TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers features co-hosts and talking with: * The Kākā’s climate correspondent about extreme heat in India and Mexico and the prospects climate migration to Aotearoa-NZ; * CTU Chief Economist and founder Max Rashbrooke about Budget 2024; and * Community Housing Aotearoa (CHA) Deputy CEO Chris Glaudel about Kāinga Ora and social housing. The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere in the last week included: * Housing, Climate, Poverty and Economy: The new National-ACT-NZ First Government unveiled its first Budget on Thursday, deciding to go ahead with long-promised tax cuts despite a weaker economy that is forcing $68.3 billion of net new borrowing by mid-2028. The income tax cuts cost $14.7 billion over four years and debt will rise by $12 billion more than Treasury forecast in December. Willis argued the tax cuts were ‘fully-funded’ by spending cuts and tax increases, and therefore it was not borrowing to pay for tax cuts. That would be true if the economic forecasts had not changed between the election and the Budget, but they have in a way that means there’s less money to spare. See and hear my full analysis in the podcast above, in Friday’s email and Friday’s podcast here featuring a discussion with … There’s also this discussion with in a Budget Special ‘co-pro’ with Gone by Lunchtime for my weekly When The Facts Change podcast: * Housing: Kāinga Ora’s board released the feedback it gave in April on Bill English’s review of the state-owned house-builder and landlord, criticising his comments about KO’s financial sustainability and performance as variously ill-informed, wrong and/or based on anecdotes, as also reported by Newsroom’s Tim Murphy. Newshub’s Jenna Lynch reported on Tuesday that Chris Bishop arranged for English to lead the ‘independent’ review in a series of text messages. See more analysis from me in Tuesday’s email and in comments I made on The Detail broadcast on RNZ and Newsroom on Thursday, and also listenable here directly. * Housing and Economy: The Reserve Bank confirmed plans to limit mortgage lending for loans worth six and seven times the income of owner-occupiers and landlords respectively from July 1. These DTI limits won’t reduce lending much now because lending at those multiples is currently low, but will stop most high DTI lending growth in future as interest rates fall. It affects landlords more than first home buyers because loan to value limits are the main restraint on their borrowing. LVR limits were also loosened a bit from July 1 to offset any effects of the new DTI limits. See more analysis from me in Wednesday’s email. * Housing and Economy: Key leaders in housing and infrastructure construction sent a joint letter to the Government pleading for more project certainty and warning its funding freezes for councils, water reform and transport projects had significantly damaged confidence and risked driving staff overseas,  Newsroom’s Fox Meyer reported on Tuesday. See more analysis in Tuesday’s email. * Cost of living: The Commerce Commission announced its draft decisions on regulated electricity transmission costs for the next five years. It decided the nationwide transmission and local lines distribution costs will rise 48% in the next five years to a combined $17.8 billion. These costs make up 37.5% of power bills and mean that monthly bills will rise around $15 from July 1, 2025, followed by $5/month hikes in each of the following four years. See Thursday’s email. * Poverty: The Fairer Futures advocacy group and the Disabled Persons Assembly published a report titled A Thousand Cuts that estimated a disabled person could already be up to $256 per fortnight or $5,742 a year worse off because of the Government’s changes to disability support, bus subsidies, benefi