The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer and Robert Patman about the global economy, local and international politics and climate change. This week’s special guest Simplicity Chief Economist Shamubeel Eaqub .

This week’s Hoon featured:

* An initial discussion between Peter and Bernard about the death of Charlie Kirk and Rupert Murdoch’s ‘Succession’ deal with his children.

* A chat with Cathrine about the Climate Change and Business Conference this week, including a now-infamous panel session of MPs squabbling over who should pay for climate change.

* We referred to these articles from Marc Daalder on Newsroom and Anne Salmond on Newsroom. We also referred to Marks & Spencer’s ‘Plan A’ strategy to shift to 100% of its food coming from farms using regenerative practices by 2030.

* We spoke with Robert about Israel’s re-invasion of Gaza and Russia’s drone flights over Poland.

* We spoke with Shamubeel Eaqub about his State of a Thriving Nation 2025 report this week for the Business Leaders’ Health & Safety forum, along with his report with fellow Simplicity Economist Rosie Collins on the building and construction sector for the New Zealand Chinese Building Industry Association last month and his report with Rosie for the Helen Clark Foundation in April on social cohesion.

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

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