Household debt

Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, March 8th, 2017 - 93 comments
Categories: class war, debt / deficit, economy - Tags: , , , , , ,

Our supposedly healthy economy is an illusion propped up my immigration and debt. Government debt is at record levels. Household debt has been far too high for far too long. The IMF is warning [the piece has been edited since this note]:

High NZ household debt a risk to stability, IMF warns
…
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says rising levels of household debt are a risk to New Zealand’s financial stability, while the country’s central bank said it was considering increasing bank capital requirements.

The IMF said on Tuesday that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) should be allowed to include debt-to-income limits in its toolkit, a measure that must be approved by the Government and that the central bank has already requested.

“With high household debt, you worry about the amplification of large external shocks,” Thomas Helbling, the IMF mission chief for New Zealand, told reporters in Wellington. …

For a detailed look see: IMF warns NZ on household debt levels, proposes better CGT, land tax; Says RBNZ should have DTI tool; NZ$ overvalued

In another sign of how bad things are getting:

Renters forced to draw on KiwiSaver for payments

There’s been a spike in people withdrawing funds from their KiwiSaver accounts because they can’t pay the rent.

One budgeting centre says once clients have used up all their Government entitlements, people are raiding the future for day-to-day survival.

“Many of our families are in rental arrears, so the reality is either lose your home or apply to take some money out of KiwiSaver,” says Darryl Evans, from Mangere Budgeting Services.

He says his agency gets eight clients a day asking for help with a KiwiSaver financial hardship application. …

Not to put a deposit on a home, but to pay the rent. And when the Kiwisaver is gone, then what?

93 comments on “Household debt ”

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  1. Antoine 1
    8 March 2017 at 11:57 am

    > apply to take some money out of KiwiSaver

    I honestly didn’t know you could do that!!

    A.

    • Wayne 1.1
      8 March 2017 at 1:56 pm

      I don’t believe you can take KiwiSaver out once it is in (except to buy a house and then only in very specific circumstances of a first home buyer).

      Probably what the Budgeting Service is referring to is suspending contributions, which is relatively easy to do.

    • bwaghorn 1.2
      8 March 2017 at 4:25 pm

      how does it make you feel that after 8 years of national we have arrived at this. i’m not saying it’s their fault(all though it probably is) but what’s the point of having a government that can’t fix problems

      • Muttonbird 1.2.1
        8 March 2017 at 4:36 pm

        Kiwisaver was a once thriving vehicle which encouraged people to be hopeful and incentivised about their futures.

        National have removed the incentive, and the hope, and turned it into another tax; a non-progressive tax at that.

        • bwaghorn 1.2.1.1
          8 March 2017 at 6:49 pm

          National Fucking up good ideas since forever , ets , cullen fund , kiwisaver,

      • Bob 1.2.2
        8 March 2017 at 5:25 pm

        Off with their heads!! Starting with the rat that left the sinking ship, JK

        • greg 1.2.2.1
          8 March 2017 at 5:45 pm

          100 percent gallows head chopping to much blood

          • Craig H 1.2.2.1.1
            8 March 2017 at 6:46 pm

            Guillotine is better for the condemned (as long as the blade is kept sharp and weighted) – gallows are more about the onlookers’ experience…

      • Antoine 1.2.3
        9 March 2017 at 12:26 am

        Bwaghorn

        If i may speak for others: we don’t like it, but we’re pretty cynical about the power of Government to fix everyone’s problems, and we think things would have been worse with the other lot in charge. We also suspect some of these people may have been the author of their own misfortune to some extent.

        A.

        • bwaghorn 1.2.3.1
          9 March 2017 at 7:46 am

          ”may have been the author of their own misfortune to some extent.”

          So fuck im a?
          leadership is about protecting the less able ,

          • Antoine 1.2.3.1.1
            9 March 2017 at 12:08 pm

            Well, you asked how I feel, and that’s how I feel, and (based on hanging out on Kiwiblog etc) a lot of others too. So now you know, at least.

            A.

    • Bob 1.3
      8 March 2017 at 5:23 pm

      It’s called financial hardship !! There is a clause for this in Kiwisaver

  2. saveNZ 2
    8 March 2017 at 12:17 pm

    If the government wanted Kiwis to diversify from property and was worried about rising debt levels why have they allowed overseas and migrant investors to buy property?

    This is driving up the cost to buy a property and locals need more debt to purchase. At the same time, it makes rental properties too expensive to rent out as the rents to prices don’t make sense any more.

    e.g., Su Feng and Feng Yu just paid another $81,0000 in Auckland for a flipped property on the same day as Hua Wu bought it.

    The Herald revealed in January that Wu was linked to two neighbouring Mangere Bridge homes that sold five times in four days last year, and that he made nearly $1 million profit on one of the properties in just six months.

    The government should have excluded property from the investor category so migrants have to spend the money in other ways in NZ such as investment in other businesses not related to property such as tech or films.

    Also why is the government increasing their own borrowings to fund tax cuts for example – maybe they should lead by example?

    • Siobhan 2.1
      8 March 2017 at 1:14 pm

      “At the same time, it makes rental properties too expensive to rent out as the rents to prices don’t make sense any more.”…if only…
      NZers keep buying rental properties.
      Subsidized by the tax payer via Accommodation Supplements, and no doubt family Tax credits are also eaten up by rents.
      We, the tax payers, even had to provide cash to landlords to make their ‘businesses’ fit for purpose, via the insulation schemes.
      Basically they held the nation to ransom…make our businesses(houses) safe or our customers (tenants) will get sick and cost you even more.

      Its such a scam, so yeah, stop the foreigners if you think that will help, but as long as landlordism is viewed as the way to get ahead…expect there to be a massive down side for our society.

      Just as an aside, I just had a customer tell me how at her place of work, well paid professionals, most NZ born, though a good number of English migrants too, owning 1 rental would be considered strictly amateurish, the average is closer to 18…18 rental properties!!

      • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1
        8 March 2017 at 1:29 pm

        Its such a scam, so yeah, stop the foreigners if you think that will help, but as long as landlordism is viewed as the way to get ahead…expect there to be a massive down side for our society.

        Rentier capitalism. Identified thousands of years ago as being destructive of society and so it was banned by all major religions.

        Unfortunately, the psychopaths who want to be bludgers on everyone else always seem to get back into power and reverse that ban.

        National represents those bludgers and, to a large degree, so do Labour as they work to maintain neo-liberal capitalism.

        Just as an aside, I just had a customer tell me how at her place of work, well paid professionals, most NZ born, though a good number of English migrants too, owning 1 rental would be considered strictly amateurish, the average is closer to 18…18 rental properties!!

        That’d be about right. One won’t actually get you an income that you can live on.

        Now, do the maths. That’d be about 5% of the population owning housing.

      • Red 2.1.2
        8 March 2017 at 1:48 pm

        Maybe rather than whining about rent you think about why you did not get into the property market over all those years, I don’t think it’s been a secret for many year Baby boomers, Gen X that super is not going to be great, basic at best and you want to reach retirement with your own house and no mortgage at least

        • Siobhan 2.1.2.1
          8 March 2017 at 2:00 pm

          I’m fine thanks.
          Not everyone is.
          I personally see nothing but positives for US ALL if we have a society that provides secure affordable housing for all people, in all circumstances.

          • Red 2.1.2.1.1
            8 March 2017 at 2:23 pm

            Housing never been easy, bank loans use to be difficult to get, interest rates way higher than today, most of the subsidies today never existed, much higher unemployment , Today just different challenges in different times Make a plan and just get on with it, ensure plan is not relying on govt will provide my housing from cradle to grave

            • One Anonymous Bloke 2.1.2.1.1.1
              8 March 2017 at 2:56 pm

              “Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.”

              That was a political message from the National Party.

              • Red …
                8 March 2017 at 3:48 pm

                If every one focus on me me me and self interest( within appropriate legsl frame work ) then you tend to get a more efficient outcome overall I think some guy call Adam smith worked that out, its also how most biological system work, likewise self calibration based on individual self interest also seems to operate a lot more efficiently than having an over all controller ( think traffic lights and roundabouts, ant and bee colonies etc) Central control just drives distortions, complexity and cost

                Note no personal abuse in above 😀

            • Carolyn_nth 2.1.2.1.1.2
              8 March 2017 at 3:33 pm

              Why should people own property? It only serves to enrich bankers speculators and real estate agents. Housing is a necessity.

              • Red …
                8 March 2017 at 4:42 pm

                Because it’s the natural order of things re the human condition, property rights drive innovation, market efficiency, diversity, trade and commerce Accepting there needs to be a safety net as there is in regard to subsidies and govt housing I also agree there is housing supply and demand disequilibrium at present but I suggest removing private sector and property rights from housing to be supplied by the state would be a disaster, East Germany and other soviet state provided housing plus Uk tenament blocks come to mind

                • Bill …
                  8 March 2017 at 6:00 pm

                  I’d be interested to know what percentage of so-called home ownership is actually owned by people as opposed to people being in debt to a bank and calling it ownership.

                  And Red. There’s nothing natural about private property. It’s a concept that was dreamed up and enforced. And why bind your imagination between the rock of private property and the hard place of state run or nationalised property?

                  For most of human history and across countless cultures “things” – including land and dwellings – occupied (or were captured by) niether of those spaces.

            • Muttonbird 2.1.2.1.1.3
              8 March 2017 at 3:40 pm

              You are a caricature of yourself.

              “In my day we walked 12 miles to school knee deep in snow with greased pig under each arm”.

            • Siobhan 2.1.2.1.1.4
              8 March 2017 at 4:41 pm

              Whats that got to do with my point?.
              The point is some people will be life time renters. As has always been the way.
              What objection do you have to them being able to afford the rent and have security?.
              If peoples money is all being sucked into rent that hurts the local economy.
              If rents need to be subsidized, and even National recognize that, then that is Government money filling out landlords pockets and encouraging a market that pushes out first home buyers while encouraging investors.

              Would it not be better spent on creating a housing stock owned by the Government, or even owned by Government/Private/Communal style groups.

              You’re relying on the Government to subsidize and secure your education, your health, your transport, your security;police, fire etc, your retirement, your access to water, power, telecommunications….so why should they not be involved in housing?

              • Red …
                8 March 2017 at 4:47 pm

                They are to involved already don’t add to it

              • greg …
                8 March 2017 at 5:53 pm

                for a lot of people saving for retirement is a bad joke society is breaking down the social contract is stuffed even then current level of NZ super is set at a level that you own your own home mortgage free that is totally stuffed

            • millsy 2.1.2.1.1.5
              9 March 2017 at 9:37 am

              So what were your mortgage repayments back then? What about your power bill?

          • Bob 2.1.2.1.2
            8 March 2017 at 5:32 pm

            Well said madam, now off with their heads!!! For creating such a mess !!! VOTE THEM OUT!! What’s the alternative, keeping those greedy Nats in power, flooding our country with Dirty Money in property.
            Remember China & India Both have 1.2 BILLION PEOPLE.
            IM HEADING FOR THE HILLS !!

        • gsays 2.1.2.2
          8 March 2017 at 6:52 pm

          Hi red, re getting into property, did it occur to you that everyone can’t be a landlord?

          • UncookedSelachimorpha 2.1.2.2.1
            8 March 2017 at 9:01 pm

            NActs seem to think everyone can be in the top 0.01%, if they just get off their lazy arses etc etc etc etc

            Maths isn’t their strong point.

    • Craig H 2.2
      8 March 2017 at 7:08 pm

      Property is excluded from the investor category other than building new dwellings or investing in large property companies on the stock exchange.

      • saveNZ 2.2.1
        8 March 2017 at 7:40 pm

        What about farms and agriculture? There seems plenty of overseas investment or should we just say foreign ownership of that?

        Now increasingly Kiwis really are going to be tenants in their own country.

        After a decade of National government some are not even able to afford to be tenants in our own country anymore…

        Hard to watch from NZ going from a 1st world social democracy to third world country for many Kiwis in such a short time and being government driven.

        • Craig H 2.2.1.1
          9 March 2017 at 4:50 pm

          People can invest in property (or almost anything else) without being here – there is no requirement to be resident in NZ to invest money here. The investor category brings in very small numbers of people annually and is not a large contributor to this particular problem.

          That’s not to say that foreign ownership should not be tackled, just that that specific resident category is not the issue.

  3. mosa 3
    8 March 2017 at 12:23 pm

    Has anyone tried to get money out of kiwisaver ?
    It would be easier to fly to the moon and back because its locked up tight.

    The rules are strict for good reason , to stop you accessing your retirement savings until you are 65 or 67 or even 75 by the time Bill English is finished.

    You have to be living in a car or cardboard box and be starving before they will relent and release the money, and the fact that people in this country are desperate enough to qualify is abhorant .

    Our high personal debt should come as no surprise as many people use credit to supplement their meagre wages and salaries to make ends meet and the banks and finance companies eagerly oblige as the interest rate makes paying down the principal near on impossible and is just another way of they subjugate the desperate for massive profit.

    I wonder if the IMF warnings will be taken seriously by the government and PM ?

    John Key would have just laughed it off.

    • saveNZ 3.1
      8 March 2017 at 12:36 pm

      Yep, no crack down on outrageous credit card amounts in particular those preying on vulnerable people. Or bank fees and charges….

      And I think it’s WINZ spreading the rumours of taking out from Kiwisaver…

    • Antoine 3.2
      8 March 2017 at 12:59 pm

      >You have to be living in a car or cardboard box and be starving before they will relent and release the money

      That isn’t what the story says, the story has people who are still renting and drawing on their Kiwisaver. I was surprised.

      The rules are at http://www.kiwisaver.govt.nz/already/get-money/early/hardship/, though of course actual enforcement may differ.

      A.

      • Craig H 3.2.1
        8 March 2017 at 7:17 pm

        Different Kiwisaver schemes have different requirements for how they apply significant hardship to some extent. Being unable to pay rent would almost certainly meet the requirement under “a member’s inability to meet minimum living expenses”.

  4. greywarshark 4
    8 March 2017 at 12:41 pm

    IMF! Ppfff! What do they know? Everyone loves NZ and are willing to loan us truckloads of money, and NZs who are doing okay have no worries, the financial news is generally good, so all this moaning is just a bunch of losers who can’t manage in modern society. It’s all a bunch of wet wailing willies who can’t cope. People in the street are getting their just desserts for not utilising their time at school well, working hard and then they would have a good job.

    Oh dear, Schumacher identified all this in the 1970s. What a pity we have been run by men who if they read at all would choose war or exploration stories or historical romances. The antediluvian brain is the new black after regression from too little stimulation, too much Hollywood or Chicago fiction, and a lack of real-time, problem-solving practice.

  5. One Two 5
    8 March 2017 at 12:56 pm

    The IMF being ironic?

    How much does NZ still owe the IMF directly or indirectly since the ‘bailout’ of 1961…

    The IMF breaks nations, and is a private bank!

    • michelle 5.1
      8 March 2017 at 1:19 pm

      The IMF imposes structural adjustment policies like benefit cuts and selling of countries assets when you owe them they tell you what to do
      how much do we owe them 10 times more than we owed them when the labour party were in power around 80-90 billion possibly more with all the borrowing to give tax cuts to those already well of

      • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1.1
        8 March 2017 at 3:01 pm

        The IMF has recently come out against neoliberalism. Sure, they haven’t gone so far as to issue a grovelling apology to the entire world for backing it in the first place, but at least it’s a start.

        • Tamati Tautuhi 5.1.1.1
          8 March 2017 at 3:10 pm

          Strange IMF do not support neoliberalism anymore I thought they were the ones promoting it originally?

          • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1.1.1.1
            8 March 2017 at 3:15 pm

            “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

            Yes, they soiled themselves for decades. It takes a certain level of integrity to admit you fucked up, so I think we should help them rehabilitate themselves.

            • SpaceMonkey 5.1.1.1.1.1
              8 March 2017 at 5:14 pm

              Nah… they’ve just seen the writing on the wall and noted people going long on pitchforks and guillotines! They’re just covering their arses.

              • saveNZ …
                8 March 2017 at 7:42 pm

                Brexit and Trump has been a shock for IMF. They are shorting their position on neoliberalism..

                .. until the right rebrand it

      • Nic the NZer 5.1.2
        9 March 2017 at 8:32 am

        Nonsense. New zealands position with the IMF is shown here, http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/e2

  6. Draco T Bastard 6
    8 March 2017 at 1:14 pm

    while the country’s central bank said it was considering increasing bank capital requirements.

    That will slow down but not stop the excessive money being created by the private banks.

    What really needs to happen is that the private banks be stopped from creating money altogether. The government then becomes the sole creator of money in the system, the government would longer borrow money creating it as needed and then taxes would become the control of the amount of money in the economy.

    Until we start talking about stopping the private banks from creating money we’re always going to be in too much debt and paying far too much in interest and our economy is only going to work for the rich while impoverishing everyone else.

  7. Keith 7
    8 March 2017 at 1:28 pm

    The National Party dream just keeps on giving.

    It’s as obvious as the sun rising every morning that like everything with this government the real story is hidden behind a mountain of bullshit, or in this case debt!

    Who would have thought Kiwisaver was not for retirement but rent? This is sureal!

    That English fella is a genius!

    • Draco T Bastard 7.1
      8 March 2017 at 1:31 pm

      Yep, another way to siphon the wealth from the poor to the rich.

    • Tamati Tautuhi 7.2
      8 March 2017 at 3:15 pm

      Sugar coat the Bull%^&t?

      Allowing Kiwisaver to pay the rent, this is what happens when your housing market gets out of balance with excess immigration and offshore speculation in the housing market?

      Another Irish Housing Market Collapse perhaps?

      National need more immigrants and offshore speculators to prop up housing prices otherwise the bubble might burst?

      • Keith 7.2.1
        8 March 2017 at 3:39 pm

        That’s it isn’t it. They have got nothing to rely on but housing speculation, cheap money, but who knows for how much longer and cheap labour migrants to rent investors houses. What a recipe!

  8. Keith 8
    8 March 2017 at 1:42 pm

    It might be me but the link re Kiwisaver isn’t working

  9. keepcalmcarryon 9
    8 March 2017 at 2:02 pm

    All symptoms of the economy being run to suit Auckland housing investors and the high end of town.
    In my small home town, farming is big, both dairy farming and recently beekeeping.
    One of the biggest corporate beekeepers in NZ has been buying up marginal sheep farms in the district and running bees – this should be a success story until you notice their vehicles driving around town with filipino workers on board. Where is the trickle down for the community? Fat cat investors make the money, local jobs and businesses lose, small town nz dies a bit more.
    Ditto the dairy industry, one of our biggest export earners, migrant labour exploited everywhere because kiwis cant afford to work for the crap money and hours on offer.
    Give us back our wages, ban low skilled labour imports and give us back penal rates and worker protection its no coincidence the country runs on debt.

    • Bob 9.1
      8 March 2017 at 5:41 pm

      Your so right! It’s the importing of workers that is adding to this dilemma, the wairarapa is being destroyed by Dairy farming & the bee keepers are exploiting us all.
      And they say kiwis don’t want to work or are on drugs, Spin if ever I heard it.
      VOTE THEM OUT!!! We need a more balanced society, ! In a hurry, or we will all be slipping down that stream that is unswimable.
      I Blame Rogernomics !!! And Muldoon !!!

      • Red Hand 9.1.1
        8 March 2017 at 6:45 pm

        Get away with it get ahead fuck the neighbours we deserve it who gives a shit anyway fuck’n tree huggers fuck’n experts ANZAC day

    • greg 9.2
      8 March 2017 at 6:17 pm

      100+
      this why brexit and trump happen workers have been screwed

  10. Tamati Tautuhi 10
    8 March 2017 at 3:20 pm

    National have been running the country on offshore borrowings and a low wage economy model. We do not have any more State Assets left to sell as there is only the skeletons left however we are told by MSM we are a rockstar economy and we are in a strong position to handle any adverse financial winds?

    • SpaceMonkey 10.1
      8 March 2017 at 5:49 pm

      Pretty sure the rockstar economy meme disappeared with John Key, but otherwise spot on. As it currently stands NZ will not survive any adverse external shocks. We are heading towards a shitstorm.

      What is sad is how potentially rich we are… and I’m not just talking financially… we the ability to be reasonably self-sufficient but it’s all getting shafted by overseas corporations and uberwealthy private individuals aided and abetted by a bunch of treasonous sycophants in positions of power in NZ.

      • Tamati Tautuhi 10.1.1
        8 March 2017 at 6:35 pm

        So now John Key has left and Dairy Prices have dropped we are no longer a Rockstar Economy that MSM were promoting?

  11. Carolyn_nth 11
    8 March 2017 at 3:45 pm

    Call for submissions:

    http://www.livingwageaction.org.nz

  12. Bill 12
    8 March 2017 at 4:05 pm

    The transfer of government debt to the public as private debt is the big bus that got revved up in ’84 and that’s been barreling through NZ ever since.

    It ain’t about immigrants.

    It’s about successive governments welcoming us aboard and inviting us to sit at the leeching or bleeding chair of finance (First remove the shirt off your back. Comfortable? Good. We can begin…)

    And those of us who were never invited aboard were thrown under right under the wheels. I guess the anemic ones (is that you?) will be down here in the churn of rubber and metal soon enough…

    • keepcalmcarryon 12.1
      8 March 2017 at 4:44 pm

      I dont disagree with you on the role banking and finance have had in gutting the economy, but you cant tell me our wages in farming for example are not driven lower by cheap import labour. Low wages, burgeoning house prices = debt for people to stay afloat, Low wages and house prices both absolutely directly attributable to record levels of immigration.

      • Bill 12.1.1
        8 March 2017 at 5:00 pm

        Gutted Employment Legislation, unions all but run out of Dodge, a nicely ‘flexible’ workforce, movable production moved to low wage off-shore locations…and sure, throw ‘importation of cheap and vulnerable foreign workers’ into the mix.

        But don’t blame them – wages would be low and conditions deteriorating even if there were no foreigners here. And house prices would be beyond most even if no foreigners were allowed to buy anything here. The only reason anyone got ‘up in arms’ was because the Kiwis who used to ‘rule the roost’ suddenly found they had competition for those speculative portfolios of theirs.

        It’s class war and it’s got very little to do with foreigners and everything to do with money. (Of which most of us have none)

        • keepcalmcarryon 12.1.1.1
          9 March 2017 at 9:56 am

          Spoken like a man whos job cant be done by an imported filipino, chinese or an indian call centre worker. Pretty sure their cost of living is less than ours.

          I suggest we import a few plane loads of workers from a developing nation and pay them minimum wage to be our polticians, hell those guys have such an awesome work ethic theyl do it for less than minimum wage and no benefits! Bloody kiwi politicians just fail the drug tests, download porn in hotel rooms and have no work ethic
          How about the CEOs of our companies? Replace Mr Talley, Mr Spiering with a cheap import think of the cost savings! The return to the shareholder! Hell, they wouldnt even need to speak english and theyd do a better job running the company.
          Open immigration of low skilled labour guts the working class of money and people exist on debt, not sure how you arent seeing this its certainly been brought home to the UK and the USA recently.
          Lets hope the labour party moves away from their embrace of neoliberalism.

          Interesting side note, notice who screamed the loudest in the USA when the immigration taps got turned off? The huge tech multinationals, they want their cheap pool of overseas labour.

          • Bill 12.1.1.1.1
            9 March 2017 at 10:13 am

            The embrace of liberal economics by both the NZ Labour Party and the National Party, bled this country dry – gutted the working class and left living on debt as a sole option for many…scapegoating immigrants is just wrongheaded bullshit.

            • keepcalmcarryon 12.1.1.1.1.1
              9 March 2017 at 12:24 pm

              Your support of our open immigration policy is support for neoliberalism and cheap overseas labour, seeing it yet? “Open” labour market?

              • Bill …
                9 March 2017 at 5:09 pm

                As an immigrant, I know for a fact that NZ doesn’t have an open immigration policy.

                As a person who knows a bit about the political history of the left, I know for a fact that open immigration – freedom of movement of people – would be a mark of internationalism, not liberalism.

                And as a reader of your comments I know you to be a sad xenophobe.

                • keepcalmcarryon …
                  9 March 2017 at 5:42 pm

                  That would be trite of you but does explain your myopia.
                  70 000 immigrants per capita distorts our housing market, job market and yes even culture .(how many of the nationalities coming here even believe in looking after the less well off in society)
                  It is no ones right to live in another country its a privalege and one that shouldnt be extended to anyone, just those in need or with actual skills we dont have.
                  .

                  • keepcalmcarryon …
                    9 March 2017 at 6:12 pm

                    That should read 70 000 immigrants on a per capita basis of course.
                    Bill you annoy me, Im not anti all immigration but it needs tighter controls.

                    I’ll sum you up:
                    Move to NZ
                    Declare no problems with open immigration policy or that we dont have one.
                    Declare those that dont agree with you as xenophobic.

                    Pretty shit attitude actually.

                    • Bill …
                      9 March 2017 at 6:43 pm

                      No. Disagreement’s got nothing to do with it.

                      Blithely ignoring the multiple and systemic factors laid out above that make for a deteriorating economic environment and slating it all back to immigrants is what’s myopic….and xenophobic. 😉

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  12 March 2017 at 9:47 am

                  freedom of movement of people – would be a mark of internationalism, not liberalism.

                  Does it really matter what you call it if the effects are the same?

            • KJT 12.1.1.1.1.2
              12 March 2017 at 9:29 am

              Not the immigrants fault, but the availability, and employers use of, cheap immigrants to undercut local wages, and for employers to avoid paying for local training, has been blatantly obvious for decades.

              I can name many individual examples, of locals losing jobs to immigrants, just off the top of my head.

  14. Tamati Tautuhi 14
    8 March 2017 at 6:16 pm

    Just love how they call $500,000 to $600,000 houses affordable housing?

    I can’t see how a young family on minimum wages can even afford to pay the rent in Auckland let alone save for a deposit, let alone service a $400,000 mortgage?

    And the average house price in most suburbs in Auckland is $1.0 million?

  15. mauī 15
    8 March 2017 at 6:40 pm

    Does anyone have a link to NZ’s private debt to gdp percentage? Economist Steve Keen was saying Australia’s is currently at about 125% and because of that he is expecting a recession/crash for them very soon. Our figure can’t be far behind that…

  16. Smilin 16
    8 March 2017 at 7:32 pm

    Anyone who was watching back when labour was running the govt knew things were tight
    But Keys mob kept telling the same lies about the economy that the rich were suffering under labour and too many believed it
    Key knew the crash was coming long before it was news
    Therefore does that not open some serious questions about just how corrupt his tenure as PM really was and why the hell arent national completely discredited
    They have abused the nations wealth and all those who support him should be liable but in this country it appears you can get away with anything when your like Key

  17. greg 17
    8 March 2017 at 7:50 pm

    debt to income is more important can you pay the debt back ????
    New Zealand’s Debt – Feb 2016
    Agriculture $59,014,000,000
    Business $89,990,000,000
    Consumer $15,669,000,000
    Corporate Overseas (Dec 2015) $72,839,000,000
    Government $113,290,000,000
    Housing $202,347,000,000
    Local Government (Forecast) $14,030,000,000
    Student (Forecast) $15,239,000,000
    TOTAL DEBT $582,418,000,000
    Population (Forecast) 4,593,667
    AVERAGE DEBT/PERSON $126,787
    http://www.tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/households-debt-to-income
    Households Debt To Income 165.00 percent

    its high

    • exkiwforces 17.1
      9 March 2017 at 12:03 am

      Good god that’s high for a small country like NZ. Do you have the figures NZ debt prior to National becoming government back in 08. All I can think is that I made the right decision to leave NZ back in April 1998.

  18. exkiwforces 18
    9 March 2017 at 12:11 am

    Good god that’s high for a small country like NZ. Do you by any chance the figures NZ debt prior to national forming government back in 98? I now think I made the right decision to leave NZ back in Apr 1998.

  19. millsy 19
    9 March 2017 at 9:35 am

    Easy access to credit = economic boom.

  20. greg 20
    9 March 2017 at 6:31 pm

    June 2008 total debt 407 billion

  21. Ian 21
    9 March 2017 at 8:09 pm

    “Government debt is at record levels”
    So how are you measuring/defining this? This is a claim that has been made before, also without evidence.