The Weekly Hoon: Budget 2026, a climate scandal, Saudi Arabia & Iran & disinformation flooding NZ's political debates

About this episode

The episode discusses Budget 2026, a climate scandal involving lobbyists, the Iran conflict, and the impact of disinformation in New Zealand's political landscape.

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night featured co-hosts Bernard Hickey & Peter Bale talking with regular guests Cathrine Dyer from Wellington and Robert Patman in Dunedin about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics. This edition also included discussions with Arab News Editor in Chief Faisal Abbas and disinformation researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa . This week: * Bernard and Peter began with a chat about the Government’s Budget delivered yesterday afternoon. * Bernard, Peter and Cathrine then talked about the Government’s failure to disclose lobbyist contact on behalf of Z Energy and Fonterra with the PM’s Office over a rewrite of climate laws that shut down a climate lawsuit against Z Energy, Fonterra and others. See the background on that here . * Then Bernard, Peter, Robert talked with Faisal Abbas about the Iran conflict. * Bernard and Peter finished with a discussion with Sanjana about disinformation flooding into New Zealand in election year, including his report this week on how it has spread and deepened since 2023. We also mentioned this Microsoft report from 2022 that showed on page 79 how Russian troll farms…

People in this episode

Hosts: Bernard Hickey, Peter Bale

Guests: Cathrine Dyer, Robert Patman, Faisal Abbas, Sanjana Hattotuwa

Topics covered

• Budget 2026
• climate change
• geopolitics
• disinformation
• politics

Keywords

• Budget 2026
• climate scandal
• disinformation
• geopolitics
• New Zealand politics
• Iran
• Saudi Arabia

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Z Energy, Fonterra, Microsoft

Places: New Zealand, Iran, Saudi Arabia

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