So after 3 and a half years, we have to wait another six months for another working group to start from scratch to evaluate light rail. It doesn't even sound like Dominion Rd is a definite as they've now mentioned Sandringham Rd. So absolutely nothing has been decided.
This project was originally sold to us as a much needed rail connection to the Auckland International Airpor. But it definitely won't be connecting to the airport anytime soon. (if ever).
So what's it all about?
Don't we ever learn?
Doesn't anyone remember the vanity project that was the viaduct light rail?
Developers thought it would be hoot to get rate payers to fund this vanity project to give their condo development a bit of a boho look. This vanity project has served its purpose and, despite all the big talk of extending it down Quay street to the Britomart transport hub, has been moth balled.
Now again there is talk of developers cashing in. With plans for multi-level condiminiums down the length of Dominion Road.
Of course these developers want a light rail, tramway, or whatever you want to call it down the length of Domininiou Road. Don't matter if, like the viaduct tramway, it doesn't actually connect to anything, because the tax and ratepayes will be footing the bill. But it will look flash. (for a while anyway).
Talk is, the construction will drive all the small businesses retailers down Dominion Road to the wall, and the developers will be able to buy up all these properties in a fire sale.
And the character of Dominion Road will be changed forever.
I feel I want to throw up.
I mean really, haven't we had enough of corpoarate welfare in this country?
Meanwhile Puhinui Road and the South Western Motorway is crying out for relief from traffic congestion to the airport. Let's get all those cars off the road The corridor is there. The need is there. Mike Lee saw the wisdom of it. The main trunk rail line is ritht there. What could be simpler. Even that old dinosaur Winston Peters with his populist air to the ground knew he could make political capital over the light rail vanity project down Dominion Road. The light rail project down Dominion Road, (or possibly down Sandringham Road) benefits no one except very limited special interest groups. It won't benifit workers who want to commute to their airport or nearby support workplaces, who currently find themselves in near grid lock traffic jams every working ding dong day.
It doesn't benefit arriving and departing air travelers from who want to get into and out of the city centre with as least hassle and time, and with a certaintly of timely arrival.
It doesn't benefit local businesses and residents.
Let's hope this disorganised dog's breakfast gets so tangled up in its own hubris that it never actually leaves the drawing board or the fevered imaginations of the condo builders.
So from today the minimum wage increases from $18.90 to $20 which will help some people. (I still think it would have been better to give everyone an extra $40 in the hand by changing the tax brackets so less tax is deducted). The tax brackets have not been adjusted since 2009? and both Nats and Lab have never adjusted for inflation. Any income over $48k is taxed at 30% which is way too high. And income over $70k that used to be 'rich pricks' income at33%. Well $an income of $70k is not what it used to be.
Wish they would do something about dependent partners – they managed to for the COVID response. The extra tax (about 5,000 per year) a single person supporting two people pays over two people earning the same income might enable things like Kiwisaver that simply isn't affordable supporting two people affordable – let alone saving for retirement for two people.
Oh that is right they did do something – they removed the ability of partners to get NZS so now the working partner has to work even longer.
Boo! Auckland Light Rail development according to Rt. Hon. Jacinda Ardern on RNZ this morning, is open to Public Private Partnerships–the NZ Labour Caucus monetarists (and their fifth columnist prodders in Govt. Ministries) invite further penetration of what should be public infrastructure by private capital.
"It is all about growth. Even when it is clear that more and more people want and need a reliable, trustworthy public broadcaster on free-to-air radio, the ultimate aim for RNZ is about boosting numbers.
Sometimes this “growth fanaticism” is presented cleverly. It has been described as a ‘moral obligation’ for RNZ ‘to build lifelong relationships with all New Zealanders’.
But ultimately it is the same ethos as listening to ambitious sales people talk about their targets."
In other breaking news on April Fool's Day the Prime Minister has decided that the Deputy Prime Minister will enter a Monastery and Mr Robertson has chosen to take an extended stay in the Kopua Monastery in Central Hawkes Bay. His parting words were "I shall spend my remaining years in prayer that my offences against the New Zealand people may be forgiven. I shall never speak again".
This is a Trappist establishment. Trappist monks do not take a vow of silence but do not indulge in "idle conversation". This is a problem for Grant as idle conversation comprises his entire repertoire.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
I think this Housing Crisis situation must be happening in most country's that adhere to neo liberal policy. Pulling back on state house building and selling off the same to reduce "big government" is a huge loser policy for the people that need it. And speculation in housing also rampant around the world with the same result-unaffordabilty. I think supply issues are not to blame in affordabilty, got fuck all to do with it IMHO. Our world pricing systems are all driven by demand regardless of supply levels. Butter anyone? We are surrounded by cows yet the price is up. Same with houses. Controls are needed but won't be forthcoming under neo liberal Govt's. Stuck with it!
For those buying their first home there is a huge discount provided by the Govt for new builds, so the incentive to buy existing houses by new buyers is just not there, and there is no upwards pressure on the market. House prices for 3 – 4 bedroom homes have stayed around the 350k – 450k range for years.
It does and it dosnt…..western central banks are members of a club and if you want the benefits of belonging to that club you play by the rules…and the rules are set by the hegemon…currently the US.
The government CAN decide it dosnt want to be in the club but that means losing the benefits of being in the club….and they fear that more than anything else at the moment.
Essentially, unless the Government decides the cost of being a member of the club is too high they are little more than middle management or worse, sales reps.
Fact is that successive WA Governments have consistently supported their construction and building industries thus maintaining and preserving a dedicated labour force. So there is no shortage of housing stock. They are in the fortunate position also of having abundant land available for development, and they have a well developed public transport system that supports these new developments. The biggest crisis as far as WA is concerned is the availability of water. There is a huge aquifer and a massive salt water desalination plant, but the rainfall in the area has steadily decreased over the last few decades as a result of the Hadley Cell shifting south with AGW and dramatically changing the climate.
Knew about the support, was unaware of the water issues and will note that the support dosnt prevent crashes if conditions are right,
"Values in Perth and Darwin are more than 20% below their 2014 peaks, while the remaining capital cities have seen housing values move to new record highs through the COVID period."
Yup. Aussie Citz get a 50k handout for new builds I think. If that's true and could be used to support the deposit then a great help, well done AU. SFA this side of the ditch tho!
Checking out Real estate windows on the Goldie shows pricing cheaper than Tauranga/Hamilton and way down on Auck. Sydney not so good tho. Go figure.
Our Gov did that years ago by allowing Kiwisaver funds to be used for 1st home deposits and then added a grant on top…..if joe public cant save the deposit (because of high rents living costs in relation to wages) then a mechanism needs to be provided to put a floor under the market.
That might look as if it is in Perth but it is actually quite a long way south.
It has about the same relationship to Perth as Paraparaumu has to Wellington, or the Auckland CDB to Karaka.
Perth has been in a depression for a couple of years now with the mines in the north of the state caught up in the Chinese row with Australia and the FIFO people who work there and live in Perth out of work. There are a lot of houses in the area for sale.
Warnbro, which is the local station on the Mandurah line, is a 40 min ride into the city. There is a train into the city every 10 mins. You might as well live there as in the City. I enjoy riding the train, and passing the cars on the Freeway as you travel at well over 130kph, and no traffic jams.
Agree…it goes back to the liberalisation of the finance and banking sector that essentially gives the banks a free hand to create credit (debt) as they like and so they have….and why wouldnt they, greater credit means greater profit for them.
Especially when they now know that when they overdo it the public purse will bail them out a la GFC.
Did you notice what The Chancellor did in 2015 that was meant to solve the housing problem. It didn't do anything did it?
Now can you see any real difference between that and what Grant has just announced here? No? So what makes anyone think that the current Government actions will do anything at all to even ameliorate, much less solve the New Zealand problems?
Did anyone look at the link?…i have no idea, but i would suggest a couple of points, firstly they already had a reduced offset ability that was further reduced, unlike here where we have gone from 100 mph to zero in one hit, and as I have constantly espoused it is sentiment driving the market, sentiment spun by the vested interests.
But in a way you are correct, the underlying driver is the availability of credit which is the point, that is driving the price growth but that easy money (supported by ever decreasing interest rates) has run out of road…where to from here?
80 convictions for breaching protection orders. Now if only the authorities had been this assiduous about dealing with certain male stalkers or abusive ex-partners ….
Now personally I don't get all hot and bothered about patches. Living in the un ironically named Nash Street, in the middle of the Hood, I probably should ..but I just block it all out.
The issue I have is particularly with Nash, who rants and raves about a number of issues…only to disappear from the room when in a position to actually act on his beefed up "manly man" "Get Hard" rhetoric ..gangs, housing, jobs, fisheries…all have been through the same wash with Nash.
I've often said, given his stance on a number of issues, he should have joined the National Party. And as it turns out…by now he could well be Leader of the National Party.
Instead Labour are stuck with him. Like the kinda annoying cousin from the provinces that makes you dread the family Christmas year in year out.
But then again, it would seem he fits perfectly with Labours policy of incremental inaction..
Napier has the highest ratio of people in the country waiting for stable housing. Half of the motels are housing people who would be living on the street. Other areas have a high need as well.
An older teenager might find joining a gang giving them security or a place to escape. The one thing the government can do is build more state houses to deter youth joining a gang. Once in a stable home then the older teenager could look at job training or furthering their education. Youth are under so much strain when living in poverty. When home is an unhappy place a teenager will find ways to spend as little time there as they can.
Indeed. Like you say…The two problems that lead to gang membership here in the hood …dire lack of affordable, secure housing, and, equaly, wages in the orchards basically at a standstill since the 80's. When we first moved here people who worked on orchards and in the meat works could hope to buy their own home ..now a kiwibuild in Marenui was.$385,000 upwards ..and that was last year. .prices around these parts have escalated.
People tend to talk about "housing insecurity" in a slightly detached way, as if its purely a financial problem. I'm not sure they understand the effect on children of a life of feeling "less than" with parents at breaking point, time and time again, looking for yet another house…always on the back foot…
So, whatever, they can ban gang patches ..its not going to stop the problem one little bit…but I guess, out of sight, out of mind for some..
"Bernard Hickey wrote about this in January, suggesting that the Government could actually use this money to build up to 800,000 new homes: “Rent subsidies paid by the central government are forecast to rise from $2.6b last year to $4.2b by 2025. They have already risen from $1.9b over the last four years, Treasury figures show. Just as first home buyers use their rent to calculate how much they could afford to pay in interest, the Government could currently borrow over $400b with that $4.2b of rent subsidies. At $500,000 per dwelling, that $400b would ‘buy’ 800,000 new homes, which would be half the current housing stock of the entire country”
An excellent piece that highlights how woeful the Governments action (?) on state housing is (and has been)….why is the Government not ramping up its ability to directly build the housing needed or, if incapable ,at the very least directly contracting to the private sector a construction programme significantly larger than current?
Yeah the rental subsidy has been out of control for a while.The government could build or subsidise young people to build a heck of a lot of assets with it. Personally I think in some of the smaller districts they could add up the amounts paid – work out how much to build to collapse the rental market and then move outwards in ever widening crcles.
I think its a rort and I can only assume that the government, regardless of hue is complicit. Surely they must see what other see or are they so naive?
Journalists who had tried to verify the original story were angered by the stunt and hit back at the company, saying it was not a joke but “deception”.
Why do we need to tax the rental income of landlords? Why not make residential rental income rent free?
I know that today is April 1st, but the above comment is not made in the spirit of April Fools Day.
Owner-occupiers do not pay tax on the income imputed to them by dint of their living in their own homes. This income is essentially the rent that they save from doing so.
Landlords probably pass the tax on as part of the rent, so it just represents an additional burden on tenants, and is probably a form of 'double taxation' (a situation where two lots of tax are paid on the same income tranche).
It would also put to bed all the arguments flying about over the removal of interest deductibility.
I don't think a automobile is deemed to be an investment. I suppose one has to draw the line somewhere between what are considered investments, and what are considered consumption. Houses for some reason are considered investments. I suppose it’s because they are eminently rentable.
Every time someone brings up this objection – and you are by no means the first – I'm left wondering at the dishonesty of omitting that TOP explicitly covered this off by giving people the option of deferring the CCT until either the property was sold or passed on in an estate. Effectively converting it into a standard CGT or an Estate Tax. But either way they got to live in their home during their lifetime without a hit to their cash flow.
I've forgotten how many times I've typed that out now. Please don't make me do it again.
"did not account for people on lowish fixed incomes – they'd've been obliged to sell"
Quite. And they are most likely to be retired people who over their lifetime have had relatively limited financial resources and acquired only one home, which, when it went onto the market, would most likely be bought by someone with several.
Landlords cannot operate like the IRD taxing a tenants rent.
They don't actually tax tenants' rent. But I would assume that they tailor the rent that they charge so that it takes into account the amount of tax that they themselves are paying on that rent.
The first rule in business is to watch the cash flow.
Any increase in costs, such as this new tax, must be managed, either the profit is reduced, costs are reduced elsewhere or the price is raised – or some combination of both. What cannot happen is that the cash operating profit goes negative. In that case the shareholder must either add funds, or the business is insolvent.
This new tax will likely take some unknown fraction of landlords into negative cash flow territory. I know that it's taken us very close to it, and our mortgage is relatively low compared to what it used to be. If this had happened to us ten years ago we would have fallen over almost for certain.
Yeah but many landlords charge rent completely unrelated to their costs i.e. market rent.
My mother on NZS has just had her rent put up another $30-00 a week on the mortgage free unit because the "market" says so. Also landlords aren't business people in most senses of the word. They don't even get when the government puts subsidies up by $30-00 that it is a 70 cent in the dollar subsidy. So the $30-00 rent increase means at best the person gets only $21-00 and is now $9-00 poorer. Business people they are not. You might be but many are not – for a large number the relationship between cost and rent isn't that existent.
There are many….whether they are implemented however is a different question.
Consider….an investor buys a property 20 years ago with a 20% deposit and a $100k mortgage over 25 years…the mortgage outgoings including principal payment at current interest rates equate to around $100 pw…there are additional costs associated but they remain deductable,
What is the current market rent for that property?
A friend of mine owns 20 rental properties – she had 22 but assisted her tenants to buy them. She paid the mortgages off years ago and charges rents that are affordable and reasonable.
Market rent is like CEO's salaries – once they start going up the market says they have to keep going up. They become self-perpetuating. They then push the price up as the capital gain starts outweighing the actual value and we end up in a viscous cycle with the working class as pawns in the capitalist game.
I partly blame Christchurch where profiteering after the earthquake massively increased rents and emboldened rampant capitalism. That is when a rent freeze should have gone on.
It was happening long before the ChCh quakes….the rent rort post quakes in ChCh was driven by insurance money….it increased the ability to pay.
Disaster capitalism
There are several ways to do this. What I think you're going for is to take the costs and add a margin. But then every owner will have different costs based on their mortgage, and it would lead to odd outcomes – if for example the owner came into an inheritance or windfall and used it to pay down their borrowings, thus reducing their costs – would you argue for the rent to fall at the same time? Or if the same house was then sold to a new owner with a much larger mortgage – should the rent immediately rise to match?
That's not how virtually any business works.
What actually happens I think is that the 'market price' is set by the vendor with the highest marginal cost. It's a bit like the electricity market in this respect – total supply must always equal total demand – and during peak periods when the most expensive generator comes online (because it has to) then everyone else is paid the same price that this generator charges.
The residential rental market isn't quite so rigidly organised like this, plenty of landlords actually charge well below 'market'. The data that the Ministry of Housing publishes is only for new bonds, it doesn't track older established ones at all – which as a rule are lower than for new tenancies.
The other way to look at this is to consider what would happen if the owner simply sold the property and put the cash into a bank deposit. This would be considered the 'Minimum Risk Rate of Return", which by convention is set at 3%. So if we took your 20 yr old property that is probably now worth north of $750,000 that would equate to around $22kpa return before tax. If you're going to go to the hassle and risk of renting the house to someone you'd certainly want to do better than this. Consider that your fixed costs – rates, insurance, R&M, new compliance rules, and management fees etc – are going to be at least another $10kpa, this means you need a rental income of around $32kpa just to do better than putting the money in the bank. That's a rent in the order of $620pw.
This is pretty easy to work out for the property you live in, just go to qv.co.nz and enter your own address. Then do the numbers for yourself – it should give you a sense of what your minimum rent should be if your landlord was being economically rational.
And the investor that bought the property for 120K 20 years ago may well decide that original 20K investment that is now worth say 750K today is better off in a TD or somewhere else…thats for him or her to decide…the point is IF the investor has not increased his/her leverage the pressure to increase rents does not exist…..it is a choice.
Nope – you need to have a bit more of a think about it. What would happen if the market consisted of just two rentals – an old one with no mortgage that had fixed costs only say $200pw or a new one with borrowings that had a cost of $600pw? And each landlord charged enough just to cover these costs only?
And now consider there are only two tenants who can choose between them. Assume both houses are of similar desirability for the sake of the argument. Which one would they both want? The cheap one at $200pw of course. But only one can live in it, forcing the other to pay $600pw to live in the other one. Well the landlord charging only $200pw might be content with this situation, but what happens when demand increases and a third new tenant appears in this market?
Of course none of this addresses the current problems in the NZ housing market that go well beyond the dynamics of the rental market, which has existed since the year dot.
a lot of mental gymnastics going on there to attempt to refute the fact the original landlord has a choice….and none of it changes the fact he/she does.
So the original landlord charging only $200pw retires and decides to sell to a new operator? One with a much larger mortgage.
The point is that you're essentially relying on the willingness of this person to leave $400pw on the table indefinitely. You may well have an opinion on the morality of this, but I think you can see that in the context of a real world market – it's just not a stable scenario.
The willingness or not of the investor to set their rent at whatever will depend on multiple factors…one being the quality of the tenant…it is financially advantageous to the investor to have a reliable trouble free tenant who may be able to afford a lesser amount than to risk a series of unsuitable tenants and vacancy periods….real world enough for you?
I know investors who operate on this basis and have done for years…a good long term tenant is worth their weight in gold.
But all of that aside the original comment was regarding landlords passing on the tax changes to tenants and my comment pointed out that there is no need for many investors to pass on costs as the carry little or no leverage, and have no financial pressure to do so…..and as stated previously, those that are excessively leveraged and operating a marginal investment have the option to rebalance or exit …..non viable businesses are wound up all the time.
If two farmers are producing the same crop, but one due to having some competitive advantage – better rainfall or management methods for example – has a lower cost of production, and demand equals or exceeds supply, do you think this farmer will sell at a lower cost than his neighbour? Of course not – that farmer sells at the same price and uses their competitive advantage to make a higher profit.
This is how all businesses work, why do you think residential rentals must be an exception?
The most important factors in determining the level of rent is:
– Size of mortgage to service
– Number of bedrooms
– Location
Quality of the tenant might help in terms of future rent increases, a little. I have one house which we haven't increased for three years because they are solid and there's zero debt on it.
There's two others, only one of which has a mortgage and it's small – we do review that annually.
Agree with you about the very marginal investors. They will now get out, or their banks will tell them hard to sell one or two and bring their position down, or the next time they go to their bank for a rollover they are going to get a reality check. That's a desired outcome from government policy.
@Ad..yes dont disagree with factors setting rent but for some reason RL wants to debate a self evident truth regarding financial pressure on low or zero leveraged investors.
And yes banks will be having some uncomfortable conversations.
my comment pointed out that there is no need for many investors to pass on costs as the carry little or no leverage, and have no financial pressure to do so
For any given net profit the landlord's tax payment will always appear in the rent that he charges, for example (for a net profit of $100 pw there are two ways that this can come about:
(a) At a tax rate of 33% the landlord will need to add $150 to his outgoings in setting the rent, or
(b) At a tax rate of zero he will need to add only $100 to his outgoings.
Actually there are more than two when one takes into account the fact that different landlords may be on different tax rates.
Simplistic…in fact there are numerous determinants in crop sales and the price is seldom the same for all sellers or even for the same seller across the entire crop….and one critical factor is the relationship.
But obviously its important to you for some reason to convince yourself that all investors behave the same way when patently they dont and as said originally the investor has choice….or do wish to continue to deny that fact?
And as an after thought what happens to the dairy farmer whose cost of production exceeds the MS price?
Buyers don't care or even know about the cost structure of the producer. If two truckloads of turnips from two different farmers turn up at the produce market – then all other things being equal – they will sell at the same price. What actually sets the price on the day is the balance of supply and demand.
Introducing other factors is irrelevant to the argument here.
And as an after thought what happens to the dairy farmer whose cost of production exceeds the MS price?
Either they find a way to reduce their costs or they go out of business. Tough on that farmer but good for the economy as a whole because it tends to drive toward better productivity over time.
what happens to dairy farmers who's costs exceed the MS price is an unwelcome visit from the bank….much the same will be occurring with many investors who are over-leveraged.
Great so what you've finally concluded – which is what I said days ago – is that as over-leveraged landlords exit the market the supply of rentals will go down. At a time when there is already a shortage of rentals this is only likely to put upward pressure on rents.
The argument that ex-rentals automatically become first homes is flawed because it assumes that ex-tenants are all going to become first home buyers just because they want to. What happens in reality is a lot more messy than this.
Aye but you're arguing that the market rent by necessity must be $600-00 per week because the most leveraged "investor" determines he market price. In you scenario both tenants would pay $600-00.
"Well the landlord charging only $200pw might be content with this situation, but what happens when demand increases and a third new tenant appears in this market?"
The landlord charging $200-00 might be even happier because they know that they are providing good support to someone even though demand has increased.
The rate of return argument is financial trickery to justify such financial rorting. It also becomes self perpetuating as values increase – I must charge this much because I could otherwise do this. The classic paradigm of knowing the price of something but the value of nothing.
It's nonsense pretending their is a strong relationship between rental income and cost. The fact that so many properties are actually untenanted – if the relationship was as strong as you suggest then you would not be rational to have a property untenanted. Plenty of landlords are content to have this occur.
Market rents like much of economics is filling an emotional response by landlords. It is nice couching economics in notions of rational players but that notion is a pretence.
The landlord charging $200-00 might be even happier because they know that they are providing good support to someone even though demand has increased.
This indeed is the position we are in. If I was to achieve the same return from my rents as selling up and putting the money into a 3% TD, I would have to increase them all across the board by $160pw.
Sustaining this position is a choice. Up until now I've been reasonably happy to accept a relatively modest cash operating profit because I could anticipate doing better once the mortgage was paid down. Plus indeed we did see it as a social good.
Well both of those conditions are now off the table, this govt has now added a new tax that reduces our cash operating flow to zero and has openly told us that what we are doing is no longer considered of any social benefit.
So either we increase the rent or do something else. Probably the latter.
I'm by no means a big financy guy, but it seems to me and rando calculator site that a landlord owning a $120k house that is now $750k after 20 years that the landlord already has a calculated return of 9% per annum.
Sure, let's say the saint will never sell. Sunk cost is $120k (plus interest on the mortgage that is now paid off), with ongoing rates and maybe a margin for projected maintenance (piles, drains, etc). That's if they're people who are genuinely providing a public service with no thought of profit, just the costs being covered. Not that private ownership is necessarily the best model for that, I'd suggest a trust or charity as an instrument for community rent provision.
But none of that has anything to do with market rates. That's a function of supply and demand. Housing shortage, so it's down to how much individuals can afford to pay before they're living rough.
Many landlords will be somewhere between those two extremes. Some might well be practically a housing service. #notAllLandlords is the problem with that charitable view, though.
Persisting in pretending there is no difference between cash flow and capital gain really disqualifies you from any honest participation in this conversation.
As for your idea that the market can run purely on a not-for-profit charity model, runs afoul of the fact that sooner or later those charities will have to renew their stock, and find the funds to do this. In the long run they have to operate commercially on pretty much the same basis as private operators do.
And then most private operators make relatively low cash operating profit, the difference between them and a ‘not for profit’ charity amounts to sfa.
You're the one saying the current capital value has anything to do with cashflow on a house bought 20 years ago.
If someone buys a house as a public service, the only costs are the costs of purchase (incl mortgage) and ongoing costs like rates and maintenance. And they don't have to "renew their stock" if they maintain the house.
Houses in NZ have about an 80yr economic life. This means that roughly 1.25% of them must be replaced every year just to keep pace with existing stock, much less meet a growing population. In my lifetime NZ has roughly doubled it's population.
And just about anything older than 50yrs no longer meets modern expectations, and needs substantial investment.
So in reality your 'housing charity' has to keep either replacing or adding to it's stock – at current market prices – in order to stay in the game. And it cannot do this on fresh air.
Many years back we were involved in Habitat for Humanity in the Wgtn area, essentially the kind of housing charity you have in mind. Once we got involved at the board level we had to be schooled in this lesson the hard way.
And then most private operators make relatively low cash operating profit, the difference between them and a ‘not for profit’ charity amounts to sfa.
"At Habitat for Humanity Australia, we believe in helping low-income families achieve the dream of building and owning their own home."
"To date Habitat for Humanity Australia has built more than 160 homes in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland."
Habitat for Humanity and land Lords – not so different?
In reality just about anything older than 50yrs no longer meets modern expectations.
My (one and only) home is ~60 years old; it may not meet modern expectations but it (still) meets mine, and I’ve never had a complaint from occasional visitors.
So we have an arc in capital value that a well-maintained house goes from 120k to 750k @20 years to $0 at 50 years? I mean, bollocks, but even if it were true you could find that fiscal sweet spot.
Because they don't need to create a house from thin air, if the objective is to not lose money they can sell the old one and buy a new one using the increased capital value. And a landlord renewing their stock is renewing their capital assets.
But of course any landlord would be lucky to be in the business for 50 years, anyway – one reason to go to a longer term structure than personal ownership.
Well like McFlock when we first started with H4H we too thought like he did, but it turned out we were quite wrong. A couple of older and more experienced members had to be quite sharp with us over it.
And H4H is not even a rental charity. That would be closer to the Masterton Community Trust model, and even that very well established entity charges rents that are not all that much lower than the private market in the same town. Certainly they don't hold their rents static for 20 years as McFlock would have them do.
There are several ways to do this. What I think you're going for is to take the costs and add a margin. But then every owner will have different costs based on their mortgage, and it would lead to odd outcomes – if for example the owner came into an inheritance or windfall and used it to pay down their borrowings, thus reducing their costs – would you argue for the rent to fall at the same time? Or if the same house was then sold to a new owner with a much larger mortgage – should the rent immediately rise to match?
Differing tax rates also come into it. A landlord on a 17.5% tax rate can afford to charge a lower rent and still make the same net profit as a landlord on a 33% rate
“It’s a bit like the electricity market in this respect – total supply must always equal total demand – and during peak periods when the most expensive generator comes online (because it has to) then everyone else is paid the same price that this generator charges.”
This is why the Labour Party's single seller proposal, of earlier years, may have been a good idea. At peak times electricity could be sold, by a single seller, at an average price. A 'single seller' arrangement, however, would obviously not be appropriate in the residential rental market; mortgages, and landlords' tax rates (as pointed out above), would be disorienting factors. This is why mortgages and differential tax rates should not be factors in determining rents. Fairly stable, and equal (after factoring in differences in the quality of the dwelling) rents would seem to be desirable.
Influences due to differences in tax rates could be avoided if the same tax rate was applied to all rental income – I would suggest 0% ), but I think the influence of mortgage payments could only be avoided by removing them from rent determinations altogether. this latter suggestion would make sense since mortgages should be the landlords' responsibility in any case.
PS: If there was a CGT in place the fact that mortgages, including their interest component, are capital expenditure would suggest that the aggregate unclaimed interest might be considered deductible against a capital gain.
This is practice in a few US States, though it seems to be widely seen as an un-natural tax distortion there and is understood to have elevated house prices.
In considering this I think too much emphasis can easily be put on the differentials and incentives (between occupiers and investors or between landlord renter) and not enough on how much borrowing can be accrued against housing which appears more important to pricing.
The problem is that councils now reclaim all of the cost of supplying services to new sections in the first year not over a 30-50 year span from rates as used to be the case. The 4 billion spend announced last week was specifically to negate this practice for goverment builds.
Reminds me of the Jewish theme of the song 'If I Was a Rich Man' of what he would do. One who lives the ethical life, with little indulgences!
'Dear God, you made many, many poor people.
I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor.
But it's no great honor either!
So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?'
If I were a rich man,…
And then –
I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show.
I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For the town to see and hear.
And each loud 'cheep' and 'swaqwk' and 'honk' and 'quack'
Would land like a trumpet on the ear,
As if to say 'Here lives a wealthy man.'
But then –
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise.
'If you please, Reb Tevye…'
'Pardon me, Reb Tevye…'
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know!
Only took 38 years to come up with the award. The song, and it was a great one, dates from 1983.
It is almost as bad as the Nobel Prize is getting. The 2013 Physics Prize, was awarded for work on the Higgs mechanism. The theoretical work had been done in 1964, half a century earlier.
The withering of anti-trust laws which allowed for the rise of behemoth companies started in the 1970s, MacGillis says, and then really intensified in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan.
“We’re now still experiencing that very lax approach to anti-trust which has helped abet the growth of these giants. To put it crudely, all sorts of business activity which used to be spread around the country in various sectors of the economy is now increasingly dominated by a handful of companies and that commerce, activity, and wealth is sucked into the places where they reside.”
And what about someone touting for a Silicon Valley here? It will cause as much problem as silicone breast implants did – look good to begin with and then the effects start body deterioration. Has this bloke got eye augmentation?
Years ago, on April 1 the ODT had two front page articles that to me seemed equally farcical. It turned out that the monorail from Otago to fiordland was a real proposal.
Thought I'd submitted my appreciative comment (@4:39 pm) to the post: National Party leadership spill under way post (Categories: humour), but must have put it somewhere else by mistake – apologies.
Must be awful to lose one’s sense of humour; worse than losing the sense of smell imho
I've been listening to the musical Chess, The writers have done a clever piece about the Russian applying for asylum to smug Brit embassy immigration johnnies.
Embassy Lament
Oh my dear how boring
He's defecting
Just like all the others
He's expecting
Us to be impressed with what he's done here
But he hasn't stopped to think about the paperwork his gesture causes…
Have you an appointment
With the consul?
If you don't we know what his response'll
Be, he will not see you, with respect it
Buggers up his very taxing schedule…
I know. I was pointing out that as long as the make a net profit, that the tax on that profit gets transferred to the tenant as part of his rent, regardless of the lack of pressure.
The worms will live in every hostIt's hard to pick which one they eat the mostThe horrible people, the horrible peopleIt's as anatomic as the size of your steepleCapitalism has made it this wayOld-fashioned fascism will take it awaySongwriter: Twiggy Ramirez Read more ...
Hi,It’s almost Christmas Day which means it is almost my birthday, where you will find me whimpering in the corner clutching a warm bottle of Baileys.If you’re out of ideas for presents (and truly desperate) then it is possible to gift a full Webworm subscription to a friend (or enemy) ...
This morning’s six standouts for me at 6.30am include:Rachel Helyer Donaldson’s scoop via RNZ last night of cuts to maternity jobs in the health system;Maddy Croad’s scoop via The Press-$ this morning on funding cuts for Christchurch’s biggest food rescue charity;Benedict Collins’ scoop last night via 1News on a last-minute ...
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 15, 2024 thru Sat, December 21, 2024. Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one published soleley by category. We are still interested in ...
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...
Welcome to the December 2024 Economic Bulletin. We have two monthly features in this edition. In the first, we discuss what the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update from Treasury and the Budget Policy Statement from the Minister of Finance tell us about the fiscal position and what to ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...
Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year. As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...
The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and , ...
“Like you said, I’m an unreconstructed socialist. Everybody deserves to get something for Christmas.”“ONE OF THOSE had better be for me!” Hannah grinned, fascinated, as Laurie made his way, gingerly, to the bar, his arms full of gift-wrapped packages.“Of course!”, beamed Laurie. Depositing his armful on the bar-top and selecting ...
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed a significant slowdown in the economy over the past six months, with GDP falling by 1% in September, and 1.1% in June said CTU Economist Craig Renney. “The data shows that the size of the economy in GDP terms is now smaller ...
One last thing before I quitI never wanted any moreThan I could fit into my headI still remember every single word you saidAnd all the shit that somehow came along with itStill, there's one thing that comforts meSince I was always caged and now I'm freeSongwriters: David Grohl / Georg ...
Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
Hi,If you’re a New Zealander — you know who Mike King is. He is the face of New Zealand’s battle against mental health problems. He can be loud and brash. He raises, and is entrusted with, a lot of cash. Last year his “I Am Hope” charity reported a revenue ...
Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
Oh, I weptFor daysFilled my eyesWith silly tearsOh, yeaBut I don'tCare no moreI don't care ifMy eyes get soreSongwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Kossoff. Read more ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
Just ten days ago, South Korea's president attempted a self-coup, declaring martial law and attempting to have opposition MPs murdered or arrested in an effort to seize unconstrained power. The attempt was rapidly defeated by the national assembly voting it down and the people flooding the streets to defend democracy. ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Kiwis planning a swim or heading out on a boat this summer should remember to stop and think about water safety, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop and ACC and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “New Zealand’s beaches, lakes and rivers are some of the most beautiful in the ...
The Government is urging Kiwis to drive safely this summer and reminding motorists that Police will be out in force to enforce the road rules, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“This time of year can be stressful and result in poor decision-making on our roads. Whether you are travelling to see ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
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Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
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Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
Legislation that will repeal all advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays has passed through first reading in Parliament today, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “As a growing share of audiences get their news and entertainment from streaming services, these restrictions have become increasingly redundant. New Zealand on ...
Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed further progress on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway Road of National Significance (RoNS), with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board approving funding for the detailed design of Stage 1, paving the way for main works construction to begin in late 2025.“The Government is moving at ...
The Government today released a request for information (RFI) to seeking interest in partnerships to plant trees on Crown-owned land with low farming and conservation value (excluding National Parks) Forestry Minister Todd McClay announced. “Planting trees on Crown-owned land will drive economic growth by creating more forestry jobs in our regions, providing more wood ...
Court timeliness, access to justice, and improving the quality of existing regulation are the focus of a series of law changes introduced to Parliament today by Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee. The three Bills in the Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill package each improve a different part of the ...
A total of 41 appointments and reappointments have been made to the 12 community trusts around New Zealand that serve their regions, Associate Finance Minister Shane Jones says. “These trusts, and the communities they serve from the Far North to the deep south, will benefit from the rich experience, knowledge, ...
The Government has confirmed how it will provide redress to survivors who were tortured at the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit (the Lake Alice Unit). “The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that many of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Unit between 1972 and ...
It has been a busy, productive year in the House as the coalition Government works hard to get New Zealand back on track, Leader of the House Chris Bishop says. “This Government promised to rebuild the economy, restore law and order and reduce the cost of living. Our record this ...
“Accelerated silicosis is an emerging occupational disease caused by unsafe work such as engineered stone benchtops. I am running a standalone consultation on engineered stone to understand what the industry is currently doing to manage the risks, and whether further regulatory intervention is needed,” says Workplace Relations and Safety Minister ...
Mehemea he pai mō te tangata, mahia – if it’s good for the people, get on with it. Enhanced reporting on the public sector’s delivery of Treaty settlement commitments will help improve outcomes for Māori and all New Zealanders, Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka says. Compiled together for the ...
Mr Roger Holmes Miller and Ms Tarita Hutchinson have been appointed to the Charities Registration Board, Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Louise Upston says. “I would like to welcome the new members joining the Charities Registration Board. “The appointment of Ms Hutchinson and Mr Miller will strengthen the Board’s capacity ...
More building consent and code compliance applications are being processed within the statutory timeframe since the Government required councils to submit quarterly data, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “In the midst of a housing shortage we need to look at every step of the build process for efficiencies ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is proud to announce the first three recipients of the Government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund which will enable more Kiwis faster access to mental health and addiction support. “This fund is part of the Government’s commitment to investing in ...
New Zealand is providing Vanuatu assistance following yesterday's devastating earthquake, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. "Vanuatu is a member of our Pacific family and we are supporting it in this time of acute need," Mr Peters says. "Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu, and we will be ...
The Government welcomes the Commerce Commission’s plan to reduce card fees for Kiwis by an estimated $260 million a year, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.“The Government is relentlessly focused on reducing the cost of living, so Kiwis can keep more of their hard-earned income and live a ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has welcomed the Early Childhood Education (ECE) regulatory review report, the first major report from the Ministry for Regulation. The report makes 15 recommendations to modernise and simplify regulations across ECE so services can get on with what they do best – providing safe, high-quality care ...
The Government‘s Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to create a new regulatory regime that will enable firms to construct offshore wind generation has passed its first reading in Parliament, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.“New Zealand currently does not have a regulatory regime for offshore renewable energy as the previous government failed ...
A separate passport, citizenship and membership of the United Nations are only available to fully independent nations, Winston Peters' office says. ...
By Emma Andrews, Henare te Ua Māori Journalism Intern at RNZ News The New Zealand fuel company Z Energy is swapping out street names for “correct” kupu on service stops around the country, with the help of local hapū. When Z took over 226 fuel sites from Shell in 2010, ...
Summer reissue: Was it a false measurement, a full-blown conspiracy or just some mild incompetence? Mad Chapman uncovers the truth of Maddi Wesche’s final throw. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and ...
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So after 3 and a half years, we have to wait another six months for another working group to start from scratch to evaluate light rail. It doesn't even sound like Dominion Rd is a definite as they've now mentioned Sandringham Rd. So absolutely nothing has been decided.
No decision on Auckland light rail, as Government opts for 'fresh start' on project | Stuff.co.nz
This project was originally sold to us as a much needed rail connection to the Auckland International Airpor. But it definitely won't be connecting to the airport anytime soon. (if ever).
So what's it all about?
Don't we ever learn?
Doesn't anyone remember the vanity project that was the viaduct light rail?
Developers thought it would be hoot to get rate payers to fund this vanity project to give their condo development a bit of a boho look. This vanity project has served its purpose and, despite all the big talk of extending it down Quay street to the Britomart transport hub, has been moth balled.
Now again there is talk of developers cashing in. With plans for multi-level condiminiums down the length of Dominion Road.
Of course these developers want a light rail, tramway, or whatever you want to call it down the length of Domininiou Road. Don't matter if, like the viaduct tramway, it doesn't actually connect to anything, because the tax and ratepayes will be footing the bill. But it will look flash. (for a while anyway).
Talk is, the construction will drive all the small businesses retailers down Dominion Road to the wall, and the developers will be able to buy up all these properties in a fire sale.
And the character of Dominion Road will be changed forever.
I feel I want to throw up.
I mean really, haven't we had enough of corpoarate welfare in this country?
Meanwhile Puhinui Road and the South Western Motorway is crying out for relief from traffic congestion to the airport. Let's get all those cars off the road The corridor is there. The need is there. Mike Lee saw the wisdom of it. The main trunk rail line is ritht there. What could be simpler. Even that old dinosaur Winston Peters with his populist air to the ground knew he could make political capital over the light rail vanity project down Dominion Road. The light rail project down Dominion Road, (or possibly down Sandringham Road) benefits no one except very limited special interest groups. It won't benifit workers who want to commute to their airport or nearby support workplaces, who currently find themselves in near grid lock traffic jams every working ding dong day.
It doesn't benefit arriving and departing air travelers from who want to get into and out of the city centre with as least hassle and time, and with a certaintly of timely arrival.
It doesn't benefit local businesses and residents.
Let's hope this disorganised dog's breakfast gets so tangled up in its own hubris that it never actually leaves the drawing board or the fevered imaginations of the condo builders.
So from today the minimum wage increases from $18.90 to $20 which will help some people. (I still think it would have been better to give everyone an extra $40 in the hand by changing the tax brackets so less tax is deducted). The tax brackets have not been adjusted since 2009? and both Nats and Lab have never adjusted for inflation. Any income over $48k is taxed at 30% which is way too high. And income over $70k that used to be 'rich pricks' income at33%. Well $an income of $70k is not what it used to be.
Last week we had the largest intervention in the housing market in decades which soaked the rich.
This week the minimum wage went up again, and taxes on the super-rich went up.
It's not like they're doing nothing.
so the tax paid by the super rich has gone up , really. How some are sucked in by what is said as to that what happens in the real world.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300238241/more-than-40-of-millionaires-paying-tax-rates-lower-than-the-lowest-earners-government-data-reveals
Who engages the best tax lawyers and accountants in the country.
The "super rich"
They won't be paying this tax.
Wish they would do something about dependent partners – they managed to for the COVID response. The extra tax (about 5,000 per year) a single person supporting two people pays over two people earning the same income might enable things like Kiwisaver that simply isn't affordable supporting two people affordable – let alone saving for retirement for two people.
Oh that is right they did do something – they removed the ability of partners to get NZS so now the working partner has to work even longer.
It is april 1st!!!
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Yay! minimum wage goes up to $20…
Boo! Auckland Light Rail development according to Rt. Hon. Jacinda Ardern on RNZ this morning, is open to Public Private Partnerships–the NZ Labour Caucus monetarists (and their fifth columnist prodders in Govt. Ministries) invite further penetration of what should be public infrastructure by private capital.
Have a great April 1st.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Penk and Brown? April Fools surely…
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
"Chris Penk-Simeon Brown"
Heh- fortunately I checked the calendar this morning.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
"It is all about growth. Even when it is clear that more and more people want and need a reliable, trustworthy public broadcaster on free-to-air radio, the ultimate aim for RNZ is about boosting numbers.
Sometimes this “growth fanaticism” is presented cleverly. It has been described as a ‘moral obligation’ for RNZ ‘to build lifelong relationships with all New Zealanders’.
But ultimately it is the same ethos as listening to ambitious sales people talk about their targets."
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/if-the-rnz-totara-falls-is-anyone-listening
And a Minister who appears to have disproved his earlier promise.
In other breaking news on April Fool's Day the Prime Minister has decided that the Deputy Prime Minister will enter a Monastery and Mr Robertson has chosen to take an extended stay in the Kopua Monastery in Central Hawkes Bay. His parting words were "I shall spend my remaining years in prayer that my offences against the New Zealand people may be forgiven. I shall never speak again".
This is a Trappist establishment. Trappist monks do not take a vow of silence but do not indulge in "idle conversation". This is a problem for Grant as idle conversation comprises his entire repertoire.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
"Ooh! Ooh! Look at me! I got the joke!"
A journey, where some of the scenery is different but the destination is the same.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2021/mar/31/uk-housing-crisis-how-did-owning-a-home-become-unaffordable
I think this Housing Crisis situation must be happening in most country's that adhere to neo liberal policy. Pulling back on state house building and selling off the same to reduce "big government" is a huge loser policy for the people that need it. And speculation in housing also rampant around the world with the same result-unaffordabilty. I think supply issues are not to blame in affordabilty, got fuck all to do with it IMHO. Our world pricing systems are all driven by demand regardless of supply levels. Butter anyone? We are surrounded by cows yet the price is up. Same with houses. Controls are needed but won't be forthcoming under neo liberal Govt's. Stuck with it!
It really depends on the Govt.
Take WA for example.
Here is a house 4 bedrooms 2 car garage and 2 bathrooms with a rumpus room, just 500m from a popular and good swimming beach.
For those buying their first home there is a huge discount provided by the Govt for new builds, so the incentive to buy existing houses by new buyers is just not there, and there is no upwards pressure on the market. House prices for 3 – 4 bedroom homes have stayed around the 350k – 450k range for years.
"It really depends on the Govt."
It does and it dosnt…..western central banks are members of a club and if you want the benefits of belonging to that club you play by the rules…and the rules are set by the hegemon…currently the US.
The government CAN decide it dosnt want to be in the club but that means losing the benefits of being in the club….and they fear that more than anything else at the moment.
Essentially, unless the Government decides the cost of being a member of the club is too high they are little more than middle management or worse, sales reps.
Fact is that successive WA Governments have consistently supported their construction and building industries thus maintaining and preserving a dedicated labour force. So there is no shortage of housing stock. They are in the fortunate position also of having abundant land available for development, and they have a well developed public transport system that supports these new developments. The biggest crisis as far as WA is concerned is the availability of water. There is a huge aquifer and a massive salt water desalination plant, but the rainfall in the area has steadily decreased over the last few decades as a result of the Hadley Cell shifting south with AGW and dramatically changing the climate.
Knew about the support, was unaware of the water issues and will note that the support dosnt prevent crashes if conditions are right,
"Values in Perth and Darwin are more than 20% below their 2014 peaks, while the remaining capital cities have seen housing values move to new record highs through the COVID period."
https://www.corelogic.com.au/news/why-didnt-australian-housing-market-crash
Yup. Aussie Citz get a 50k handout for new builds I think. If that's true and could be used to support the deposit then a great help, well done AU. SFA this side of the ditch tho!
Checking out Real estate windows on the Goldie shows pricing cheaper than Tauranga/Hamilton and way down on Auck. Sydney not so good tho. Go figure.
Our Gov did that years ago by allowing Kiwisaver funds to be used for 1st home deposits and then added a grant on top…..if joe public cant save the deposit (because of high rents living costs in relation to wages) then a mechanism needs to be provided to put a floor under the market.
Wouldn't 50k here pretty much go straight to the local council?
Depends on the cost of the build, but up to $500,000 build is around $5000 in Auckland.
https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/building-and-consents/building-consents/Pages/building-control-fees.aspx
That might look as if it is in Perth but it is actually quite a long way south.
It has about the same relationship to Perth as Paraparaumu has to Wellington, or the Auckland CDB to Karaka.
