The Weekly Hoon: An intensification U-Turn in Auckland & Trump's coercive diplomacy in Iran

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 Robert Patman and Cathrine Dyer about geopolitics, the economy, climate change and politics here, along with special guests Simplicity Chief Economist Shamubeel Eaqub and Coalition for More Homes Spokesman Scott Caldwell.This week:* Bernard, Peter and Cathrine talked about the week’s news in climate change, including criticism of the Government’s climate non-action by outgoing Tower Insurance Chair Michael Stiassny, Marc Daalder’s piece for Newsroom on climate preparedness, the US move to wipe out a climate change finding and remove all regulation of emissions, and the impending shutdown of the Ministry of the Environment here.* Bernard, Peter and Robert talked about Donald Trump’s ‘coercive’ approach to diplomacy with Iran, and the risk of imminent US strikes on Iran, which would trigger damaging Iranian counter-attacks on Israel.* Bernard, Peter, Shamubeel and Scott talked about Chris Bishop’s watering down yesterday of housing intensification plans in Auckland and the Infrastructure Commission’s final 30-year plan presented earlier this week.The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 200 paying subscribers and was produced and edited by Simon Josey. The Hoon won the silver award for best current affairs podcast in last year’s New Zealand Podcast awards. (This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full. Remember, all students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz and .school.nz email accounts are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Also, here’s a couple of special offers: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)Ngā mihi nui.Bernard This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe