 4pm.

Tuesday, March 25

* Parliament scheduled to meet from 2.00 pm for the next three weeks. Meetings are streamed live on the Parliament website.

Wednesday, March 26

* Stats NZ scheduled to release an update to its 2023 wellbeing statistics document, including new data on te reo Māori, digital inclusion, and volunteering.

* Reserve Bank of New Zealand scheduled to release data on residential mortgage lending and NZ’s foreign currency assets & liabilities for February 2025.

* Simeon Brown will give a keynote speech at a ‘Project Auckland’ luncheon in Auckland at 12.45 pm.

Thursday, March 27

* Chris Bishop will speak at the Property Council of New Zealand's 2025 Residential Development Summit in Auckland at 11.30 am.

Friday, March 28

* Stats NZ scheduled to release data on business count indicators and employment indicators for February 2025.

Beyond March 30

* 7 Apr 25 - Health Coalition Aotearoa hosts an event on the influence of lobbying on NZ democracy at the University of Auckland from 5.30 pm.

* 8 Apr 25 - The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research will release its Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion for the March quarter.

* 9 Apr 25 - RBNZ will review the OCR.

* 29 Apr 25 - New Zealand Media and Entertainment shareholders will vote on 10% stakeholder James Grenon's board takeover bid at their annual meeting.

* 7 May 25 - RBNZ releases its half-yearly Financial Stability Report.

* 12 - 14 May 25 - The Environmental Defence Society hosts a conference on NZ's energy transition at the Grand Millennium Hotel in Auckland.

* 22 May 25 - The Government releases Budget 2025.

* 25 - 27 June 25 - The New Zealand Association of Economists holds its annual conference at Victoria University of Wellington's Pipitea Campus.

Many thanks to Eilish Grieveson for compiling and editing these Journals of Record items.

Podcast of the week

Cartoon of the week

Timeline-cleansing nature pic of the week

Ka kite ano

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

Mōrena. Long stories shortest: Professional investors who are paid a lot of money to be careful about lending to the New Zealand Government think it is wonderful place to put their money. Yet the Government itself is so afraid of borrowing more that it is happy to kill its own popularity by starving our hospitals, schools and houses of the investment needed to become more productive and healthy.

Surely, the Government would be so certain of the dangers of borrowing more that it could point to evidence of reluctant bond investors or a blowout in bond yields? Yet there is nothing, week after week, and there hasn’t been for a couple of decades. Yesterday, bond investors bid $2.073 billion for $500 million of New Zealand Government bonds being offered and bond market experts say demand is the strongest it’s been in three years. So why is the Government sacrificing itself on the altar of fiscal rectitude?

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers, we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing, although we’d love it if you subscribed to join The Kākā’s community and support making this journalism public. Students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz or .school.nz emails are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Our special are: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

Long stories short, my top six news items in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on March 21 are:

* Treasury’s Debt Management Office sold $500 million worth of bonds yesterday for a lower-than-expected interest rate because bond investors, including banks, pension funds and central banks, bid $2.073 billion or four times the amount on offer. Demand for Government bonds has averaged just below three times over the long run, so demand this year has been significantly above the long-run average.

* As BNZ Senior Markets Strategist Jason Wong said this morning of yesterday’s bond tender: “In the domestic rates market, there was very strong demand at the weekly bond tender. Bid to cover ratios were above 4 across all the lines offered and all were priced at 2½-3bps below pre-tender mids.” That means bond investors had to pay a bit more than expected, as prices move in the opposite direction to yields. (See charts of the day below)

* Yet the Government continues to prostrate itself before the god of ‘saving for a rainy day’ and being wary of bond vigilantes somehow calling time on New Zealand Government borrowing. The Government’s fear of the vigilantes is the single focus of its entire strategy of reducing deficits and borrowing, just in case the markets react badly to the next auction.

