When the Facts Change

Billions has been spent on the construction of Auckland’s City Rail Link, largely at the cost of taxpayers and ratepayers. The current Auckland council zoning rules, however, prevent the building of high-rise residential and commercial buildings at Mt Eden, Kingsland and Morningside stations. Sooner or later, something has got to give. CBRE director of residential research Tamba Carleton joins Bernard Hickey to discuss the need for Auckland to grow up, and grow upwards, in order to make the most of it’s brand new tunnel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many bosses now want their workers back in the office full time, but for a while in the immediate aftermath of Covid, workers had the power to demand the flexibility to stay home. Now the jobs market has sagged, the balance has shifted and a new hybrid way of working is becoming more common. Bernard Hickey speaks on this week’s When The Facts Change with Robert Half NZ MD Megan Alexander about these trends, including those younger workers who prefer a nice open plan office to a pokey, mouldy flat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘Abundance’ is the hottest word in the political economy right now all around the world. A book by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein called ‘Abundance: How we build a better future’ argues the centre-left should adopt urbanisation and electrification as central aims to improve affordability of housing and transport, rather than framing emissions reduction as an expensive and painful necessity that the right has successfully weaponised into electoral suicide. This week on When The Facts Change, Bernard Hickey talks to Rewiring Aotearoa about what could be done right now to electrify our transport fleet and the cost of living savings within our grasp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the year of growth, Nicola Willis has presented a growth budget. But does the Investment Boost initiative, which speeds up depreciation for businesses, promise the kind of growth that the economy needs? In this special Spinoff pod for budget day, Toby Manhire asks Bernard Hickey for his take on the headline changes, and whether or not David Seymour’s earlier commentary that his colleague Brooke van Velden had “saved the budget” through its controversial and hurried changes to the pay equiry scheme, has been proven true. Plus: what are the cumulative impacts of the changes to KiwiSaver and Best Start, as compared to the SuperGold cohort? And how much did the global political and economic volatility influence the documents published today? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2010, the NZ Green Building Council introduced the Homestar sustainability certification, a framework that aims to allow designers, architects and builders to build better, more environmentally friendly, energy efficient housing. The upfront cost of building to the Homestar certification can be more, but the potential savings over time - not to mention the quality of life improvements - are significant. Brad Olsen from Infometrics, an economic consultancy that has just published a detailed report on the Homestar certification, joins Bernard Hickey to dig into the broad range of benefits of Homestar-rated housing, for both the planet and the back pocket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than half of consumer spending is dominated one way or another by a collection of monopolies, duopolies and quadropolies that generate higher prices and profits than would be normal if there was true and tough competition, as a myriad of market studies and inquiries have found for supermarkets, fuel retailing, building materials, electricity, banking, insurance and real estate agencies. Twenty years of finger-wagging and report writing has failed in all of these sectors, except for telecommunications, where an aggressive breakup of a monopoly (Telecom) and regulation of number portability and interchange fees, along with the arrival of third competitor in 2degrees, sparked a flourishing of competition and ever-lower prices for ever-more data. The Reserve Bank called it the “2degrees Effect” in creating deflation for a significant part of the economy. Bernard Hickey talks to Monopoly Watch spokesman and one of the founders of 2degrees, Tex Edwards, about how to create the “2degrees Effect” for supermarkets, banking and electricity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump’s bigger-and-stupider-than-expected tariffs have upended the global trading system and are threatening to create a new financial crisis. Bernard Hickey talks with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the latest day “when the facts changed”, and what might happen next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For 30 years, a little-known number in government circles has quietly stymied investment for future generations. Set by Treasury, the ‘discount rate’ was once set at 10%, and it meant future benefits and costs were heavily devalued, becoming worth almost nothing after six or seven years. In a nutshell, higher discount rates discourage long-term investment and incentivise short-term projects. Treasury has recently reduced the discount rate to 5%, but is that enough? Bernard Hickey talks with Arthur Grimes, senior fellow at Motu Research and professor at Victoria University, about a big shift to new discount rates that could make big future projects much more viable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we dive deep into the worlds of AI, defence technology businesses and the great technological arms race between China and the US. Bernard is joined by Sean Gourley, a New Zealander who founded US-based tech success story Primer, an AI intelligence company helping governments understand the mathematical patterns underlying modern warfare. Gourley shares his insights about New Zealand’s position in this great contest, along with the opportunities for New Zealand to grow high-value businesses (think Rocketlab) in the AI and tech space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even as New Zealand’s economy was in the depths of a recession, the Reserve Bank kept a firm grip on monetary policy, only easing up in mid-2024. This week, Bernard Hickey sits down with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr to discuss whether the Reserve Bank should be hitting the accelerator now, rather than simply lifting its foot off the brake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Retail spending figures from shops, cafes, restaurants, hotels and holiday hotspots over December and January are the ultimate barometer for spending appetites, income levels and general confidence in job security. Kiwibank senior economist Mary Jo Vergara joins Bernard Hickey to discuss a note she published this week, diving in to the latest spending data collected over the summer break. How relaxed were Kiwi with their holiday spending money? What are the experts predicting for 2025? Listen in to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our social welfare system is complicated, expensive - and incredibly necessary. How do we know when it’s working properly? And when it’s not? ImpactLab CEO Maria English joins Bernard to unpack the data and evidence-based metrics they use to assess the “social return on investment” of social services funding, and how the company uses their insights to help make Aotearoa a better place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In order to reduce debt, the coalition government wants to cut spending from 34% of GDP down to 30%. In practice, that means cutting spending on people with disabilities, even though those cuts often increase hospital and care costs in the long term. Bernard is joined this week by disability rights lawyer (and distant cousin) Huhana Hickey, for an in-depth look at what austerity actually means. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices