This year marks 50 years of the gay liberation movement in New Zealand – 50 years of fight, advocacy, celebration, progress and frustration in the Rainbow community’s struggle for equality and equity. In recognition of the Pride festival this month, Liz Knight, chief risk officer at Kiwibank and a proud member of the Rainbow community, and Jess Segal, senior manager of Leadership, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Kiwibank, joined The Spinoff's Simon Day to discuss how far New Zealand has c...
Feb 22, 2022•32 min
The price of aluminium has exploded in the last six months – so much so that Rio Tinto now wants to delay the closure of the aluminium smelter it owns at Tiwai Point beyond the planned end date of 2024. But this decision has thrown a big spanner into the works of climate change planners, investors and politicians, who had been working under the assumption that, come 2024, the 13% of the nation’s power supply that Tiwai Point uses would become available to help cities decarbonise their transport ...
Feb 17, 2022•54 min
Building a light rail line between Auckland’s CBD and the airport sounds like a good thing for the climate and reducing transport emissions. But the new plan to dig a long tunnel and lay a new railway line will actually generate an extra 400,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in its first 10 years, and take until 2040 before it starts being carbon negative. Still sound like a good idea? In this episode, Bernard Hickey talks to transport minister Michael Wood and economist Andrew Schoultz about how t...
Feb 10, 2022•44 min
Who or what is responsible for all the price inflation we’ve been seeing lately? And how do we know when we’re paying too much? Bernard Hickey talks to economic consultant Donal Curtin (previously of the New Zealand Commerce Commission) and Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 03, 2022•53 min
All the political roads in housing and climate change lead to council chambers rather than parliament these days. This week, we look ahead to the high stakes local elections in October, which will decide whether much progress is made in the next decade to deal with our twin emergencies. Bernard talks to Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau about how tough 2021 was in local politics, and the massive year ahead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 27, 2022•44 min
Against all expectations a year ago, the global economy ended 2021 wracked by inflation and a debate about whether it’s transitory (and so can be ignored by central banks) or bedding in (and should be beaten down with higher interest rates). Bernard talks with Kiwibank’s Jarrod Kerr about what’s happening in our housing market and how well our exporters have done to offset the collapses of international tourism and education exports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 20, 2022•33 min
Natalie Vincent is the chief executive of Ngā Tangata Microfinance Trust, which works with New Zealanders experiencing financial hardship to provide them with small, safe, interest-free loans and mentorship to help them get – and stay – out of debt. The last two years have been the busiest in the organisation’s history, and December 2021 brought the most referrals for support yet. Natalie tells Simon Day how easy it can be for people to get into financial difficulty when one crisis puts them int...
Jan 18, 2022•36 min
Bernard Hickey is joined by Ockham founder Mark Todd to dig through a massive year for housing. They talk about the record high number of houses being built despite all sorts of supply chain grief and skills shortages, plus whether the ‘Townhouse Nation’ law changes rammed through Parliament will actually make a difference, or leave us regretting the prescriptive legislation in years to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 13, 2022•31 min
When the Facts Change is taking a short break over summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then here's one of our most popular episodes of 2021. From July: Over the last 30 years, a generation of voters and politicians made a decision to stop investing in infrastructure – it’s expensive, and it means you can’t cut taxes or keep rates low. Now we’re seeing the collective catastrophe of this underinvestment landing on our heads in the form of labour shortages and massive housing af...
Jan 06, 2022•41 min
When the Facts Change is taking a short break over summer. We'll be back with new episodes soon, but until then here's one of our most popular episodes of 2021. From June: For a growing number of Wellingtonians, the dream of owning a home in the city is all but dead. And it's the same story in other parts of the country too – successive governments have sat on their hands afraid that doing anything to create more housing might drive down prices, and as a result median rents and house prices have...
Dec 30, 2021•1 hr 1 min
The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow earlier this year removed all doubt about how fast we need to cut climate emissions. If we’re to keep warming below 1.5 degrees, we need to make big changes by 2030 – two or three decades to build rail lines and wait for Tiwai Point to close won’t cut it any more. So what needs to be done to rapidly engineer a just transition to zero carbon in less than a decade? Bernard Hickey talks to Our Energy CEO John Campbell about how virtual energy trading of d...
Dec 23, 2021•53 min
The social discount rate is one of the tools the government uses to calculate the cost benefit analysis on long-term investments. And according to a report released earlier this week, our social discount rate has been too high for more than 30 years. In this episode, Bernard Hickey looks at the way the government makes decisions around intergenerational issues like climate change, child poverty and housing affordability, and how things like discount rates have disadvantaged future generations. T...
Dec 16, 2021•45 min
Like the rest of the world, Aotearoa’s ports are clogged with containers, trucks, ships and growing shipping bills. But it’s not all because of Covid worker shortages and lockdowns. In this episode, Bernard Hickey looks at how the many weird economic effects of Covid are playing out through the world’s logistics chains, from frantic factories to empty store shelves and even Adele’s new album. Guests: Chris Edwards, president of the Custom Brokers and Freight Forwarders Federation, and professor ...
Dec 09, 2021•46 min
Steve Jurkovich has been CEO of Kiwibank for three years, during which time he has introduced a raft of changes – from embracing te ao Māori to registering as a B Corp. He tells The Spinoff's Duncan Greive what's driven this reimagining of the organisation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 07, 2021•48 min
This week new National leader Chris Luxon was asked a question that was posed to Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins before last year’s election: Do you want house prices to fall? It’s a curly one for politicians to answer – how do they make housing more affordable while at the same time preventing the market from collapsing? In this episode Bernard Hickey attempts to figure out how it could be done, and how long it might take to happen. He talks to Sense Partners economist Kirdan Lees, who co-wro...
Dec 02, 2021•58 min
New Zealand’s Labour Cost Index showed a 2.4% wage increase last year. But when you set that against an inflation increase of 4.9% over the same period, in real terms the average New Zealander took a 2.5% pay cut. In a tight labour market, we should in theory all be marching into our boss’s office and asking for a raise – so why isn’t this happening? To find out, Bernard Hickey talks to CTU chief economist Craig Renney and Kiwibank economist Mary Jo Vergara. Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...
Nov 25, 2021•45 min
Back in March, a virtually unheard-of digital artist called Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, made a collage of 5,000 pieces of his digital art into an NFT and sold it via auction house Christie’s. When the hammer finally fell, bids had reached over US$69million. In just the last couple of weeks, some similarly eye-watering prices have been fetched in New Zealand’s fine art market, with Michael Parekowhai’s sculpture 'A Peak In Darien' selling at auction for a record-breaking NZ$2.05million. In this ...
Nov 18, 2021•55 min
Recorded during Fraud Awareness Week, Simon Day speaks to Neil Hallett, the New Zealand Operations Manager for IDCARE Australia and New Zealand’s national identity and cyber support service. Kiwibank is a key partner of IDCARE, and the bank refers its customers who have been victims of cyber crime to the charity’s support services. IDCARE offers victims a trained case management officer to guide them through the practical steps for what they need to do to respond to the fraud. Neil discussed why...
Nov 16, 2021•44 min
Back in 2008 New Zealand's property development sector went bust, and it scarred people for over a decade. How do we move past that now that we’ve got all this KiwiSaver money which could be used to build houses much more affordably? Simplicity managing director Sam Stubbs and NZ Living director Shane Brealey join Bernard Hickey to talk about their big plans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 11, 2021•39 min
Last month the Reserve Bank of New Zealand released its 2021 Climate Change Report, the first significant report it has released on the topic since launching its Climate Change Strategy in 2018. In this episode, Bernard takes a deep dive into what climate change means for monetary policy, and the one thing that dominates not just New Zealand’s economy but our society in general – house prices. With Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr and Victoria University economist Belinda Storey. Learn more abou...
Nov 04, 2021•56 min
Kiwibank economist Mary Jo Vergara joins Simon Day to talk about how Covid-19 has affected the local economy over the last two years. What has the pandemic revealed about the country’s economic strengths and weaknesses, and what does the forecast for the future look like? Mary Jo also speaks to the financial position of women in Aotearoa and how they have been among the worst affected by the economic fallout from the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 02, 2021•38 min
Central banks all over the world have been looking at building their own digital currencies – and in the last couple of months, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has issued a discussion paper about how one might work here. To find out more, Bernard talks to Ian Woolford, the head of money and cash at the RBNZ, and Janine Grainger, the CEO of NZ-based exchange Easy Crypto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 28, 2021•49 min
A big new bipartisan deal on housing was announced this week that could change the face of our cities and allow more medium-density housing to be built. But is there a piece of the puzzle missing? To discuss the new RMA changes and the issues they raise, Bernard is joined by Wellington City Councillor Tamatha Paul, Wellington Regional Councillor Thomas Nash, National Party housing spokesperson Nicola Willis and Kiwibank economist Jeremy Couchman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...
Oct 21, 2021•54 min
There’s no shortage of cash piled up in New Zealand’s banks and pension funds – but what we do have a shortage of is affordable housing. So how do we connect all the money in the institutional funding sector with the housing projects that would begin to solve the housing crisis? To find out more, Bernard talks to Community Finance GM Paul Gilberd, Forever Affordable Housing founder Imogen Schoots and Community Housing Aotearoa CEO Victoria Crockford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap...
Oct 14, 2021•51 min
Over the last 18 months Covid-19 has changed the way many of us work and put real pressures on how we organise our lives. To find out more about how the culture of work has changed, the rise of burnout and the inequities the pandemic has exposed, Bernard Hickey talks to tech leader Rowan Simpson and clinical psychologist Jacqui Maguire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 07, 2021•59 min
More and more companies are committing to doing sustainable and ethical business by becoming B Corporation accredited. Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank CEO Steve Jurkovich about what B Corp certification means and why they’ve done it, and B Corp ambassador Tim Jones from Grow Good explains what companies have to do to become accredited. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 30, 2021•48 min
Over the last 30 years, we’ve built an incredibly complex supply chain to give us stuff really cheap. But is it really? Or have the costs just been pushed onto the environment and other workers? How do we find out which products are produced cleanly and don’t impose those unseen costs? On this week’s episode, Bernard speaks to John Holt, who’s launching All Things Considered – a global directory that collates, organises and fact checks the sustainability claims of companies and organisations. He...
Sep 23, 2021•53 min
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investing is a movement that has arisen over the last decade or so, where big fund managers invest only in companies with sustainable, socially responsible policies. It turns out this is often also the most profitable approach in the long run. One of the leading players in this movement has been the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and its CEO Matt Whineray joins Bernard Hickey in this episode to talk about how the fund operates its ESG policy. Bernard als...
Sep 16, 2021•43 min
In recognition of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori and what the language means to the fabric of Aotearoa, The Spinoff’s commercial editorial director Simon Day speaks to Teahooterangi Pihama, head of Māori advisory, and Keita Te Ngoungou, Kiwibank Māori advisor. They’ve been given a mandate to steer the Kiwibank waka on it’s journey into te ao Māori, and talk about why te reo Māori is important for all New Zealanders, and how lifting the cultural competency at Kiwibank can improve outcomes for Māori staff...
Sep 13, 2021•45 min
Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good” era of shareholder-driven global capitalism is ending, but what and who will replace it? Bernard Hickey interviews renowned Chicago School economist, author and podcaster Luigi Zingales (Capitalisn't) about what went wrong with corporate capitalism and how it could be fixed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 09, 2021•51 min
