Open Mike 03/06/2018

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 3rd, 2018 - 211 comments
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211 comments on “Open Mike 03/06/2018 ”

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  1. AsleepWhileWalking 1
    3 June 2018 at 6:18 am

    So…is a loan income?

    When is the result of the court case out or did I miss it?

    • AsleepWhileWalking 1.1
      3 June 2018 at 6:25 am

      https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/about-msd/our-responsibilities/prosecution-policy.html

      The decision maker has a duty to ensure that the exercising of the discretion to decide which cases will or will not be referred for prosecution is consistent. The public and offenders have a right to know under what circumstances they can expect to be prosecuted for welfare fraud.

      The decision maker must be mindful that a criminal prosecution may risk injustice. A crime may well have been committed, but in weighing the overall circumstances of the facts and the human being involved, referral to the criminal courts may not be warranted.

      The decision maker must be equally mindful that a decision not to prosecute may well invite criticism and condemnation from the public. The exercising of discretion must therefore be open to analysis and satisfy the scrutiny of all stakeholders.

      • greywarshark 1.1.1
        3 June 2018 at 12:15 pm

        The ‘decision-maker’ has a lot judgments to make. Is he or she capable of making fair and informed decisions?

        And stakeholders. Are they thinking ‘steakholders’ while they discuss grilling the welfare beneficiary, sort of flaying and tenderising the living body they are
        willing to consider sacrificing. Just a bit of meat that needs dealing to.

  2. gsays 2
    3 June 2018 at 6:23 am

    Well the DHBs have shot themselves in the foot.

    The tactic of suggesting nurses will be on $93,000 with the wage offer on the table, has motivated and angered a work force.

    • AsleepWhileWalking 2.1
      3 June 2018 at 6:30 am

      https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/104290253/nurses-accuse-district-health-boards-of-dirty-tactics-over-93000-claim

      Nurses planning to strike over pay have accused district health boards (DHBs) of misleading the public by saying nurses could earn $93,000 a year under the revised pay deal.

      A nurse would need to work fulltime, plus weekends, nights and do overtime to earn that much, their union says.

      But DHBs stand by the figure, saying it is based on what experienced fulltime nurses earn on average now.

      • dukeofurl 2.1.1
        3 June 2018 at 6:58 am

        Isnt publicizing a full time wage a good idea ?
        And dont hospitals work 24/7, so most will be doing some shift work.

        of course its really about the public perception.

        • One Anonymous Bloke 2.1.1.1
          3 June 2018 at 7:21 am

          Of course it’s a great idea to get your spin to the media before you bring it to the negotiating table. What could possibly go wrong? Isn’t that what good faith is really all about?

          • dukeofurl 2.1.1.1.1
            3 June 2018 at 7:41 am

            “the scenario was based on the average earnings of all registered nurses currently employed at the top pay scale – which was about half the total workforce.”
            Who knew that those overworked/underpaid nurses were only part time ? Pleeeese. Those on struggle street will not be impressed, including people I know.

            negotiating in the media ?
            ‘It’s one of nearly 30 public statements made by the union this year alone – more than half of which are related to the pay negotiations.

            The Nurses are shouting the details of the ‘unfair’ offer from the rooftops too.!

            Wheres my hanky?

            • One Anonymous Bloke 2.1.1.1.1.1
              3 June 2018 at 8:28 am

              Affecting to be a mouthpiece for “struggle street”? 😆

              Your hanky’s in your hand, polishing away at that turd.

              • dukeof url …
                3 June 2018 at 9:10 am

                While you are blowing the trumpet for well paid graduates, whats next University staff ?
                You wouldnt know the world of those on under $20 per hour

                Ask the Unite union about their members struggles

                And your flag waving about POAL was pointless, it was completely different, they were using private detectives to follow union leaders and were actually found in breach of good faith by the employment court- not for using the media but for employing contract workers to replace their employees. As a side issue their dispute wasnt about pay, generous by normal standards, so much as job protection.
                Your claims have the hint of a chardonnay socialist about them.

                • One Anonymous Bloke …
                  3 June 2018 at 11:22 am

                  I didn’t say anything about POAL. Keep polishing.

                • alwyn …
                  3 June 2018 at 1:09 pm

                  The University staff at Auckland are apparently very unhappy.
                  Reading the story makes it obvious why.
                  Why don’t all the Academic staff get the perks of the Vice-Chancellor and the Faculty Deans?
                  https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/104409870/university-of-auckland-spent-33432-on-exclusive-northern-club-membership
                  Next thing they will be wanting to be treated like MPs and get their Koru Club membership paid. They might even want to be like our Parliamentary Ministers and get tax-payer provided Luxury Limo’s to cart them around.
                  Poor fellows.

                  • Incognito …
                    3 June 2018 at 7:31 pm

                    That was a weak article full of PR statements and irrelevant distractions for full emotive impact.

                    The standout sentence was the one by Enzo on the corporate culture in the university but this was nothing new.

                    Alwyn, what information do you have to support your statement?

                    The University staff at Auckland are apparently very unhappy.
                    Reading the story makes it obvious why.

                    • alwyn …
                      3 June 2018 at 9:04 pm

                      I assumed that the Union Official was telling the truth. Was that a mistake and he was simply making it all up?

                      “Tertiary Education Union spokesman Enzo Giordani said the spending was “a bad look”.
                      “More than the money, it actually symbolises how the university hierarchy works.
                      “It symbolises a culture of a very corporate atmosphere at the top of the food chain.
                      “The further on down the food chain you go we’ve got staff who aren’t happy at all.”

                      Was he making it all up? Is the last sentence wrong and the staff are happy that their betters live so well?
                      Are you by chance a senior member of the Administrative hierarchy at the University and well up the food chain?

                  • Incognito …
                    3 June 2018 at 9:16 pm

                    It sounded like you had heard it somewhere else and that the linked article confirmed it for you. But it seems you were taking it all from one and the same link, which almost sounded like a circular argument. I guess it is because of the way you articulated it that I may have misunderstood you or maybe not …

                • KJT …
                  4 June 2018 at 12:19 pm

                  The POAL dispute was about “casualisation” of Labour.

                  I.E. No one has any idea from day to day whether they are working or not. And have to sit by the phone 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
                  With the knowledge that the first time they refuse a shift, they go down the bottom of the list for next time.

                  But. I don’t expect a right winger to understand, that people may want to spend set times, doing fun things with their families.

            • Wayne 2.1.1.1.1.2
              3 June 2018 at 10:32 am

              The unions are also guilty of the same exaggerations.

              Like suggesting starting salaries for teachers are $42,000. While that figure is in the scale, in practise it does not apply because it is for an unqualified teacher without a degree. Teachers with degrees (which is all of them) actually start on $48,000.

              Similarly the suggestion that teachers and nurses did not get pay increases in the last 9 years. Simply not true. At the minimum their salaries kept up with inflation, but typically they increased 2 to 2.5% per year, which was about 1% above inflation.

              It was inevitable that once Labour was in office that public sector unions would go for 10 to 20% wage increases, because the unions know that Labour will agree to at least 10%. That is going to seriously affect government accounts, since over 70 % of core govt expenses are wages and salaries. You can’t keep giving out 10%+ salary increases in an economy that is growing at 3%, without it having a serious effect on govt accounts. After all the govt income (tax receipts) is not increasing by 10% per year. It can only do so if they increase taxes, which they have said they will not do.

              In addition the increase in the minimum wage to $20 an hour (a 25% increase) to about the highest in the world, plus the effect on overall wage demands in the private sector, will harm productivity and economic growth. These are the reasons why the business sector is depressed. They know that govt giving 10%+ wage increases, pretty much across the board, is going to seriously affect the overall cost of doing business in New Zealand.

              Not that Standardnistas would care. The sooner the private sector falters, the better. So it is all going to plan.

              • Stuart Munro …
                3 June 2018 at 10:39 am

                Odd that your faux concern about wages never extended to containing cost of living. Or it would be were you sincere.

                • David Mac …
                  3 June 2018 at 10:53 am

                  Inflation at 1%? I’m sure there are some statistics that support that figure, for example new car prices might be relatively stable.

                  But…back in the real world. If I spend 50% of my income on rent and I’ve had a 10% rent rise this year, straight off the bat, half of my expenditure is running at 5% inflation.

                  If I’m paying $400 rent a week and inflation is running at 1%….there is no reasonably priced new car in my drive and my rent is going up beyond $404 a week.

                  • Wayne …
                    3 June 2018 at 11:38 am

                    David Mac,

                    Yes, there are figure to support the 1% inflation. From Statistics NZ with their official inflation numbers.

                    You are correct that the 1% does not apply to each individual, since each individual’s circumstances are different. For instance, there are many tenants whose rents hardly change from year to year. I know several people who have been renting properties to the same individuals for many years. The rent barely changes because the landlord wants to keep the tenant.

                    As I am sure you know Stats NZ aggregates everything across the board. And in recent years inflation has been between 0.8% and 2%.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      3 June 2018 at 11:48 am

                      Accommodation inflation doesn’t exist because you have imaginary friends and some anecdata? Glad that’s sorted.

                      No, wait, I’ve got it: your “mates” are the National Party, supplying accommodation to National Party MPs…

                      In any event, your self-serving lies don’t carry water: housing inflation can be seen with the naked eye, sleeping on the streets.

                    • Ed …
                      3 June 2018 at 12:35 pm

                      Stop pretending you care about the people Wayne.

                    • David Mac …
                      3 June 2018 at 1:36 pm

                      Geez Wayne, (Ha, we’re old enough to accept that line as NZ Popular Culture.) hand on heart, do you believe that number?

                      I’m like most of us. My money goes on housing, food, utilities, transport, clothing.

                      When I tally up those bills and their rate of inflation…it’s nothing like 1% and if it is for you, how the hell are you doing that?

                      I see Bookabach are about to raise their owner commission due from 4% to 6.7%.

                    • KJT …
                      4 June 2018 at 12:21 pm

                      If you don’t count housing costs.

                      And refuse to account for the fact that necessities, especially the stuff that poorer people buy, such as power and food have gone up much more than 1% for them.

                      How much have politicians, and public service Managers, pay gone up in the same time, again?

                      But, of course. “We had too much equality”.

              • millsy …
                3 June 2018 at 10:45 am

                So bascially you are opposed to workers getting pay rises, and that you think wagea should be at Indian and Chinese levels. And unions should be banned too.

                • David Mac …
                  3 June 2018 at 11:09 am

                  I fear wage rises by themselves will achieve little. What’s important is the buying power of each dollar. A million dollars is of little use when that’s the price of a loaf of bread.

                  eg: Just as night follows day, a Govt announcement that accom supplements are getting an increase, rents will rise. If nurses get 10%, watch training, union fees, parking and uniform costs follow suit.

                  Perhaps something like downward trending rents is the wage increase we should be aiming for. If 100,000 houses magically appeared in NZ tomorrow we’d all be $100 a week better off without applying the same fuel for inflation as income increases do.

                • Wayne …
                  3 June 2018 at 11:59 am

                  I am opposed to 10%+ increases for the state sector across the board, because as soon as one union gets that so does every other state sector union. Such increases are not justifiable in an economy that has 3% growth.

                  Maybe there is a case for any Auckland allowance given the much higher cost of housing in Auckland than elsewhere in NZ. The UK has done this for years with the London allowance.

                  • Ed …
                    3 June 2018 at 12:36 pm

                    Stop pretending Wayne.

                  • millsy …
                    3 June 2018 at 12:51 pm

                    So you are opposed to worker getting higher wages then?

                  • Pat …
                    3 June 2018 at 3:27 pm

                    “I am opposed to 10%+ increases for the state sector across the board, because as soon as one union gets that so does every other state sector union. Such increases are not justifiable in an economy that has 3% growth”

                    Good grief man…are you unable to help yourself?…you infer the wage increase is annual when it clearly is not.

                    But then even a 10% increase (or 6.6% if you really want that CEO bonus) once a decade will still keep real wages falling eh Wayne?

                  • cleangreen …
                    3 June 2018 at 7:12 pm

                    Wayne Mapp said:
                    “I am opposed to 10%+ increases for the state sector across the board, ”
                    Well wayne i recalll as MPs often get a 10% wage se arind MP’s never turn it down!!!!!!

              • Pat …
                3 June 2018 at 11:15 am

                “Similarly the suggestion that teachers and nurses did not get pay increases in the last 9 years. Simply not true. At the minimum their salaries kept up with inflation, but typically they increased 2 to 2.5% per year, which was about 1% above inflation.”

                Try 6.6% over 9 years Wayne with a CPI increase of 24%….heres a link for the chronically disingenuous and mathematically challenged (such as yourself)

                https://rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator

                “A nurse on the lowest pay scale gets $47,528 a year, up from $44,562 in 2009. Those on the highest grade earn $64,163, up from $60,159”

                https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/67369483/nurses-public-servants-waging-war-for-better-pay

                That base salary of $44,562 would be now be $55,500 at the rate of inflation….not $47,500

                • wayne …
                  3 June 2018 at 11:55 am

                  Pat,

                  Stats NZ has inflation from 2011 to 2017 at 8% in aggregate. Most years the rate per quarter is 0.25%, with some above and some below.

                  • Pat …
                    3 June 2018 at 12:01 pm

                    Wayne,

                    Are you seriously suggesting that the RBNZ dont know how to calculate compounding inflation?

                    • Pat …
                      3 June 2018 at 3:10 pm

                      “I still think inflation for the period 2008 Q4 to 2107 Q4 will not be 24%, even with a compounding effect. There is not much compounding with just over 1% annual inflation for most of the period.”

                      Your ‘thinks’ are quite wrong Wayne….the RBNZ calculator will provide you with the following

                      A Q1 2009 -Q1 2018 percentage change of 24.6%

                      A compound annual average rate of 2.5% (not your just over 1)

                      and a decline in purchasing power of 19.7%

                      Describing you as chronically disingenuous is perhaps too kind

                  • Herodotus …
                    3 June 2018 at 1:40 pm

                    You quite conveniently change from 2008-2017 in your original statement to now comparing 2011-2107. Did you know that for the period 2008Q1-2011Q1 inflation was 10%
                    https://rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator
                    Interesting that none of your statements I can see are backed up with any supporting references or links.
                    And with this 2011-17, a 7 year period and from my days at school. 8% inflation over 7 years, averages out just of 1% p.a.
                    Pinocchio would be embarrassed with such statements.

                    • Wayne …
                      3 June 2018 at 2:14 pm

                      National was in office from 2008 Q4. Yes, I did see the Reserve Bank inflation deflator. I still think inflation for the period 2008 Q4 to 2107 Q4 will not be 24%, even with a compounding effect. There is not much compounding with just over 1% annual inflation for most of the period.

                      The 2010 inflation figure is influenced by the change in GST from 12.5% to 15%. But in term of wages claims, that was fully offset by income tax reductions, which were concentrated at the middle and lower brackets. In short after the GST change, the purchasing power of wages and salaries remained the same.

                      There are actually two sets of tax cuts under National. The first round early in 2009, both to honour a campaign commitment and to stimulate demand during the GFC, and a second round in 2010 which increased GST and reduced income taxes to the same extent. The reason being the GST is a more efficient means of collection (hard to avoid) and income tax reductions tend to boost demand.

                      As I noted the main income tax reductions in the second round was in the low and middle bands, because the first round had focused on the top rate, reducing it from 39% to 33%.

                    • KJT …
                      4 June 2018 at 12:35 pm

                      Be honest Wayne. The increase in GST and decrease in top tax rates, was simply a tax switch from the well off, to the lowest incomes paying more tax.

                • alwyn …
                  3 June 2018 at 4:10 pm

                  Did you bother to look at the date of the story you linked to Pat?
                  The one that talked about nurses on $47,528?
                  That story was published more than 3 years ago and the figures being quoted were for late 2014.
                  If you are going to quote inflation for 9 years why don’5t you do the same for pay?

                  • Pat …
                    3 June 2018 at 4:34 pm

                    oh fuck off Alwyn…how many pay rises have the nurses had since 2016?…zero!.. so the data is contemporary

                    • alwyn …
                      3 June 2018 at 6:34 pm

                      “how many pay rises have the nurses had since 2016?…zero!.. so the data is contemporary”.
                      Really? The person who wrote this article for Stuff, and is classed as a “Reader” rather than a reporter clearly doesn’t think so. The way the story reads I would guess it is written by someone in the field.

                      “Let me stop and tell you what a nurse’s wage is. Currently a starting nurse’s salary is $49,449 gross”.
                      http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/102513518/nurses-feel-undervalued-underpaid-unsafe-and-unsupported

                      That, my friend, is “contemporary”. It was published on 5 April, 2018.
                      It may not be that much more than the number you propose, which I would remind you was $47,528 but at 4% greater it is clearly not a ZERO raise from the old figures you came out with?

                      In the vernacular that you seem to be used to I propose that you should fuck off Pat.
                      Come back when you actually learns some facts about the topic.

                  • Pat …
                    3 June 2018 at 6:51 pm

                    “If you are going to quote inflation for 9 years why don’5t you do the same for pay?”

                    Your link….”The latest offer on the table for nurses was a two per cent pay increase amongst DHBs in New Zealand. Now, two per cent sounds about right with inflation right? Sure it does – but not when you take into account that for the previous nine years, they’ve been averaging 1.5 per cent increases per year, a sum less than inflation, less than the private sector, and less than the minimum wage”

                    The last increment in the nurses 2014 pay agreement (the first since 2006) was in July 2016…which took it to the $49k figure

                    https://www.nzno.org.nz/get_involved/campaigns/dhb_meca_2017/meca_ratification_information#Wage%20and%20salary%20increases

                    I’ll leave with the original comment in the thread from Wayne
                    “Similarly the suggestion that teachers and nurses did not get pay increases in the last 9 years. Simply not true. At the minimum their salaries kept up with inflation, but typically they increased 2 to 2.5% per year, which was about 1% above inflation.”

                    Take your own advice…”Come back when you actually learns some facts about the topic.”

              • dv …
                3 June 2018 at 11:32 am

                Re teachers Wayne
                So how come there are
                More than 17,000 students without teachers due to nationwide shortage

                https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/01/more-than-17-000-students-without-teachers-due-to-nationwide-shortage.html

                Is pay part of the problem ya reckon?

              • Sacha …
                3 June 2018 at 1:07 pm

                “if they increase taxes, which they have said they will not do”

                Nice try. There are a specific few types of tax that this govt has promised not to increase, in this first term only.

                “the increase in the minimum wage to $20 an hour (a 25% increase) to about the highest in the world, plus the effect on overall wage demands in the private sector, will harm productivity and economic growth.”

                Successive govts have been using minimum wages, WFF, and Accommodation supplement to paper over the unsustainable low wage economy we have created.

                Company owners have trousered most of the productivity gains over the past few decades. They must be shared more fairly with workers who will actually spend it into local economies. The quality of NZ’s management and governance functions must also be increased to allow better economic productivity and performance. That may increase the cost of doing business but it’s the only way out of this hole.

                • alwyn …
                  3 June 2018 at 9:18 pm

                  You really are reversing history aren’t you Sacha? Very naughty of you.
                  You say here
                  ” There are a specific few types of tax that this govt has promised not to increase, in this first term only”

                  That is of course the exact reverse in meaning of what Grant Robertson promised. He, said that there were a few, already announced, increases they would make but that NOTHING else would be increased. To be precise he said
                  “”To avoid any doubt, no one will be affected by any tax changes arising from the outcomes of the Working Group until 2021. There will be no new taxes or levies introduced in our first term of government beyond those we have already announced.”

                  “No new taxes or levies beyond those already announced”
                  https://www.labour.org.nz/labour_committed_to_fair_and_progressive_tax_system
                  Still, since the election we have seen that Labour’s word wasn’t to be trusted, haven’t we?

              • Herodotus …
                3 June 2018 at 1:09 pm

                Wayne’s our comments don’t hold to be 100%
                Inflation between oct 08 to Dec 2017 was 15%
                https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator
                For primary teachers step 14 was $66,327 in July 08
                In 2017it was $75,949an incease of 14%. Perhaps the infomation was not know to you when you made this uninformed statement of”typically they increased by 2.5%” nothing wrong with mis infomation eh 😜
                https://www.education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/publications/education-circulars/2008-circulars/circular-200803-settlement-of-primary-teachers-and-primary-principals-ca/

                • Wayne …
                  3 June 2018 at 2:27 pm

                  Herodotus,

                  This set of figures you have now got is correct.

                  As I noted above the increase in GST in 2010 (which is reflected in inflation) was not a factor in wage and salary negotiations, because it was fully compensated for by income tax reductions in the same tax package. That was accepted at the time, even by Labour. Their main grievance was over the first round of tax cuts in 2009. That package, which reversed Helen Clark’s to tax rate increase, was fulfilling a specific campaign promise.

                  As for minimum wages, I think an annual increase of around 50 to 75 c is reasonable. That would be between 3 and 5% per year. To get to $20 requires annual increases of 7%. That will affect prices, especially in the retail sector.

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    3 June 2018 at 2:43 pm

                    it was fully compensated for

                    Stop lying, you mendacious wretch.

                    GST rise will hurt poor the most…

                    • babayaga …
                      3 June 2018 at 3:49 pm

                      OAB when you critique someones opinion with such personal rhetoric, you can expect to be treated with equal disdain.

                      Your reference is an article written in January 2010. The first sentence reads “Raising GST to 15 per cent would…” WOULD. That should have been a clue. The GST increase did not take effect until October 2010.

                      Then, later…

                      “But Professor Bob Buckle, the economist who chaired the tax working group, said yesterday the Government should cut income tax rates on low incomes, as well as high incomes, to compensate for raising GST. ”

                      You do realise that is exactly what the government of the day DID do? In other words you had a personal pot shot at Wayne, and then used an opinion of an economist given in ignorance of the actual policy to support your argument.

                      Now go sit in the corner old chap.

                      [lprent: Yep they cut the annual tax for lower income incomes by a small percentage of income, by just a few percent. But they cut the higher tax brackets by a LARGE percentage of income something like 6%. The people in higher tax brackets also got ALL of the tax reductions for the lower tax brackets.

                      Plus since people on lower income tax brackets have less financial room for avoiding sales taxes like GST through capital gain loopholes like rental properties, financial transactions and overseas holidays, the full effect of the GST fell on them, while a much smaller percentage fell on higher income groups. This isn’t hard to look up.

                      The nett effect was that they increased total tax on people with their top income being in the lower tax brackets, while massively reducing the taxes on those who were in the previous 39% tax bracket.

                      If you want to deliberately lie, then do it elsewhere where it is tolerated. Next time I see you do it, then I will start handing out long bans for pushing faux facts.]

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    3 June 2018 at 2:49 pm

                    Whatare you basing your assertions about the Min. wage on? No, wait, you’re just telling more lies.

                    Seattle’s minimum-wage hike didn’t boost supermarket prices…

                    If we matched Seattle’s percentage increase, we’d be at $25 p/h by 2020. I’m sure you have some lies to tell us about that, too.

                    • Wayne …
                      3 June 2018 at 3:31 pm

                      OAB

                      Stop your insults, which seems to be your main form of argument. Try and be an adult.

                      Most of your rebuttal is actually just another opinion.

                      And I know the government, including officials put a lot of work into ensuring that the GST rise was compensated for. Benefit rates were increased, tax rates were cut.

                    • lprent []
                      3 June 2018 at 5:18 pm

                      Oh come on Wayne. That old horseshit again?

                      Sure that was what Bill English and his PR team said. However it isn’t what anyone credible said would happen. And I defy you to show ANYTHING economically credible to indicate that it was income neutral in lower income brackets or that a decade on that it has made anyone in those bracket’s lives better. The ever increasing number of beggars littered around most shopping centres and the continued demands on food banks doesn’t show it. Nor does anything else.

                      There is no evidence that they succeeded and I’d say that there is no evidence that they were trying to do anything except benefit the already affluent.

                    • alwyn …
                      3 June 2018 at 3:47 pm

                      I wondered why you talked about “percentage increase” in the minimum wage rather than the actual value and the percentage that was of the average wage in the area.
                      The level the minimum wage was raised to was $13.00/hour. At that time the average wage in the area was $31.42. Thus, as a percentage of the average wage the value they had gone up to when this study was done was about 41%.
                      The current New Zealand average wage is about $31.03. With a minimum wage of $16.50 we have a percentage of 53%. An increase to $20 would be a percentage of 64% and $25 would be 80%.
                      The New Zealand minimum is already, comparatively, much higher than the US and you want it to be double the US value?

                      You remind me of the caricature of a Union leader. He wasn’t going to be happy until everyone in the country had an above average income.

                      By the way, did you notice that the article you referenced made no mention of what the people were being paid? If it was well above the minimum wage it is quite possible that increasing the minimum would have no effect on their pay.

                      I doubt if the increases we get in the minimum wage has any effect on the cost of hiring a QC as your lawyer.

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    3 June 2018 at 5:03 pm

                    @Alwyn: Seattle’s wage was raised by 36% in two years.

                    Which would bring ours to $22.44 by 2020. I had my sums wrong earlier because I thought they’d gone to $15 rather than $13.

                    @Wayne: I don’t believe you. National Party MPs and ministers have a history of telling lies and evading their personal responsibility for the effects of their policies upon other citizens. The buck always stops with someone else. Paula Bennett and HNZ. Coleman and your shit-enhanced hospital walls. Guy and M. Bovis. To name but three.

                    I’m a private citizen. I don’t owe you any respect unless you can prove your worth, and to a large extent, you’ve done precisely the opposite.

                    So unless you can produce peer-reviewed evidence (preferably a meta analysis) of your assertions, I’m going to treat you as yet another lazy incompetent shepherd boy crying “wolf!”

                    • alwyn …
                      3 June 2018 at 6:44 pm

                      It was 36% from a very much lower base than is reflected by the New Zealand numbers.
                      Do you realise that Richard Seddon gave New Zealand workers an INFINITE percentage increase in the statutory minimum wage in 1894?
                      Why can’t this Labour Government we are stuck with now be anything like as generous? Miserable bloody lot aren’t they?

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      3 June 2018 at 7:00 pm

                      @Alwyn. It was 36% from a very much lower base than is reflected by the New Zealand numbers.

                      So what? Obviously you think this fact has some significance in the context of the NZ minimum wage going up to $20 by 2020 (as opposed to the $22.44 it would be if we followed Seattle’s example).

                      So come on, expand on your thesis. Don’t forget to include citations but. Some peer reviewed, real world data to lend your reckons some credibility.

                    • alwyn …
                      3 June 2018 at 9:30 pm

                      @OAB at 7:00 pm
                      Why don’t you make your case properly.
                      Please don’t forget to include citations and some peer reviewed, real world data to justify you “reckons” that figures from Seattle about the change in grocery prices after a rise in the minimum wage will reflect what would happen to other price changes in New Zealand for minimum wage rises from a much higher base and to a much greater percentage of the average wage than was the case in Seattle.
                      While you are about it please explain what the effect of the change in a minimum wage actually had on wages in the Grocery stores in Seattle and what corrections you made for changes in the price of goods purchased and manufactured outside of Seattle,
                      I await your epistle with great interest.

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    3 June 2018 at 5:39 pm

                    Oh, wait, that’s a poor analogy. At least the shepherd boy didn’t solicit donations from the wolf.

              • KJT …
                4 June 2018 at 12:29 pm

                Funny that California, with high minimum wages, lots of regulation and public spending is far outstripping Texas and other “Red” States. (Note: In the USA, “Red” States are the ones with conservative/Republican legislatures).

                https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/texanomics/article/Gov-Abbott-keeps-bashing-California-but-Texas-11202452.php

                “sung the praises of California as a destination for investment despite its decision to raise gas taxes, boost the minimum wage, protect undocumented immigrants and discourage fossil fuel use”,

                Higher wages boost business, as it keeps money in the community to spend on local businesses. Low wages, usually from big box stores and the like, remove money permanently from New Zealand.

                Neatly showing, how misguided Wayne, and his mates, were in their jealousy about Wharfies being paid half as much as Lawyers.

                As someone who got out of his small business, as soon as National got in. Knowing that National is always detrimental to small business, they make our customers poorer, I don’t think Wayne has any idea about what makes businesses work.

        • tc 2.1.1.2
          3 June 2018 at 7:31 am

          Yes but that’s not what they did though is it !

          They calculated a theoretical value based on impractical/impossible working hours and tried to sell it as if the entire work force could get it.

          That’s deliberately misleading and similar to the POA playbook lie about what port workers could ‘earn’ forgetting to mention they’d be working every available shift to get it.

          Neither possible or practical across an entire workforce that covers a 24 hour cycle. Bad faith from the DHB against nurses…..again.

          • Grey Area 2.1.1.2.1
            3 June 2018 at 8:07 am

            Nailed it!

          • dukeofurl 2.1.1.2.2
            3 June 2018 at 8:16 am

            Do you know what ‘average’ means and ‘half of all nurses at top of scale’ means ?
            Apparently not.

            The impossible hours you talk about are those who are not working full time.
            How can it be impossible when its ‘ median wage ‘ for those full time at top of scale. If it was say 10% you might have a point.

            Hospitals are 24/7 for some strange reason, dont know why when it seems to not suit those speaking for the union.
            Those working 45-50 hrs at lower paid jobs will need another box of tissues

            • One Anonymous Bloke 2.1.1.2.2.1
              3 June 2018 at 9:26 am

              “it seems”

              Weasel words.

              The solution to low wages is to raise wages, not set workers against one another, as you are attempting to do.

            • Ed 2.1.1.2.2.2
              3 June 2018 at 10:24 am

              Pay all workers more.
              Tax multinational corporations.
              Tax the rich.
              Set a maximum wage.

              Duke or URL you appear to be the enemy of ordinary citizens.

              • David Mac …
                3 June 2018 at 11:38 am

                Setting maximum wages is the politics of envy.

                Far better to ask them to make an equitable contribution to their society. I think there is much to be said for taxing their lifestyles rather than requesting their slippery tax accountancy and legal teams do the right thing. eg: Double the GST on Lamborghinis, Moet and ‘Sky Suites’ on the Caribbean Princess.

                I’d quite like a 500 horsepower car, I don’t need one, it’s wrong from so many aspects. If I must have one, I should be tipping in tax at a greater rate than Granny buying a Nissan Leaf.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  3 June 2018 at 12:16 pm

                  Setting maximum wages is the politics of envy.

                  No. It’s actually economics. The reason why wages have dropped from65% to 45% is because the people at the top are getting more. Stop the income inflation at the top and we could raise wages at the bottom.

                • Ed …
                  3 June 2018 at 12:41 pm

                  Nothing to do with envy.
                  It’s about a sustainable economy and environment.
                  No one needs the wages we pay the 1%.

                  I would advocate for a maximum wage and also a maximum level of assets for any one individual.
                  The rest would be taken back by the collective .
                  For the common good.

                  • David Mac …
                    3 June 2018 at 12:59 pm

                    The 1% can have a wage of $300 a week Ed. Very wealthy people do. If they see something they want they just get it. Paying for it becomes the responsibility of someone that spent years at university learning how to hide a rich person’s machinations in the shadows.

                    Thanks very much but I’m not sure I’d like you setting my income ceiling Ed and Draco. I’ll make my own arrangements.

                    • Ed …
                      3 June 2018 at 1:19 pm

                      As I said a ceiling on income and assets.
                      All assets would have to be transparent.
                      So no rich person could dodge.

                    • In Vino …
                      3 June 2018 at 2:04 pm

                      ‘Politics of envy’ is language of the greedy profit-gougers.
                      As is that phrase, ‘Profit is not a dirty word.’

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      4 June 2018 at 12:37 pm

                      Thanks very much but I’m not sure I’d like you setting my income ceiling Ed and Draco. I’ll make my own arrangements.

                      Economics tells us that we must have an income ceiling else we will have increasing poverty.

                      Just like what has been happening in every capitalist civilisation in the last 5000 years – just before its collapse.

                  • David Mac …
                    3 June 2018 at 2:18 pm

                    I think you underestimate the ability of the wealthy to remain wealthy Ed.

                    They don’t look for loopholes, they fabricate them.

                    You could be offshore and Ed Corp Sydney Australia Pty Ltd by the end of next week.

            • Gabby 2.1.1.2.2.3
              3 June 2018 at 8:12 pm

              What do they need tissues for duky? You can clean up your own wank.

          • patricia bremner 2.1.1.2.3
            3 June 2018 at 6:43 pm

            1000%

        • gsays 2.1.1.3
          3 June 2018 at 6:55 pm

          @Duke.
          Jeez what kind of a wanker are you duke?

          The DHBs decide to obfuscate, mislead, and lie and you willingly support their position on The Standard.

          What are you afraid of?
          Higher taxes or something?

          You got underpaid and overworked right.
          Your sarcasm is inoffensive only because of your ignorance.

          In the light of recent assaults on nurses, management has reluctantly introduced security in Palmy’s E.D.

          Part of the reason you have heard a few press release from the workers is that they have been negotiating (is that the word when only one party wants to talk) for so long.

          Don’t dare think that some of your ‘kiwi battlers on struggle street’ aren’t nurses. Patient advocates.

          You can put your hanky where the sun doesn’t shine.
          Just don’t turn up at ED to get them to remove it.

          Go to kiwiblog, I think you would enjoy the company there.

    • Ad 2.2
      3 June 2018 at 8:38 am

      I’d pay them even more.

      They’re worth it.

  3. dv 3
    3 June 2018 at 9:30 am

    Rod Oram in newsrooms looks at if Fontera should be spilt, and how they have failed in China

    This struck me
    Fonterra had three appointees to Sanlu’s board but only ONE spoke Mandarin,

    So how the hell would font era know what was going on on the board.

    The whole sorry article is well worth a read (especially in the the context of the billion odd going to help the dairy industry at the moment.

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@boardroom/2018/06/02/112720/rod-oram-should-fonterra-be-broken-up

    Sanlu’s ownership structure was highly complex and conflicted – its management structure was opaque, it was dependent on myriad small suppliers of milk, and its operating systems and culture were highly deficient; and

    – Fonterra had three appointees to Sanlu’s board but only one spoke Mandarin, it had extremely limited knowledge of Sanlu’s operations, it seconded only one or two technicians at a time to Sanlu to work on quality control and none spoke Mandarin; and

    • dukeofurl 3.1
      3 June 2018 at 9:42 am

      Rod Oram is on his Fonterra crusade again.

      He seems to think because NZ is a small domestic market and has to export of lot of its product as commodity ( mainly milk powder) its a terrible thing.
      If NZ had a home market the size of France or US it would would use its market dominance to make more money from higher value milk products sold locally.
      God help us if the dairy farmers got even higher returns than now!

      I was surprised to read dairy farmers in Southland have their winter milk trucked to Christchurch by Fonterra every day for town milk supply to Goodman Fielder !
      Theres a lot wrong with dairying but that takes the cake.

      • RedBaronCV 3.1.1
        3 June 2018 at 11:14 am

        Actually having read the articles it looks like Rod is highlighting the governance issues around the half a billion dollars of overseas investment by Fonterra -a good chunk of which has been lost – and came straight out of local farmer pockets.
        The farmers are now down to to about 33% of the equity in their own co-operative. So how long before the co-operative is so precarious that some overseas conglomerate gets to bail it out and local farmers lose out to the favoured factory farmers

        • David Mac 3.1.1.1
          3 June 2018 at 12:07 pm

          The offshore ventures are pushed along by mega salaried folk that have little skin in the game. Win or lose, they’re on the hog’s back.

          I wonder if outcomes would be different if the main players had the opportunity to become multi millionaires if projections were met and restricted to a base retainer salary if falling short.

          During the course of my life, I’ve always kicked more goals when my income is directly geared to the outcomes I’m pursuing.

          • greywarshark 3.1.1.1.1
            3 June 2018 at 12:35 pm

            dukeofurl
            You often make thoughtful and sensible comments but I have wondered if you are really more RW weighted, and reading what you are coming out with on this post, I have decided that this bias is the operative one. From now on I am not regarding you as someone who can offer anything of value to those wanting a democracy and economy run to benefit all the people, which seems to be only the commitment of left-wing advocates.

          • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1.2
            3 June 2018 at 12:38 pm

            What you describe is what’s happening and it’s actually causing a huge problem. Where CEOs and boards of directors push short term profits over long term sustainability because they get huge bonuses and stock options.

            • David Mac 3.1.1.1.2.1
              3 June 2018 at 2:31 pm

              They are pursuing the wrong projected outcomes then. Its easy to reward steady sustained growth over a flash in the pan.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                4 June 2018 at 12:35 pm

                If that was true then why is the opposite happening?

                The shareholders want a quick return:

                But most buyers of shares are hoping to make money not so much from dividends but from buying and selling shares at the right time as their prices go up and down so that they make a profit. Nearly two-thirds of share income comes from price increases, less than one third from dividends.

                Quote from Why we can’t afford the rich” by Andrew Sayer, Richard Wilkinson
                Short term profit results in share price increases that then get turned into unearned income by the shareholders. The money, of course, doesn’t go back to the company. A strong share-market is not a measure of how well the economy is going but a measure of how much the rich are bludging off of the rest of us.

                CEOs and boards get rewarded for those quick unearned gains.

            • NZJester 3.1.1.1.2.2
              3 June 2018 at 4:52 pm

              You see that a lot of the time to when food companies are taken over by big corporate entities who buy up name brands then start manufacturing the products in countries with cheaper labor and modifying the original recipes to use cheaper ingredients to reduce the manufacturing cost. You get a lower quality product sold under the well-known brand name and that helps sell the cheaper stuff for a while due to the nostalgia a lot of people have for those brand names. It boosts profits for a while and then some people start migrating to better quality products and they start to lose share.
              You just need to look at the case here in New Zealand of Cadbury chocolate and all the market share they lost to Whittaker’s chocolate with the attempted recipe changes. I used to see very little of Whittaker’s products before the big debacle when Cadbury tried to change their recipe. Now they are a serious rival to Cadbury with most people now seeing Cadbury as the budget option and Whittaker’s as the premium brand.
              A lot of my family used to also love the Cadbury Cream eggs made here in New Zealand and don’t like the new version that is now shipped into New Zealand from overseas as the inside tastes slightly different and is more solid.

