The Climate Change Commission report released last week made it clear that we need to start building new houses that are warmer, drier and produce less carbon. Not only that, we need to retrofit all the houses we’ve already built. How do we do this, and how are we going to finance it? To find out more, Bernard talks to healthy housing expert Philippa Howden-Chapman and Kiwibank head of sustainability Julia Jackson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Bernard Hickey takes a deep dive into the new Climate Commission report and finds an unrealistic and inadequate prescription to get to carbon zero. To find out more, he speaks to asset manager Paul Winton about how reconfiguring motorways for cycling, walking and buses could be quicker and more effective than building new rail networks, and associate professor Sara Walton from the University of Otago business school explains how insurers and banks are being pushed to force businesses to reduce their emissions and plan for a lower-carbon future.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever thought about what money really is, and what it might look like in the future? With central banks now considering launching digital currencies to take on the rise of big tech and cryptocurrency, our currency systems could be in for some big changes – so who should we trust to create and run the digital currency or currencies that will define the world’s financial and economic landscapes for decades to come? To find out more, Bernard Hickey speaks with Dave Corbett, CEO of New Zealand fintech company P^werFinance, and Chris Berg, co-director and co-founder of the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub in Australia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve been hearing the phrase “social insurance” a lot since the government released the 2021 budget last week. It’s an idea designed to deal with unemployment we’re going to see a lot more of in the years to come, but it also brings up issues of inequality and fairness. Would introducing unemployment insurance just help embed a two-tier system in which the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor? To find out how it could work in practice, Bernard Hickey speaks to Kirk Hope from BusinessNZ and NZCTU president Richard Wagstaff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s episode is coming to you from parliament, where Bernard Hickey has been up to his elbows in the budget just released by finance minister Grant Robertson. This year’s budget is a big one – it’s the first one after Covid, and with a parliamentary majority, a very popular prime minister at the helm, a strong economy and low public debt, it was a huge opportunity for the government to do some things… so what did they do? Bernard shares his impressions of Budget 2021, then speaks to Kate Prickett, director of the Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families at Victoria University, and Hillmarè Schulze, chief economist at BERL, to see what they made of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Zealand has made international headlines in recent weeks for deciding to take the word “genocide” out of a parliamentary motion criticising China for its treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province. Basically, we were afraid it would hurt our trade relationship. In this episode, Bernard Hickey wants to change our minds on how New Zealand deals with China, and explain why we should follow Australia's lead and stop worrying so much about trade and start standing up for our views on human rights. To find out more, he talks to Natasha Hamilton-Hart from the department of management and international business at the University of Auckland business school, before Sam Roggeveen from the Lowy Institute offers an Australian perspective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Spinoff business editor Michael Andrew is joined by Kiwibank sustainability lead Julia Jackson to talk about the evolving concept of sustainability, its growing influence on businesses and how New Zealanders can better integrate it into their lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How does a government work out the best way to spend money to maximise not just GDP but the long-term health and happiness of its population? This is something our government is trying to do, or says it’s trying to do – but when it comes to the wellbeing side of the equation, is it doing a good enough job? In this episode, Bernard Hickey talks to Girol Karacaoglu, head of the school of government at Victoria University and one of the architects of the way New Zealand analyses happiness. He then talks to Susan St John, an economist at the University of Auckland’s business school who has an interesting take on what we should be spending our money on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine if the value of your house doubled overnight. Could that actually happen? In this week’s episode, Bernard Hickey explains how it could – and how the Reserve Bank and government are doing things in the next couple of weeks to make sure it doesn’t. To find out more about how banks, lending and the housing market all operate, Bernard talks to Carmen Vicelich, CEO of Valocity Global. She knows exactly how banks decide who to lend to, when to lend to them and how much the property under the loan is worth. He then asks Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr what type of restrictions the Reserve Bank could apply in the coming weeks, and just how landlords are reacting to the government’s big changes announced last month. Spoiler alert: they’re not rushing for the exits.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new report on temporary migration in New Zealand suggests the current settings are letting down migrants and contributing to a low wage, low productivity and low wellbeing society. To find out more, in this episode Bernard talks to Julie Fry, the economist who wrote the report, and asks Anu Kaloti from the Migrant Workers’ Association about the scale of temporary migrant exploitation in New Zealand and what needs to change. Because right now, we’re not exactly living up to our image as a kind country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices