When the Facts Change

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When the Facts Change, Hosted by journalist Bernard Hickey, When the Facts Change is your essential weekly guide to the intersection of economics, business and politics in Aotearoa New Zealand. Presented by The Spinoff. When the Facts Change is currently on hiatus and is open for sponsorship. For more details, contact bec@thespinoff.co.nz

10/07/2025

Going up after digging down

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

27 min
03/07/2025

To cut or not to cut?

The Reserve Bank gets another chance to cut interest rates next week. So far 2025 has seen the RBNZ make three consecutive cuts to the official cash rate, which was widely expected by economists up and down the country. But next week, for the first time this year, there’s doubt. Kiwibank economist Sabrina Delgado joins Bernard Hickey to assess our central bank’s options leading into next week’s monetary policy statement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 min
19/06/2025

Post Covid hybrid work

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

31 min
12/06/2025

How big do we want to be?

It’s no secret that Aotearoa is facing a range of monumental infrastructure challenges — much has been made lately of the state of our water pipes, ferries, railways and roads. Successive generations of decision makers have kicked the infrastructure maintenance can down the road, and now we are facing a huge bill if we want to keep pace with our growing population. Infrastructure NZ chief executive Nick Leggett joins Bernard Hickey to discuss the scale of the infrastructure challenge facing New Zealand, and how overseas countries have approached similar issues. Ultimately, it all comes down to one key question: how big do we want our population to be in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

32 min
05/06/2025

An abundance of energy

‘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

34 min
29/05/2025

Dissension in the RBNZ ranks

The Reserve Bank cut the Official Cash Rate this week, as expected, but one of the six members of the bank’s rate setting committee voted to hold the OCR. That surprised markets and pushed up the wholesale interest rates that drive fixed mortgage rates. Bernard Hickey speaks with Kiwibank’s Mary Jo Vergara about a very uncertain outlook for rates in the wake of Donald Trump’s Liberation Day shock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 min
22/05/2025

Budget special: When The Facts Change x Gone By Lunchtime

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

30 min
15/05/2025

Let the Budget battles commence

Fresh off a pre-Budget speech that took aim at the recent changes to pay equity, Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins joins Bernard Hickey to discuss the government’s plans to cut $4.4 billion of spending over the next four years. What are the potential downsides of Nicola Willis’ austerity approach to budget management? What other types of debt might we be accruing without realising it? Listen in to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

34 min

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Bernard Hickey

Host

When the Facts Change, Hosted by journalist Bernard Hickey, When the Facts Change is your essential weekly guide to the intersection of economics, business and politics in Aotearoa New Zealand. Presented by The Spinoff. When the Facts Change is currently on hiatus and is open for sponsorship. For more details, contact bec@thespinoff.co.nz