User Profile

Bernard Hickey

Bernard Hickey is the Managing Editor of Newsroom Pro based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Business Wrap: Second wave hits stocks

Global stocks sink as Covid-19 case total surpasses 10 million and second waves crash on America and Brazil. RBNZ budget lifted 40 percent and EY faces Wirecard fallout

Jun 29 2020

Andrew Patterson and Bernard Hickey

Politics

A painful handbrake? Or a perfect alibi?

Will the most popular politician in a generation continue to portray a septuagenarian as a painful handbrake stopping Labour and the Greens from being transformational?

Jun 26 2020

Bernard Hickey

Week in Review

NZ Inc should prepare for a long lockdown

Tourism and education businesses hoping for the borders to reopen to visitors, students and guest workers within months should challenge their assumptions, warns Bernard Hickey

Jun 25 2020

Bernard Hickey

Podcast: Two Cents' Worth

The case for a modern debt jubilee

As the global economy spirals post-coronavirus and many people can no longer pay their debts or are forced to take out new ones, is it time to wipe the slate clean?

Jun 22 2020

Bernard Hickey

Week in Review

The limit on NZ Inc’s migrant-led growth

NZ can only quarantine 250 arrivals per day, creating the single biggest choke point for an economic recovery based on tourism and cheap guest workers

Jun 12 2020

Bernard Hickey

Comment

Why NZ Inc should electrify its gilded cage

NZ Inc should celebrate its Level 1 freedoms, but prepare for a long stay in a rattly and shaky gilded cage that will need its bars electrified with a much faster tracing system, Bernard Hickey argues

Jun 10 2020

Bernard Hickey

Week in Review

Our compassionate PM’s mean policies

Our PM is lauded overseas for her compassion, but her Cabinet is refusing to properly support tens of thousands of jobless migrants and beneficiaries

Jun 03 2020

Bernard Hickey

Week in Review

Inside a $200b ‘rolling maul’ of debt

Bernard Hickey analyses the biggest spending Budget in our history and sees much, much more borrowing to come, but that’s OK.

May 14 2020

Bernard Hickey

Economy

RBNZ nearly doubles ‘QE for the rich’

The Reserve Bank has nearly doubled its programme of government bond buying, which is sometimes described as ‘money printing’ or ‘Quantitative Easing for the rich.’

May 13 2020

Bernard Hickey

technology

Desire to hear eachother in lockdown spikes

WATCH: Kiwis are talking to to each other again in a way we haven’t done for a long time. Bernard Hickey talks to Vodafone’s chief technology officer Tony Baird about New Zealand’s ‘back to the future moment’.

Apr 25 2020

Bernard Hickey

Zoom Out To Lunch

Bernard & Jarrod: A believable rebound?

WATCH: Bernard Hickey talks with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr for the final time during the lock-down about whether the bounce-back on stock markets is justified given the economic damage still rolling through the global economy.

Apr 24 2020

Bernard Hickey

Business

Our giant ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ moment

The month-long Covid-19 lockdown forced many businesses and government departments to use remote working technologies for the first time, and it’s a revelation for many.

Apr 24 2020

Bernard Hickey

Zoom Out To Lunch

Bernard & Jarrod: Time for a cash ‘firestarter’?

WATCH: Could a one-off $1,500 cash payment to all New Zealanders help kickstart the economy after the Covid-19 lockdown? Bernard Hickey discusses with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr.

Apr 23 2020

Bernard Hickey

Zoom Out To Lunch

Bernard & Jarrod: Why the LVR rules are going

WATCH: Bernard Hickey talks with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the Reserve Banks decision to remove rules restricting high loan to value ratio lending.

Apr 21 2020

Bernard Hickey

News

Reserve Bank to remove LVR rules

Due to Covid-19, the Reserve Bank gives up on its previous reluctance to ease loan to value rules and pledges to remove them for at least a year. Bernard Hickey reports

Apr 21 2020

Bernard Hickey

Zoom Out To Lunch

Bernard & Jarrod: Deflation a bigger risk

WATCH: Bernard Hickey talks with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about March quarter inflation figures that were slightly above expectations, but were mostly set before the Covid-19 lockdown. They discuss the prospects for deflation, and why the Reserve Bank is buying bonds to keep interest rates extremely low for much longer

Apr 20 2020

Bernard Hickey

Zoom Out To Lunch

Bernard & Jarrod: A new way to fund councils

WATCH: Bernard Hickey talks with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about a proposal for a new centralised fund-raising vehicle for councils that would allow them to fund much-needed new infrastructure.

Apr 17 2020

Bernard Hickey

Zoom Out To Lunch

Bernard & Jarrod: Could oil prices go negative?

WATCH: Bernard Hickey zooms out with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr to talk oil prices, commercial rent reductions and about America’s worst factory output slump since World War II.

Apr 16 2020

Bernard Hickey

Zoom Out To Lunch

Bernard & Jarrod: How far might house prices fall?

WATCH: Bernard Hickey talks with Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the IMF’s global recession call and how much house prices might fall here.

Apr 15 2020

Bernard Hickey

Economy

Should we spend an extra $20b, or $40b?

Treasury’s scenarios see unemployment limited to just 8.5 percent, or blowing out to 26 percent. It all depends on the fiscal response and the length of lockdowns.

Apr 14 2020

Bernard Hickey