TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included: * New Finance Minister Nicola Willis set herself a very high bar for retaining confidence in her rhetoric by accusing Labour of “economic vandalism” in handing over a set of books ridden with ‘hidden’ “fiscal cliffs” worth billions, but without detail. That will come on December 20. Tuesday’s email * The 3.5 km City Rail Link (CRL) tunnel under Auckland’s CBD has cost $1.5 billion per km, according to a global study, which is 50% more than equivalent US city rail costs, three times the cost of city rail in Australia and nine times more than it costs to build in Finland, Portugal and Spain. Monday’s morning email * Just when most of the rest of the world’s inflation rates are falling, Aotearoa-New Zealand faces high inflation and mortgage rates for longer next year as record high net migration, rising rents and council rate hikes tolerated and provoked by the new National-ACT-NZ First Government’s policies inflate housing costs for all. Wednesday’s morning email. * Te Pūtea Matua (RBNZ) Governor Adrian Orr Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr warned high net migration and profit-led inflation were factors in the bank’s hawkish stance. Tuesday’s Top 10 * Watercare’s CEO warning Aucklanders’ charges will triple, unless the new Government agrees to its bailout plan. Monday’s Top 10 What we talked about on ‘The Hoon’ on Thursday night In this week’s podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers at 5pm on Thursday night.: * 5.00 pm - 5.10 pm - and Peter Bale opened the show with a discussion about plans for summer, consumption and living in caves. * 5.10 pm - 5.20 pm - Bernard, Peter and talked about the sunlight exposing the b******t at the COP conference and the failure of the Government’s ETS auction this week; and, * 5.20 pm - 6:00 pm - Peter, Bernard, and Stuff Pou Tiaki Matua Carmen Parahi talked about the hikoi protests against the new Government’s moves to unwind Te Tiriti and Te Reo Māori progress. Also, see Cartoon of the week below. The Hoon’s podcast version above was produced by Simon Josey. This is a sampler for all free subscribers. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, I’m able to spread the work from my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction around in other public venues. I’d love you to join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments. We have a couple of special offers on at the moment. Items mentioned on The Hoon During the Hoon we discussed various articles on The Kākā and elsewhere including Cathrine’s weekly climate news roundup, which includes a discussion with me. I also referred to a Parliamentary debate yesterday about Gaza. Other places I appeared this week I talked to University of Otago Māori Public Health Researcher Andrew Waa for When The Facts Change via The Spinoff about his analysis of the 2022 smoke free changes, and the true costs of reversing those changes. To replace $700 million a year of revenues lost from a foreign buyers tax, the new Government is choosing policies that will keep more people smoking for longer, costing thousands of lives per year and at least $10 billion is extra health costs and lost working hours. We also produce this 5 in 5 with ANZ daily podcast and Substack for ANZ Institutional in Australia, which you can sign up to via Spotify and Apple and Youtube for free. Chart of the week 2023 was the warmest year in history. There’s still a month to go. Video of the week What 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels means for the planet’s ice Cartoon of the week Some cartoons don’t need a headline or caption Ka kite ano Bernard This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with o