* That fiscal stringency is evident across the news this morning, with widespread reports of delays, failures, shortages, understaffing, budget cuts and spending restraints across health, education, housing and social welfare. (See my ‘pick n’ mix below)

* The drumbeat of bad news in health, education and the wider economy because of the self-imposed fiscal restraints are taking a heavy toll on the Government’s popularity, with a new Ipsos poll published this morning showing voters believe its performance is the worst since this series began in 2017. (See charts of the day below)

* Even conservative mayors such as New Plymouth’s Neil Holdom have started breaking ranks to criticise the Government for its lack of spending on fixing a homelessness crisis that is cascading on the main streets of cities and towns up and down the country. (See quote of the day below)

Charts of the day

My Pick’ n’ Mix Top Six at 6am

* Poll: Ratings of government performance hit new low - Ipsos survey RNZ

* Budget cuts: ‘The point of crisis’: Nearly 300% more youngsters ending up in Christchurch Hospital ED for mental health. Christchurch’s ED has become the last stop for hundreds of struggling youngsters — but experts warn the real crisis starts long before they show up. The Press-$’s Mariné Lourens

* Op-Ed by Neil Holdom in Stuff: Time for Government to help with housing. Where has the Government gone in helping find solutions to homelessness?

* Climate deep-dive: What are NZ's international climate targets and do we have to meet them? RNZ’s Eloise Gibson

* Auckland NIMBYism deep-dive: Do tall buildings belong on K’ Road?. An 11-storey timber building planned for the thoroughfare has been denied consent, and it's not just the passionate yimbies who are up in arms. The Spinoff Catherine McGregor

* Council debt news: S&P cuts councils' credit ratings - will their borrowing costs rise? NZ Herald-$’s Jenee Tibshraeny

Here’s the full suite of Pick ‘n’ Mixes from this morning.

Quote of the day: In which a mayor calls b******t on ‘going for growth’

“Taranaki needs a housing plan. We have homeless people living on the streets of our towns and in cars. The Government’s record of investing in social housing in Taranaki is appalling and we will have to make our own plans if we are to address the growing gaps in our system over the long term.” New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom in a Stuff Op-Ed

Number of the day: Another winter power crisis looms

93 years - “ National hydro storage continued to decline last week, hitting 77% of the historic mean for this time of year. Storage dropped to below the 6th percentile, meaning it is near the lowest level in 93 years of records. Inflows continued to remain below average last week. Inflows during January and February have been the lowest on record resulting in national storage currently sitting below the 6th percentile for this time of year.” Transpower’s weekly operations report

Doc of the day: How to reverse an asymmetry

Research paper: Zoning for housing supply: modelling the asymmetric welfare costs of errors in demand forecasts Ministry for Regulation Chief Economist Kevin Counsell

“The paper looks at how population forecasts are used to zone enough land for future housing, and how uncertainty in these forecasts creates a risk of regulatory error. The costs of this error are asymmetric: the costs of zoning 'too little' land to meet actual housing demand far outweigh the costs of zoning 'too much' land. If not enough land is zoned, it pushes up house prices, locks people out of the housing market, and has implications for productivity. These same costs are not present if too much land is zoned.

“My paper models this asymmetry, and shows that it is better to be over-generous in how much land is zoned for housing, to mitigate the risk of the larger costs from under-zoning. My model shows that a margin of anywhere between 4% and 21% can be used to 'uplift' forecast demand to account for this generosity. The precise margin depends on things like how much uncertainty there is about future population growth, and whether zoning is greenfields or brownfields.” Ministry for Regulation Chief Economist Kevin Counsell via LinkedIn post

Substack essentials: Offering up the future

Graphic of the day: An austerity vaccine

“I’ll just leave my Austerity narrative flowchart here in case anyone needs to persuade a Lefty pundit/politician not to try to compete with the Right on debt hawkishness. Remember, all routes down that path lead to austerity. “ Patricia Pino via bluesky

Podcast of the day

Thread of the day

“Welcome to debt brake d-day. Germany is quick to adjust to the new global order and is doing so in force. David E Oneglia shows the package outstrips the spending booms that came with the postwar Marshall Plan and with German Reunification in the early 1990s.” Centre for European Reform Chief Economist Sander Tordoir via BlueSky

Cartoon of the day

Timeline-cleansing nature pic of the day

Ka kite ano

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 features co-hosts Bernard Hickey & Peter Bale talking with special guest author Michael Wolff, who has just published his fourth book about Donald Trump: ‘All or Nothing’.

Here’s Peter’s writeup of the interview.

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 this 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

It may be a bumpy ride for the world but the era of Donald J. Trump will die with him if we can wait him out says the author of four best-sellers on the indefatigable real-estate bloviator-turned-President.

Michael Wolff has spent a decade tracking Trump’s improbable rise, Icarian fall, and resurrection, fed by salacious insider stories — gossip and alarming insights. His latest book All Or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America is a fast-moving page-turner released within a month of the inauguration of the 45th president as the 47th.

“It feels like I have written too many books on Donald Trump, and, I am trying to resist…working on a fifth,” Wolff told The Hoon. Yet, Trump really is absorbing — drawing all the light towards him and needing it desperately.

In a rollicking interview for The Hoon with Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale, Wolff described the in-fighting in an inexplicably successful Trump campaign fuelled by Trump’s singular focus on himself; his predictions (spoiler alert: Wolff reckons Trump will explode); and his journalistic methods and thoughts on the future.

The one and only

Wolff describes Trump as “suis generis” — Latin for ‘one of a kind’ and says he will neither be repeated nor leave a legacy for others to pick up the mantle of Trumpism.

“It's going to end in the obvious way: he's going to come to the limits of his term, and at 78 years old, he's going to come to the limits of his life. So at that point, we will be able to to to exit from this story. It will not go on post-Trump. It is not going to go on with JD Vance. It's not going to go on with any of these other Shmendriks [a Yiddish word for idiots.]

“Trump is truly sui generis. There is no one like him. No one is going to be able to do this again. There will be all sorts of damage and wreckage in his wake, but nevertheless, we will, at at the point at which he exits, return to some relatively familiar baseline,” Wolff said on The Hoon.

Meanwhile, like watching an arsonist at work, it’s hard not to stare: “You can use that metaphor or the train wreck because I continue to believe that it will finally smash into something that it cannot go through.”

The book, whose audiobook version is read by Wolff with dry cynicism and a little awe, captures the madness of the Mar a Lago crowd who insist on calling Trump “Mr President” even when out of office, as though the election of Joe Biden never happened (which of course in his mind it didn’t). The sycophants and enablers tell Trump what he wants to hear cocooned in his own ego and kitsch castle.

Wolff, writing in the book, marvels at Trump’s orange rhino hide and determination to turn legal cases and convictions that would destroy anyone else into ammunition for his insatiable desire for headlines: ‘Given the rage with which Trump continued to damn the “witch hunt” against him, he remained, in fact, fairly sunny about his situation. This was in part because he was, by nature, impervious to the outside world. He lived in a highly controlled universe populated only by lackeys, flunkies, and sycophants. And, too, the vulnerabilities that undermined ordinary mortals—the doubts, shame, and fear—­were absent in him. Conflict made him feel alive.’

“What Donald Trump is stays as a constant. The fact that he became the president is just like changing real estate. The guy in the White House in 2017…was…no different from the guy in Trump Tower. The guy in Mar a Lago was no different from the guy in the White House and here we are again. The fixed point always is Donald Trump. That…thing…everybody says [that] ‘the indisputable point of presidential history is that the presidency changes whoever holds it.’ This is not true about Donald.”

Wolff dismisses the idea that behind the madness of Trump is a cabal of focused, intelligent, political operatives somehow using him to fulfill their own agenda be that tariffs, disengagement from alliances, or almost any other policy or strategy.

“Headlines are the strategy, whether that's chaos or not…and because today's headlines are obviated by the next day's headlines, I guess that is a form of chaos. But central to this is headlines. He needs to dominate every news cycle, every headline,” Wolff said. “That's what he lives for. That's the entire point of the process.”

Reports that people around Trump a cooking up a plan — a so-called Mar a Lago Accord — to weaken the dollar and bully holders of U.S. debt — are the stuff of being in the Trump orbit but having no real influence over the star at its centre.

“There's a clear dichotomy,” Wolff told The Hoon. “There's what's on Trump's mind, and then the conversations everybody else has been having. And the fact that there is not necessarily a connection there means that the conversations everybody else has been having are either meaningless or involve something that Trump doesn't care about…I can't say this emphatically enough…let me be perfectly clear, he's not listening to those people. They have never actually spoken to him. They've listened to him. They have never spoken to him. They have never gotten two consecutive sentences out in his presence.”

A review in the New York Times captured the horrifying yet compelling drama portrayed in Wolff’s tale of TrumpWorld and in the norm-immolating presidency.

“What excites Trump most is not the fire but the clanging fire engines and sirens rushing to the scene,” a Trump insider tells Wolff, prompting the New York Times reviewer to wonder ‘Will President Trump leave policy to ideological terrors, people like his draconic homeland security adviser Stephen Miller? Will he be tempted to light more fires himself, just to see what chaos will ensue? Either way, when the fire trucks come, one thing is certain: Wolff will be hanging off the back.’

Wolff admits he struggles to pull himself away from the spectacle of Trump: “The story goes on. I mean, I wish it did not go on, but it continues to go on so that there is reason to tell it. Also, it’s Donald Trump, so nobody pays attention to anything else. So if you're a good writer, if you're a writer of books, it is a propitious subject.”

“… a lying sack of s**t”

For his part, Trump has attacked Wolff frequently but in his comments on the new book effectively confirmed Wolff did have access in his circle: “He called me many times trying to set up a meeting, but I never called him back because I didn’t want to give him the credibility of an interview…I assume, however, he was able to speak to a small number of people, but not meaningfully.”

Trump spokesman, Stephen Cheung, whom Wolff described as a “nice guy” to The Hoon, called the writer “a lying sack of s**t”.

A writer first

What of his craft? Wolff prefers to describe himself as a writer rather than a journalist — telling stories with verve and panache rather than what he might see in other more reportorial authors as a halting approach distracted by rules on sourcing, attribution, and fact-checking. He reckons gets the sweep of history right.

He and I have talked before about what he calls the “Church of Journalism” whose high priests accuse him of flamboyant if not inflated storytelling. Not unlike Trump might, Wolff gives it back at least as good as he gets and has the homes and lifestyle to show for the millions of books he has sold — not least on the Trump saga.

He also bridles at a comparison with say Bob Woodward of the Washington Post who has built a career as an author on the now 50-year-old scoop on Watergate.

“The only difference between Bob Woodward's approach and method and mine, because Bob also allows a range of anonymous sources, is that I'm a significantly better writer than Bob Woodward is,” Wolff says archly and with a smile sitting in front of a bookcase where I can see tomes by the pugnacious Norman Mailer.

Apart from chronicling the life and times of Trump, Wolff is best known as the most biographer of Rupert Murdoch. In The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch Wolff turned a remarkable level of access to Murdoch and his family into a story that laid bare the drama that would become Succession.Fire & Fury described Murdoch calling Trump a “f*****g idiot”. Yet Murdoch and his Fox News are crucial allies of the monster they created, Wolff said: “It’s among the most bitter ironies of Rupert’s life: his dream was to elect a US president and that, tragically for him, turned out to be Donald Trump.”

Interviewing Wolff at the gorgeous Long Island second home from which Wolff spoke to us, journalist Ben Smith wrote that the huge sales of Fire & Fury were allowing him to ‘finally afford the lifestyle he had already been living.’

But what of the future? Is he scared his young children and now grandchildren from the offspring of his first marriage will grow up in a world defined by the chaos of ‘TrumpWorld’: “I tend to be an optimistic person…so I tend to believe this too will pass only to bring on something else that will, in turn, pass.”

* The Hoon is an offshoot of Bernard Hickey’s The Kaka. We record the show in front of a live audience on YouTube each Thursday and then publish an edited audio version on the usual podcast platforms on Friday.

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

Mōrena. Long stories shortest: Standard & Poor’s has cut the credit ratings of 18 councils, blaming the new Government’s abrupt reversal of 3 Waters, cuts to capital grants & new unfunded mandates. The downgrades, with the potential for one more cut for Wellington Regional Council, Wellington City Council and Dunedin City Council, are likely to increase interest costs for ratepayers and restrict their ability to invest in the infrastructure the Government says is needed to grow GDP faster.

Also, weeks after PM Christopher Luxon said he wanted to ‘go for growth’ in 2025, large parts of the economy fell into a hole. Data out yesterday showed consumer confidence collapsed in the March quarter and job advertisements resumed falling in February. This comes days after news of a surprise contraction in February in the services sector that comprise more than 60% of the economy, along with more signs the housing market is struggling to fire up under a wet blanket of new listings and sellers reluctant to crystallise capital losses.

