TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with:

* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on this week’s explosion in wholesale electricity prices;

* Robert Patman on the latest on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, the conflicts in Gaza and the Middle East, and on the debate about Aotearoa joining AUKUS;

* Sanjana Hattotuwa, Research Director at The Disinformation Project, on the role of disinformation in civil unrest in Bangladesh, the UK and Aotearoa, and,

* Kate Day, the co-director of Common Grace Aotearoa, who helps run EveryoneConnected, a campaign to end electricity disconnection fees and end higher prices for pre-pay electricity, on this week’s announcement from Contact that it had stopped charging such fees for non payment and on the problems in the electricity market.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey.

(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.)

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

PS: My apologies for the late delivery of this Hoon. Life got in the way, including the most wonderful walk on Rangitoto Island with my daughter yesterday, during which we took this picture of a Tieke (Saddleback). Thanks for your patience. It was flitting around in a group of three. I’d never seen one before. This was special for me.

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