Perth has been in a depression for a couple of years now with the mines in the north of the state caught up in the Chinese row with Australia and the FIFO people who work there and live in Perth out of work. There are a lot of houses in the area for sale.
So relies who live there tell me anyway.
Warnbro, which is the local station on the Mandurah line, is a 40 min ride into the city. There is a train into the city every 10 mins. You might as well live there as in the City. I enjoy riding the train, and passing the cars on the Freeway as you travel at well over 130kph, and no traffic jams.
Lithium mining is the future it seems. Some of the FIFO people have packed up and left, but many others lived out of State – even here in NZ!
Agree…it goes back to the liberalisation of the finance and banking sector that essentially gives the banks a free hand to create credit (debt) as they like and so they have….and why wouldnt they, greater credit means greater profit for them.
Especially when they now know that when they overdo it the public purse will bail them out a la GFC.
Did people look at the link provided?
Did you notice what The Chancellor did in 2015 that was meant to solve the housing problem. It didn't do anything did it?
Now can you see any real difference between that and what Grant has just announced here? No? So what makes anyone think that the current Government actions will do anything at all to even ameliorate, much less solve the New Zealand problems?
Did anyone look at the link?…i have no idea, but i would suggest a couple of points, firstly they already had a reduced offset ability that was further reduced, unlike here where we have gone from 100 mph to zero in one hit, and as I have constantly espoused it is sentiment driving the market, sentiment spun by the vested interests.
But in a way you are correct, the underlying driver is the availability of credit which is the point, that is driving the price growth but that easy money (supported by ever decreasing interest rates) has run out of road…where to from here?
Item about a female stalker from today's Stuff webpage:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/124709613/a-stalker-has-promised-her-victims-she-will-not-stop-until-she-dies
80 convictions for breaching protection orders. Now if only the authorities had been this assiduous about dealing with certain male stalkers or abusive ex-partners ….
Stuart Nash ..Police Minister, 2019
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/390755/hawke-s-bay-mayors-gang-patch-ban-rejected-by-police-minister
Also Stuart Nash …Not Police Minister, 2021
Now personally I don't get all hot and bothered about patches. Living in the un ironically named Nash Street, in the middle of the Hood, I probably should ..but I just block it all out.
The issue I have is particularly with Nash, who rants and raves about a number of issues…only to disappear from the room when in a position to actually act on his beefed up "manly man" "Get Hard" rhetoric ..gangs, housing, jobs, fisheries…all have been through the same wash with Nash.
I've often said, given his stance on a number of issues, he should have joined the National Party. And as it turns out…by now he could well be Leader of the National Party.
Instead Labour are stuck with him. Like the kinda annoying cousin from the provinces that makes you dread the family Christmas year in year out.
But then again, it would seem he fits perfectly with Labours policy of incremental inaction..
Napier has the highest ratio of people in the country waiting for stable housing. Half of the motels are housing people who would be living on the street. Other areas have a high need as well.
An older teenager might find joining a gang giving them security or a place to escape. The one thing the government can do is build more state houses to deter youth joining a gang. Once in a stable home then the older teenager could look at job training or furthering their education. Youth are under so much strain when living in poverty. When home is an unhappy place a teenager will find ways to spend as little time there as they can.
Indeed. Like you say…The two problems that lead to gang membership here in the hood …dire lack of affordable, secure housing, and, equaly, wages in the orchards basically at a standstill since the 80's. When we first moved here people who worked on orchards and in the meat works could hope to buy their own home ..now a kiwibuild in Marenui was.$385,000 upwards ..and that was last year. .prices around these parts have escalated.
People tend to talk about "housing insecurity" in a slightly detached way, as if its purely a financial problem. I'm not sure they understand the effect on children of a life of feeling "less than" with parents at breaking point, time and time again, looking for yet another house…always on the back foot…
So, whatever, they can ban gang patches ..its not going to stop the problem one little bit…but I guess, out of sight, out of mind for some..
"Bernard Hickey wrote about this in January, suggesting that the Government could actually use this money to build up to 800,000 new homes: “Rent subsidies paid by the central government are forecast to rise from $2.6b last year to $4.2b by 2025. They have already risen from $1.9b over the last four years, Treasury figures show. Just as first home buyers use their rent to calculate how much they could afford to pay in interest, the Government could currently borrow over $400b with that $4.2b of rent subsidies. At $500,000 per dwelling, that $400b would ‘buy’ 800,000 new homes, which would be half the current housing stock of the entire country”
https://democracyproject.nz/2021/04/01/bryce-edwards-political-roundup-the-missing-part-of-the-govt-housing-package-state-builds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bryce-edwards-political-roundup-the-missing-part-of-the-govt-housing-package-state-builds
An excellent piece that highlights how woeful the Governments action (?) on state housing is (and has been)….why is the Government not ramping up its ability to directly build the housing needed or, if incapable ,at the very least directly contracting to the private sector a construction programme significantly larger than current?
Fear of success perhaps?
Yeah the rental subsidy has been out of control for a while.The government could build or subsidise young people to build a heck of a lot of assets with it. Personally I think in some of the smaller districts they could add up the amounts paid – work out how much to build to collapse the rental market and then move outwards in ever widening crcles.
except they dont wish to collapse the market….hence the constrained build programme
I think its a rort and I can only assume that the government, regardless of hue is complicit. Surely they must see what other see or are they so naive?
They see it..and are very afraid, It is largely the basis of our economy.
"Chris Penk-Simeon Brown Ticket"
April Fools Day joke…surprising the numbers- on a political blog- who didnt get it.
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April Fools got cancelled.
Oh the poor wee numpties:
I fell for it.
yes, its a good one too. just enough truth in it to be believable and make me click to if a couple of nobodies could roll a never was
Why do we need to tax the rental income of landlords? Why not make residential rental income rent free?
I know that today is April 1st, but the above comment is not made in the spirit of April Fools Day.
Owner-occupiers do not pay tax on the income imputed to them by dint of their living in their own homes. This income is essentially the rent that they save from doing so.
Landlords probably pass the tax on as part of the rent, so it just represents an additional burden on tenants, and is probably a form of 'double taxation' (a situation where two lots of tax are paid on the same income tranche).
It would also put to bed all the arguments flying about over the removal of interest deductibility.
You know, I don't get taxed on the hire fees I don't earn from not providing a taxi service using my car. Not that I'm complaining.
I don't think a automobile is deemed to be an investment. I suppose one has to draw the line somewhere between what are considered investments, and what are considered consumption. Houses for some reason are considered investments. I suppose it’s because they are eminently rentable.
Why not make rent payments tax deductible?
Why not make rent payments tax deductible?
The danger with that is that landlords, knowing that tenants are receiving a tax break, would see it as an opportunity to up the rent.
Because the higher the rent the more tax you can deduct and the more profit. I don't think this is a good idea.
Top policy was to put a value and charge tax the advantage people get from owner occupying over renting if memory serves me correctly.
It does serve you correctly. It was one of the more subtle and important policy ideas TOP had – yet totally misunderstood or ignored.
Problem was it did not account for people on lowish fixed incomes – they'd've been obliged to sell.
Every time someone brings up this objection – and you are by no means the first – I'm left wondering at the dishonesty of omitting that TOP explicitly covered this off by giving people the option of deferring the CCT until either the property was sold or passed on in an estate. Effectively converting it into a standard CGT or an Estate Tax. But either way they got to live in their home during their lifetime without a hit to their cash flow.
I've forgotten how many times I've typed that out now. Please don't make me do it again.
"did not account for people on lowish fixed incomes – they'd've been obliged to sell"
Quite. And they are most likely to be retired people who over their lifetime have had relatively limited financial resources and acquired only one home, which, when it went onto the market, would most likely be bought by someone with several.
My suggestion is pretty much based on the same principle, and may be more useful in the current climate.
Landlords probably pass the tax on as part of the rent,
Landlords cannot operate like the IRD taxing a tenants rent.
Is there a way to stop this?
Landlords cannot operate like the IRD taxing a tenants rent.
They don't actually tax tenants' rent. But I would assume that they tailor the rent that they charge so that it takes into account the amount of tax that they themselves are paying on that rent.
The first rule in business is to watch the cash flow.
Any increase in costs, such as this new tax, must be managed, either the profit is reduced, costs are reduced elsewhere or the price is raised – or some combination of both. What cannot happen is that the cash operating profit goes negative. In that case the shareholder must either add funds, or the business is insolvent.
This new tax will likely take some unknown fraction of landlords into negative cash flow territory. I know that it's taken us very close to it, and our mortgage is relatively low compared to what it used to be. If this had happened to us ten years ago we would have fallen over almost for certain.
So are tenants now going to be taxed by the landlord, if so the rent has to increase?
So are tenants now going to be taxed by the landlord, if so the rent has to increase?
This would not be the case if landlords' rental incomes were tax free.
Yeah but many landlords charge rent completely unrelated to their costs i.e. market rent.
My mother on NZS has just had her rent put up another $30-00 a week on the mortgage free unit because the "market" says so. Also landlords aren't business people in most senses of the word. They don't even get when the government puts subsidies up by $30-00 that it is a 70 cent in the dollar subsidy. So the $30-00 rent increase means at best the person gets only $21-00 and is now $9-00 poorer. Business people they are not. You might be but many are not – for a large number the relationship between cost and rent isn't that existent.
There are many….whether they are implemented however is a different question.
Consider….an investor buys a property 20 years ago with a 20% deposit and a $100k mortgage over 25 years…the mortgage outgoings including principal payment at current interest rates equate to around $100 pw…there are additional costs associated but they remain deductable,
What is the current market rent for that property?
Debt ratios are key.
A friend of mine owns 20 rental properties – she had 22 but assisted her tenants to buy them. She paid the mortgages off years ago and charges rents that are affordable and reasonable.
Market rent is like CEO's salaries – once they start going up the market says they have to keep going up. They become self-perpetuating. They then push the price up as the capital gain starts outweighing the actual value and we end up in a viscous cycle with the working class as pawns in the capitalist game.
I partly blame Christchurch where profiteering after the earthquake massively increased rents and emboldened rampant capitalism. That is when a rent freeze should have gone on.
It was happening long before the ChCh quakes….the rent rort post quakes in ChCh was driven by insurance money….it increased the ability to pay.
Disaster capitalism
There are several ways to do this. What I think you're going for is to take the costs and add a margin. But then every owner will have different costs based on their mortgage, and it would lead to odd outcomes – if for example the owner came into an inheritance or windfall and used it to pay down their borrowings, thus reducing their costs – would you argue for the rent to fall at the same time? Or if the same house was then sold to a new owner with a much larger mortgage – should the rent immediately rise to match?
That's not how virtually any business works.
What actually happens I think is that the 'market price' is set by the vendor with the highest marginal cost. It's a bit like the electricity market in this respect – total supply must always equal total demand – and during peak periods when the most expensive generator comes online (because it has to) then everyone else is paid the same price that this generator charges.
The residential rental market isn't quite so rigidly organised like this, plenty of landlords actually charge well below 'market'. The data that the Ministry of Housing publishes is only for new bonds, it doesn't track older established ones at all – which as a rule are lower than for new tenancies.
The other way to look at this is to consider what would happen if the owner simply sold the property and put the cash into a bank deposit. This would be considered the 'Minimum Risk Rate of Return", which by convention is set at 3%. So if we took your 20 yr old property that is probably now worth north of $750,000 that would equate to around $22kpa return before tax. If you're going to go to the hassle and risk of renting the house to someone you'd certainly want to do better than this. Consider that your fixed costs – rates, insurance, R&M, new compliance rules, and management fees etc – are going to be at least another $10kpa, this means you need a rental income of around $32kpa just to do better than putting the money in the bank. That's a rent in the order of $620pw.
This is pretty easy to work out for the property you live in, just go to qv.co.nz and enter your own address. Then do the numbers for yourself – it should give you a sense of what your minimum rent should be if your landlord was being economically rational.
And the investor that bought the property for 120K 20 years ago may well decide that original 20K investment that is now worth say 750K today is better off in a TD or somewhere else…thats for him or her to decide…the point is IF the investor has not increased his/her leverage the pressure to increase rents does not exist…..it is a choice.
Nope – you need to have a bit more of a think about it. What would happen if the market consisted of just two rentals – an old one with no mortgage that had fixed costs only say $200pw or a new one with borrowings that had a cost of $600pw? And each landlord charged enough just to cover these costs only?
And now consider there are only two tenants who can choose between them. Assume both houses are of similar desirability for the sake of the argument. Which one would they both want? The cheap one at $200pw of course. But only one can live in it, forcing the other to pay $600pw to live in the other one. Well the landlord charging only $200pw might be content with this situation, but what happens when demand increases and a third new tenant appears in this market?
Of course none of this addresses the current problems in the NZ housing market that go well beyond the dynamics of the rental market, which has existed since the year dot.
a lot of mental gymnastics going on there to attempt to refute the fact the original landlord has a choice….and none of it changes the fact he/she does.
the fact the original landlord has a choice
So the original landlord charging only $200pw retires and decides to sell to a new operator? One with a much larger mortgage.
The point is that you're essentially relying on the willingness of this person to leave $400pw on the table indefinitely. You may well have an opinion on the morality of this, but I think you can see that in the context of a real world market – it's just not a stable scenario.
The willingness or not of the investor to set their rent at whatever will depend on multiple factors…one being the quality of the tenant…it is financially advantageous to the investor to have a reliable trouble free tenant who may be able to afford a lesser amount than to risk a series of unsuitable tenants and vacancy periods….real world enough for you?
I know investors who operate on this basis and have done for years…a good long term tenant is worth their weight in gold.
But all of that aside the original comment was regarding landlords passing on the tax changes to tenants and my comment pointed out that there is no need for many investors to pass on costs as the carry little or no leverage, and have no financial pressure to do so…..and as stated previously, those that are excessively leveraged and operating a marginal investment have the option to rebalance or exit …..non viable businesses are wound up all the time.
If two farmers are producing the same crop, but one due to having some competitive advantage – better rainfall or management methods for example – has a lower cost of production, and demand equals or exceeds supply, do you think this farmer will sell at a lower cost than his neighbour? Of course not – that farmer sells at the same price and uses their competitive advantage to make a higher profit.
This is how all businesses work, why do you think residential rentals must be an exception?
The most important factors in determining the level of rent is:
– Size of mortgage to service
– Number of bedrooms
– Location
Quality of the tenant might help in terms of future rent increases, a little. I have one house which we haven't increased for three years because they are solid and there's zero debt on it.
There's two others, only one of which has a mortgage and it's small – we do review that annually.
Agree with you about the very marginal investors. They will now get out, or their banks will tell them hard to sell one or two and bring their position down, or the next time they go to their bank for a rollover they are going to get a reality check. That's a desired outcome from government policy.
@Ad..yes dont disagree with factors setting rent but for some reason RL wants to debate a self evident truth regarding financial pressure on low or zero leveraged investors.
And yes banks will be having some uncomfortable conversations.
my comment pointed out that there is no need for many investors to pass on costs as the carry little or no leverage, and have no financial pressure to do so
For any given net profit the landlord's tax payment will always appear in the rent that he charges, for example (for a net profit of $100 pw there are two ways that this can come about:
(a) At a tax rate of 33% the landlord will need to add $150 to his outgoings in setting the rent, or
(b) At a tax rate of zero he will need to add only $100 to his outgoings.
Actually there are more than two when one takes into account the fact that different landlords may be on different tax rates.
@Mike
I am talking about pressure, not profit/return.
Simplistic…in fact there are numerous determinants in crop sales and the price is seldom the same for all sellers or even for the same seller across the entire crop….and one critical factor is the relationship.
But obviously its important to you for some reason to convince yourself that all investors behave the same way when patently they dont and as said originally the investor has choice….or do wish to continue to deny that fact?
And as an after thought what happens to the dairy farmer whose cost of production exceeds the MS price?
Buyers don't care or even know about the cost structure of the producer. If two truckloads of turnips from two different farmers turn up at the produce market – then all other things being equal – they will sell at the same price. What actually sets the price on the day is the balance of supply and demand.
Introducing other factors is irrelevant to the argument here.
And as an after thought what happens to the dairy farmer whose cost of production exceeds the MS price?
Either they find a way to reduce their costs or they go out of business. Tough on that farmer but good for the economy as a whole because it tends to drive toward better productivity over time.
what happens to dairy farmers who's costs exceed the MS price is an unwelcome visit from the bank….much the same will be occurring with many investors who are over-leveraged.
And turnips?….lmao..youre a funny guy
Great so what you've finally concluded – which is what I said days ago – is that as over-leveraged landlords exit the market the supply of rentals will go down. At a time when there is already a shortage of rentals this is only likely to put upward pressure on rents.
The argument that ex-rentals automatically become first homes is flawed because it assumes that ex-tenants are all going to become first home buyers just because they want to. What happens in reality is a lot more messy than this.
Have you been drinking?….you are arguing with yourself.
Go back and read what I wrote.
Aye but you're arguing that the market rent by necessity must be $600-00 per week because the most leveraged "investor" determines he market price. In you scenario both tenants would pay $600-00.
"Well the landlord charging only $200pw might be content with this situation, but what happens when demand increases and a third new tenant appears in this market?"
The landlord charging $200-00 might be even happier because they know that they are providing good support to someone even though demand has increased.
The rate of return argument is financial trickery to justify such financial rorting. It also becomes self perpetuating as values increase – I must charge this much because I could otherwise do this. The classic paradigm of knowing the price of something but the value of nothing.
It's nonsense pretending their is a strong relationship between rental income and cost. The fact that so many properties are actually untenanted – if the relationship was as strong as you suggest then you would not be rational to have a property untenanted. Plenty of landlords are content to have this occur.
Market rents like much of economics is filling an emotional response by landlords. It is nice couching economics in notions of rational players but that notion is a pretence.
It's why things have to be regulated.
The landlord charging $200-00 might be even happier because they know that they are providing good support to someone even though demand has increased.
This indeed is the position we are in. If I was to achieve the same return from my rents as selling up and putting the money into a 3% TD, I would have to increase them all across the board by $160pw.
Sustaining this position is a choice. Up until now I've been reasonably happy to accept a relatively modest cash operating profit because I could anticipate doing better once the mortgage was paid down. Plus indeed we did see it as a social good.
Well both of those conditions are now off the table, this govt has now added a new tax that reduces our cash operating flow to zero and has openly told us that what we are doing is no longer considered of any social benefit.
So either we increase the rent or do something else. Probably the latter.
I'm by no means a big financy guy, but it seems to me and rando calculator site that a landlord owning a $120k house that is now $750k after 20 years that the landlord already has a calculated return of 9% per annum.
Sure, let's say the saint will never sell. Sunk cost is $120k (plus interest on the mortgage that is now paid off), with ongoing rates and maybe a margin for projected maintenance (piles, drains, etc). That's if they're people who are genuinely providing a public service with no thought of profit, just the costs being covered. Not that private ownership is necessarily the best model for that, I'd suggest a trust or charity as an instrument for community rent provision.
But none of that has anything to do with market rates. That's a function of supply and demand. Housing shortage, so it's down to how much individuals can afford to pay before they're living rough.
Many landlords will be somewhere between those two extremes. Some might well be practically a housing service. #notAllLandlords is the problem with that charitable view, though.
@McFlock
Persisting in pretending there is no difference between cash flow and capital gain really disqualifies you from any honest participation in this conversation.
As for your idea that the market can run purely on a not-for-profit charity model, runs afoul of the fact that sooner or later those charities will have to renew their stock, and find the funds to do this. In the long run they have to operate commercially on pretty much the same basis as private operators do.
And then most private operators make relatively low cash operating profit, the difference between them and a ‘not for profit’ charity amounts to sfa.
You're the one saying the current capital value has anything to do with cashflow on a house bought 20 years ago.
If someone buys a house as a public service, the only costs are the costs of purchase (incl mortgage) and ongoing costs like rates and maintenance. And they don't have to "renew their stock" if they maintain the house.
Houses in NZ have about an 80yr economic life. This means that roughly 1.25% of them must be replaced every year just to keep pace with existing stock, much less meet a growing population. In my lifetime NZ has roughly doubled it's population.
And just about anything older than 50yrs no longer meets modern expectations, and needs substantial investment.
So in reality your 'housing charity' has to keep either replacing or adding to it's stock – at current market prices – in order to stay in the game. And it cannot do this on fresh air.
Many years back we were involved in Habitat for Humanity in the Wgtn area, essentially the kind of housing charity you have in mind. Once we got involved at the board level we had to be schooled in this lesson the hard way.
"At Habitat for Humanity Australia, we believe in helping low-income families achieve the dream of building and owning their own home."
"To date Habitat for Humanity Australia has built more than 160 homes in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland."
Habitat for Humanity and land Lords – not so different?
My (one and only) home is ~60 years old; it may not meet modern expectations but it (still) meets mine, and I’ve never had a complaint from occasional visitors.
So we have an arc in capital value that a well-maintained house goes from 120k to 750k @20 years to $0 at 50 years? I mean, bollocks, but even if it were true you could find that fiscal sweet spot.
Because they don't need to create a house from thin air, if the objective is to not lose money they can sell the old one and buy a new one using the increased capital value. And a landlord renewing their stock is renewing their capital assets.
But of course any landlord would be lucky to be in the business for 50 years, anyway – one reason to go to a longer term structure than personal ownership.
@DMK
Well like McFlock when we first started with H4H we too thought like he did, but it turned out we were quite wrong. A couple of older and more experienced members had to be quite sharp with us over it.
And H4H is not even a rental charity. That would be closer to the Masterton Community Trust model, and even that very well established entity charges rents that are not all that much lower than the private market in the same town. Certainly they don't hold their rents static for 20 years as McFlock would have them do.
Are rates and maintenance static for decades?
As for "not all that much lower", that difference is still significant for the people who rent it, so "not all that much" is a relative term.
There are several ways to do this. What I think you're going for is to take the costs and add a margin. But then every owner will have different costs based on their mortgage, and it would lead to odd outcomes – if for example the owner came into an inheritance or windfall and used it to pay down their borrowings, thus reducing their costs – would you argue for the rent to fall at the same time? Or if the same house was then sold to a new owner with a much larger mortgage – should the rent immediately rise to match?
Differing tax rates also come into it. A landlord on a 17.5% tax rate can afford to charge a lower rent and still make the same net profit as a landlord on a 33% rate
“It’s a bit like the electricity market in this respect – total supply must always equal total demand – and during peak periods when the most expensive generator comes online (because it has to) then everyone else is paid the same price that this generator charges.”
This is why the Labour Party's single seller proposal, of earlier years, may have been a good idea. At peak times electricity could be sold, by a single seller, at an average price. A 'single seller' arrangement, however, would obviously not be appropriate in the residential rental market; mortgages, and landlords' tax rates (as pointed out above), would be disorienting factors. This is why mortgages and differential tax rates should not be factors in determining rents. Fairly stable, and equal (after factoring in differences in the quality of the dwelling) rents would seem to be desirable.
Influences due to differences in tax rates could be avoided if the same tax rate was applied to all rental income – I would suggest 0% ), but I think the influence of mortgage payments could only be avoided by removing them from rent determinations altogether. this latter suggestion would make sense since mortgages should be the landlords' responsibility in any case.
PS: If there was a CGT in place the fact that mortgages, including their interest component, are capital expenditure would suggest that the aggregate unclaimed interest might be considered deductible against a capital gain.
This is practice in a few US States, though it seems to be widely seen as an un-natural tax distortion there and is understood to have elevated house prices.
In considering this I think too much emphasis can easily be put on the differentials and incentives (between occupiers and investors or between landlord renter) and not enough on how much borrowing can be accrued against housing which appears more important to pricing.
The problem is that councils now reclaim all of the cost of supplying services to new sections in the first year not over a 30-50 year span from rates as used to be the case. The 4 billion spend announced last week was specifically to negate this practice for goverment builds.
Thats why sections are so bloody expensive.
Penk and Simian. Very droll. Two April Fools.
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https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/439646/sir-ron-brierley-pleads-guilty-to-possessing-child-sexual-abuse-material
Reminds me of the Jewish theme of the song 'If I Was a Rich Man' of what he would do. One who lives the ethical life, with little indulgences!
'Dear God, you made many, many poor people.
I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor.
But it's no great honor either!
So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?'
If I were a rich man,…
And then –
I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show.
I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For the town to see and hear.
And each loud 'cheep' and 'swaqwk' and 'honk' and 'quack'
Would land like a trumpet on the ear,
As if to say 'Here lives a wealthy man.'
But then –
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise.
'If you please, Reb Tevye…'
'Pardon me, Reb Tevye…'
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know!
https://genius.com/Topol-if-i-were-a-rich-man-lyrics
Yay Patea Maori Club – symbol of the phoenix rising for all NZ.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/nat-music/audio/2018789866/patea-maori-club-announced-as-recipient-of-taite-music-prize-imnz-classic-record-2021
Only took 38 years to come up with the award. The song, and it was a great one, dates from 1983.
It is almost as bad as the Nobel Prize is getting. The 2013 Physics Prize, was awarded for work on the Higgs mechanism. The theoretical work had been done in 1964, half a century earlier.
Less government, less regulation, more business and more profit. Well that recipe seems to work well.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018789809/amazon-s-influence-in-america
The withering of anti-trust laws which allowed for the rise of behemoth companies started in the 1970s, MacGillis says, and then really intensified in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan.
“We’re now still experiencing that very lax approach to anti-trust which has helped abet the growth of these giants. To put it crudely, all sorts of business activity which used to be spread around the country in various sectors of the economy is now increasingly dominated by a handful of companies and that commerce, activity, and wealth is sucked into the places where they reside.”
And what about someone touting for a Silicon Valley here? It will cause as much problem as silicone breast implants did – look good to begin with and then the effects start body deterioration. Has this bloke got eye augmentation?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124699041/nasa-chief-scientist-says-nz-should-become-a-worldwide-silicon-valley
Great fun – thanks. At the moment any laugh is better than none.
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Years ago, on April 1 the ODT had two front page articles that to me seemed equally farcical. It turned out that the monorail from Otago to fiordland was a real proposal.
Thought I'd submitted my appreciative comment (@4:39 pm) to the post: National Party leadership spill under way post (Categories: humour), but must have put it somewhere else by mistake – apologies.
Must be awful to lose one’s sense of humour; worse than losing the sense of smell imho
It is one of the symptoms of Covid-19 infection.
Something stinks at Immigration NZ
Are we concerned about public confidence should we investigate properly?
Or will we get the victims out of the country and then wring our hands over 'lack of evidence'?
Getting the victims out asap appears to be the plan…a good iteration of the three wise monkeys appears under way.
I've been listening to the musical Chess, The writers have done a clever piece about the Russian applying for asylum to smug Brit embassy immigration johnnies.
Embassy Lament
Oh my dear how boring
He's defecting
Just like all the others
He's expecting
Us to be impressed with what he's done here
But he hasn't stopped to think about the paperwork his gesture causes…
Have you an appointment
With the consul?
If you don't we know what his response'll
Be, he will not see you, with respect it
Buggers up his very taxing schedule…
https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+lyrics+chess+embassy+lament
When Collins gets the old heave ho she should take a short while, resign her seat then go and try to do something useful. It’ll be after April 1st.
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Surely Resigning would be the most useful thing she could do?
I am talking about pressure, not profit/return.
I know. I was pointing out that as long as the make a net profit, that the tax on that profit gets transferred to the tenant as part of his rent, regardless of the lack of pressure.