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers, we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing, although we’d love it if you subscribed to join The Kākā’s community and support making this journalism public. Students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz or .school.nz emails are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Our special are: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

Long stories short, my top six news items in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on March 20 are:

* Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s yesterday announced one notch debt rating downgrades for the credit ratings of 18 councils and three council-controlled organisations (CCOs), including Christchurch City, Dunedin City, Greater Wellington Regional, Hamilton City, Hastings, Hutt City, Kapiti Coast, Marlborough, Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Porirua, South Taranaki, Tasman, Taupo, Waimakariri, Wellington City and Whanganui. It put the ratings of the Wellington and Dunedin councils on review for another downgrade. S&P said policy uncertainty after the new Government’s various actions in 2024 had caused the downgrades. (See more detail in the lead article below)

* The Westpac-McDermott Miller survey of consumer confidence published yesterday found it slumped in the March quarter to levels not normally seen since 1991. Meanwhile, Seek reported job advertisements fell 2% in February from January, resuming a decline that had seemed to end during the month Luxon declared the country should ‘go for growth’. Stats NZ reported this morning December quarter GDP rose 0.7%, but that’s not enough to offset the 2.2 percentage points of contraction in the previous two quarters. Real National Gross Disposable Income per capita fell 2.0% in 2024.

* BNZ Head of Research Stephen Toplis said consumer confidence had “shattered” in the March quarter, adding in a note yesterday: “for our forecasts of household spending to prove anywhere near accurate, consumer confidence will need to lift aggressively from here. It’s getting increasingly hard to see how this might happen. This is especially so when cost of living issues are a widespread concern which will not dissipate any time soon, particularly when folk see what happens to their power bills come the expected hikes on April 1.”

* Luxon said in his ‘Going for Growth in 2025’ State of the Nation speech on January 23 that: “The bottom line is we need a lot less no and a lot more yes,” proclaiming the nation “open for business.” But yesterday Contact CEO Mike Fuge said the exact opposite was the case after a panel of experts rejected Contact’s plan for a 330 MW wind farm in Southland. (See more in quote of the day below.)

* Another expert panel also demonstrated that ‘culture of no’ last month by rejecting a consent for an 11-storey wooden office building next to a new railway station in Auckland. Contrasting with the PM’s exhortation for the economy to develop a ‘culture of yes,’ Contact CEO Mike Fuge noted a panel’s rejection of Contact’s big wind farm proposal in Southland showed New Zealand wasn’t actually open for business. (See quote of the day below)

* The World Meteorological Association published its annual report overnight, finding global temperatures averaged 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels in 2024, which was the warmest the planet had been in 800,000 years. (See number of the day below)

S&P downgrades 18 councils, blaming Govt

The Government did its best last year to please ratings agencies and bond investors by reining in new capital spending in an effort to reduce borrowing and borrowing costs for households. But the moves to slash capital grants and housing and transport spending have had the opposite effect. Standard and Poor’s just blamed the Government for downgrading the ratings of 18 councils, and warned there may be more to come.

Here’s the key points from S&P (bolding mine):

“New Zealand's councils will continue to experience credit strain. Debt will rise further for the local government sector and the policy environment is less predictable than in the past,” said S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Anthony Walker.

In our view, the sector is heavily indebted due to strong population growth and pressing needs for infrastructure including renewals in response to past underinvestment and new quality standards.

We recently lowered our institutional framework assessment on New Zealand's local government sector to very predictable and well balanced. This is second highest on our six-point scale, down from highest, extremely predictable and supportive. We believe the sector's revenue and expenditure balance and predictability of policy have weakened.

In response to this change, we today downgraded 18 New Zealand local councils and three council-controlled organizations by one notch.

This reflects factors including the quick passage and repeal of several key laws governing local councils, the cancellation of various Crown grant programs, an increase in unfunded mandates, and recent announcements about infrastructure financing options. These changes can materially affect councils' financial outcomes, making it difficult for S&P Global Ratings and the sector to accurately forecast financial outcomes. Standard and Poor’s announcement

My Pick’ n’ Mix Top Six at 6am

* Poverty detail: A baby in a tent, a granddad sleeping in a slide: The growing homelessness ‘epidemic’. Outreach workers saw almost 60 new people living on the street in January alone, including an 8-week-old baby living in a tent. The Press-$’s Maddy Croad

* Politics: Windfarm consent rejection indicates NZ closed for business - ContactBusinessDesk-$’s Ian Llewellyn

* Scoop: ‘Contrary to law’: Ombudsman singles out Health NZ’s attitude to official information NZ Herald-$’s Thomas Coughlan

* Scoop: 'Zombie' postboxes leave residents in dark, vital mail piling up RNZ’s Nine-to-Noon

* Local politics: Western Bay of Plenty District Council quits LGNZ, calling it 'far left' RNZ/LDR

* Scoop & deep-dive: TAB's $150m gamble for online casino licence fails RNZ’s Guyon Espiner

Full paying subscribers can see the full suite of Pick ‘n’ Mixes in today’s Pick ‘n’ Mix at 6am article and email sent earlier.

Quote of the day

“The question is, ‘is New Zealand really open for business?’ or is a significant portion of the country saying actually, no, we're not. Yeah, we quite like our lawyers’ fees and our concerns.” Contact CEO Mike Fuge talking to BusinessDesk-$’s Ian Llewellyn.

Number of the day

800,000 years: The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released its annual State of the Global Climate report overnight, confirming 2024 was likely to have ben the first calendar year to be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era, making it the warmest year in the 175-year observational record, with atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are at the highest levels in the last 800,000 years.

Document of the day

Platform, Aotearoa’s peak body representing mental health and addiction NGOs and community groups, has published a report measuring the value of their services titled: “A sound investment.”

Substack essentials

Chart of the day

Yet NZ’s solar & battery rollout has been so tepid

Video or podcast of the day

Thread of the day

“I wanted to pull out the lessons Auckland Transport (plus everyone else responsible for transport in Auckland), needs to learn from the Mercury Lane story. 1/7” ConnorSharp via BlueSky

Cartoon of the day

Timeline-cleansing nature pic of the day

Ka kite ano

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

Mōrena. Long stories shortest: ACT’s renowned climate sceptic MP Mark Cameron has accused National of being 'out of touch' with farmers by sticking with New Zealand’s Paris accord pledges to reduce emissions. David Seymour downplays Cameron's comments, saying National is (happily) doing the bare minimum on climate. A fast-track panel rejects Contact’s plans for big wind farm.

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers, we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing, although we’d love it if you subscribed to join The Kākā’s community and support making this journalism public. Students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz or .school.nz emails are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Our special are: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

Long stories short, my top six news items in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, March 19 are:

* David Seymour says Simon Watts is doing the 'absolute minimum' on climate, which was a good thing, he suggested. He was responding to questions after ACT climate sceptic MP Mark Cameron slammed National for being ‘out of touch’ by sticking to New Zealand’s climate commitments. (See more in my Pick’n’Mix below)

* A panel of experts yesterday decided to block Contact’s plans for a 55-turbine wind farm in Southland that would have generated 1.2 Gigawatt a year of renewable electricity to effectively be stored in South Island’s dams, along with up to 240 jobs and around $250 million per year of domestic spending. The panel ruled some loss of vegetation and dangers to a population of bats and some lizards were more important. Contact CEO Mike Fuge described the decision under the old Fast-Track legislation as “extremely concerning” and a “significant setback for New Zealand’s decarbonisation.” (See more in doc of the day below)

* Improving covid testing and masking in hospitals could have prevented 600 deaths from covid in our hospitals, not to mention presenting a big opportunity to save money in future by reducing the number of nights covid patients spend in general hospital wards ($1,200 a night) and intensive care ($5,500). (See quote of the day below.)

* Staffing shortages that closed Whakatāne Hospital’s maternity unit are now cascading on to create staffing shortages at Tauranga Hospital, causing women to be sent home early, The Hui’s Ruwani Perera reports via Stuff, along with a panel discussion on The Hui. (See more in video of the day below)

* Doctors have been told they need 'national level sign-off' for public comments, which they fear will restrict their criticism of health sector cuts, Glenn McConnell reports this morning for Stuff.

* Today’s must-read is an Op-Ed from Tim Berners-Lee with his suggestions for how to rescue social media from enshittification, fraud and harming mental health. (See must-read of the day below)

My Pick’ n’ Mix Six at 6am today

* Health deep-dive: The lessons from Covid we haven't learnt RNZ’s Katie Kenny

* Data analysis: Young Americans lose trust in the state FT-gift

* Column by Thomas Coughlan: The school lunch programme is a disaster - here’s how we could fix it and whether we should bother NZ Herald-$

* Health deep-dive: The Hui: Whakatāne Hospital maternity closure puts pressure on short-staffed Tauranga Hospital Stuff Ruwani Perera

* Health deep-dive: Doctor shortages: Plans for on the job training puts more pressure on GPs RNZ’s Ruth Hill

* First person detail: The cost of being: An unemployed 31-year-old who wishes he could afford good food'Three words to describe my financial situation? Broke, depressing, unliveable.' The Spinoff

Full paying subscribers can see the full suite of Pick ‘n’ Mixes in today’s Pick ‘n’ Mix at 6am article and email sent earlier.

Quote of the day

“It's unacceptable. Hospitals should be places of safety, not places where you contract Covid.” Otago University public health professor Michael Baker via RNZ’s Katie Kenny in this deep-dive: The lessons from Covid we haven't learnt

Number of the day

$20 - An example of the cost of poverty.

“Describe your financial low: Two months ago. Friend had to give me money to see a doctor because I couldn’t afford the transport or the $20 appointment (with Community Services Card) to check out a possible broken bone after a tumble. I’d spent my last $20 buying Betadine and dressings from the pharmacy for the grazes. The bone was broken; I still haven’t been able to repay the friend.” First person detail: The cost of being: An unemployed 31-year-old who wishes he could afford good food'Three words to describe my financial situation? Broke, depressing, unliveable.' The Spinoff

Document of the day

Read it and rage.

“The Panel finds that although the Project could urgently promote employment to support New Zealand’s recovery from the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 and support the certainty of ongoing investment across New Zealand, the environmental effects are such that the Project will not promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources and thus will not achieve the purpose of the FTCA. The Panel declines the application.” The decision published yesterday by Clare Lenihan (Chair), Gina Solomon (Member) And Sharon McGarry (Member) of the expert consenting panel considering Contact Energy’s consent application under the old Covid-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act 2020 for its Southland Wind Farm proposal.

The 55-turbine 330MW capacity wind farm was to be located 15km east of Wyndam in Southland and was expected to produce about 1,200GWh of extra electricity per annum. It would have created up to 240 new jobs, generating around $250 million a year in local spending. Contact CEO Mike Fuge was gobsmacked in a statement to the NZX:

“The decision by the Panel to decline Contact’s proposed wind farm is extremely concerning. It represents a significant setback for New Zealand’s decarbonisation, Contact’s mission to improve electricity security of supply and the country’s economic development.” Contact CEO Mike Fuge in a statement to the NZX yesterday afternoon.

Chart or graphic of the day

Demand for labour in Australia has just spiked again, which employers here should take note of.

Substack essential today

Video or podcast of the day

This episode of The Hui from Monday night refers to the Bay of Plenty maternity crisis example reported by Ruwani Perera in Stuff above, which also includes a panel discussion with Dr Elana Curtis and Dr Rawiri Jansen at the end of this story.

Thread of the day

This is a tale via jjw.wtf on bluesky of public sector office life in New Zealand that’s worth following. A taste to start with:

“If you ask most public servants about “hot desking” you will come to understand it is considered a violation of Geneva Conventions and an insult to basic human dignity.” jjw.wtf on bluesky

Cartoon of the day

Timeline-cleansing nature pic of the day

Ka kite ano

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

Long stories shortest: David Seymour has denied a request from a Christchurch school and any other schools to be exempted from the Compass school lunch programme, saying the contract must be obeyed. Christopher Luxon’s net approval rating in his first year as PM is vastly lower than those of Helen Clark, John Key and Jacinda Ardern. Chris Bishop is (rightly) incensed that a consent for an 11-storey office building next to Karangahape Road’s new rail station has been rejected because it would change the character of the area.

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers, we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing, although we’d love it if you subscribed to join The Kākā’s community and support making this journalism public. Students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz or .school.nz emails are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Our special offers right now are: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

Long stories short, my top six news items in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, March 18 are:

* Desperate to go back to making nutritious lunches for their own kids in their own commercial-grade kitchens, Christchurch’s Haeata Community Campus has pleaded for an exemption from the current Compass school lunch programme, which has delivered frozen, too-hot, nutrition-free, dangerous, fly-blown, smaller and reheated lunches from centralised facilities, one of which has collapsed and the others are being investigated for safety and labelling breaches. Last night Associate Education Minister David Seymour rejected that request and said there would be no other exemptions granted to schools wanting to opt out of the Compass contract. The Press-$ Maddy Croad. RNZ’s Adam Burnsn (See quotes of the day below)

* PM Christopher Luxon’s net favourability rating is vastly below that of previous PMs Helen Clark, John Key and Jacinda Ardern in their first years as Prime Minister, largely because Luxon started his term with a net negative rating. (See charts of the day below)

* REINZ yesterday reported house prices rose just 0.4% in February from January, with large numbers of unsold listings weighing on both volumes and prices in what some had hoped would have been the first month of a boom sparked by lower mortgage rates and more attractive tax rules for rental property investors. Mortgage brokers report the Reserve Bank’s Debt to Income (DTIs) multiple controls are restricting landlords from gearing up to buy more existing homes. (See quotes of the day and charts of the day below)

* New Zealand’s services sector, the biggest part of the economy, slipped back into contractionary territory in February, according to the BusinessNZ-BNZ PSI survey of service industry managers’ orders, hiring, spending and pricing intentions. The PSI survey had bounced in January into expansionary territory for the first time in a year, fostering talk of green shoots in the economy.

* Infrastructure and Transport Minister Chris Bishop, a virtually lone voice inside the Government for densification and public transport, rightly railed against the decision by an Independent Hearings Panel to reject plans for an $100 million 11-storey office building close to the new Karangahape rail station built on the $6.5 billion City Rail Link due to open next year. Via NZHerald-$’s Anne Gibson (See quotes of the day below)

* Today’s Must Read is an article via Awhi from Awhi Ngā Mātua detailing the results of a survey of disabled people on the effects of the new Government’s funding changes. It is heartbreaking and enraging. Thanks to Emily Writes for alerting me to this here. (See Substack Essentials of the day below.)

My Pick’ n’ Mix Six

* News: Seymour refuses to let Christchurch school ditch lunch provider. The Press-$ Maddy Croad. RNZ’s Adam Burns

* Politics: Luxon’s epic unpopularity in one chart The Spinoff Max Rashbrooke

* CRL development news: Chris Bishop v Auckland Council commissioners on K Rd rejection: ‘Insanity ... total nonsense’ NZ Herald-$’s Anne Gibson

* News: Lunch that burnt student heated in package not meant for commercial use RNZ’s Maia Ingoe

* Climate banking deep-dive: Would an 'anti-woke' bank law change anything?RNZ’s Eloise Gibson

* Good news: School transforming their 'chicken and chips kids' with healthier lunches Hawkes Bay Today’s Jack Riddell

See today’s full Pick ‘n’ Mix here

Quotes of the day

“When is enough, enough?” Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrow. Burrows has called to opt out of David Seymour’s lunch programme, but Seymour has said the school can’t break the contract with Compass. The Press-$

‘A big office building next to a train station doesn’t comply’

“It’s insanity like this which is driving us to reform the Resource Management Act,” Infrastructure & Transport Minister Chris Bishop said after commissioners refused plans for an 11-storey mass timber building.

“The principal concern for the board is the scale of the development,” the commissioners’ report said. Via NZHerald-$’s Anne Gibson

‘We’re grateful, but it’s just not working’

“We are grateful that we get free lunches for our kids, but I just think looking at the bits and pieces, what's happened with the young man and the burn on the leg, the inconsistencies around the menu, the wastage.

“I talked to one student the other day and she said she brings her own salt to add flavour to the lunch. It's just not hitting the mark.” Ilminster school principal Jonathan Poole via RNZ’s Maia Ingoe: Lunch that burnt student heated in package not meant for commercial use

‘They want to borrow & buy, but the DTI rules are stopping them’

“Low interest rates are proving to be an attractive motivator. However, many brokers have noted that more and more investors are coming up against the new DTI (debt to income) rules with banks more firmly enforcing these ratios now.

“Previously the banks were largely running the numbers but not enforcing the limits much, possibly because the proportion of their lending which is above the seven times income for investors is still quite low.” Tony Alexander reporting the results of his Mortgages.co.nz survey of mortgage brokers.

‘I doubt we’ll ever see the submarines’

“The most likely outcome of the AUKUS pillar one is that we will end up with no submarines of our own. We will have lost both sovereignty and security, and a lot of money as well.

Questioned over reports US President Donald Trump supports the AUKUS deal: Turnbull said, “Of course he'd like it.”

“It's such a bad deal for us. He’ll be thinking who are these dumb guys who agreed to this deal?” Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull via 9News.

Charts of the day

Luxon’s popularity compared with other first term PMs

Too many houses for sale and not enough buyers

Substack essentials

Video or podcast of the day

Cartoon of the day

Timeline-cleansing nature pic of the day

Ka kite ano

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

Here’s the excellent explainer on PPPs from Patrick Reynolds over at Greater Auckland that this chat was based on.

Thank you Edward Miller, James Wilkes, Andrew, and many others for tuning into my live video with Patrick Reynolds! 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