      • Draco T Bastard 3.1.2
        3 June 2018 at 12:28 pm

        He seems to think because NZ is a small domestic market and has to export of lot of its product as commodity ( mainly milk powder) its a terrible thing.

        It is a terrible thing. We simply don’t have the resources to support it. We do, on the other hand, have the resources to maintain ourselves if we properly recycled the resources we do have.

        If NZ had a home market the size of France or US it would would use its market dominance to make more money from higher value milk products sold locally.

        This is, as a matter of fact, a load of bollocks. It’s proof that economists don’t understand the economy.

        Productivity increases don’t result in wages increases (And there’s enough proof of that now) but in the development of the economy. An increase in productivity makes more goods and services available.

        But we haven’t really been doing that. Instead we’ve focussed upon doing more of the same which uses up more resources while lowering wages.

        I was surprised to read dairy farmers in Southland have their winter milk trucked to Christchurch by Fonterra every day for town milk supply to Goodman Fielder !

        The problem with the capitalist economic system is that it results in uneconomic actions.

    • Ed 3.2
      3 June 2018 at 10:26 am

      Give the billion to the nurses and other underpaid workers.

    • Ad 3.3
      3 June 2018 at 11:40 am

      I don’t agree that Fonterra should be split up.
      But it really is the one business too big to fail.

      What is driving the New Zealand dairy volume is the requirement that Fonterra take all the domestic milk that is offered to it. That drives its need to manufacture bulky low-value products. Granted this drive towards volume has emerged since GATT back in the day, but this has got far worse.

      I also don’t agree that changing the leadership will alter that much.
      There are other ways to support them.

      Fonterra is far and away our largest exporting business, and its command over our whole pastoral sector remains immense. For those reasons alone Fonterra is the largest business problem, and our government needs to deal with it.

      The upcoming review of the legislation appears to have a very narrow scope, and it needs to be widened out. Fonterra is a creature manufactured by the state, and should behave as if it owes the government a living. The legislative review would enable public hearings and some democratic accountability.

      – The Minister of Agriculture should be on the Board as of right
      – The requirement to take all milk volume should be stopped
      – The legislative review should occur once every six years
      – There should be a joint government-milk industry strategy which is also subject to public review, and it should continue so long as Fonterra remains weak and stumbling. I see a good 12 years of support required, and from both sides of the House
      – There should be a government direction to our main universities to concentrate on researching value-added exports for Fonterra
      – Government – particularly MFAT – should worry less about WTO rules and more about supporting Fonterra until it has sorted itself out

      Fonterra would then have regular public accountability to the government, focus more on value using fewer mass-milk ingredients, and a full alignment with the long term direction of the country.

      • greywarshark 3.3.1
        3 June 2018 at 12:44 pm

        I hope that someone who is capable of thinking and ruminating! and learning reads that Ad. If everyone in top positions think like Wayne their main brain efforts go into justifying the past and present. Madness. Hence everything stays the same and we go round in every diminishing circles till we vanish down the plughole to add to our pollution.

        This is a physical image of what will happen to NZ if we can’t fight our way through the trained and conformist brains of the fatheads in leading positions in the country.

      • dukeofurl 3.3.2
        3 June 2018 at 1:14 pm

        “government direction to our main universities to concentrate on researching value-added exports for Fonterra”….

        Phuughh…. . Fonterra can and does its own value added research or pays university staff to work on interesting areas.

        • Ad 3.3.2.1
          3 June 2018 at 3:32 pm

          Yes it does. And it puts more into R&D than most of the rest of our private sector put together.

          It is not enough by a country mile, and it is in no small part because of that, that Fonterra are in this godawful mess in the first place.

          The final year of the Clark administration tried a full research integration programme with the broader pastoral sector (although it was driven by DairyNZ), but it was killed as soon as Key got in power. It was replaced with a far weaker, smaller effort for the whole primary sector, and the results have been tiny.

          We should expect more of R&D from Fonterra, and government, together, for the good of New Zealand.

  5. Robert Guyton 5
    3 June 2018 at 9:49 am

    Crisp morning in Riverton; blue skies, not a breath of wind and the ground is crunchy with frost. I’m feeding the birds with left-over apples from the generous harvest we enjoyed in autumn. I’ve a new blog 🙂
    https://robertwoodlander.blogspot.com/2018/06/birds-on-wire.html

    • Antoine 5.1
      3 June 2018 at 11:36 pm

      Nice bellbird pic

      • Robert Guyton 5.1.1
        4 June 2018 at 8:38 am

        Thanks, Antoine. Bellbirds are well up the pecking order, seeing off waxeyes and other smaller birds simply by arriving on the scene, but tui top them; tui are aggressive and ruthless. Fortunately, there are more than enough apples and bamboo canes here for every bird in creation!

  6. Robert Guyton 6
    3 June 2018 at 10:21 am

    “We inherited record homelessness, debt, and immigration; increased child poverty and youth disengagement; under-investment in health, education, housing, defence, and rail; declining police numbers and overflowing prisons; and a massive infrastructure deficit. ”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/104385415/darroch-ball-the-government-is-looking-to-the-future

    • Ed 6.1
      3 June 2018 at 10:28 am

      Coleman, Brownlee, Bennett and the Heads of some state organisations should have a day in court.
      Then several years in prison.

      • saveNZ 6.1.1
        3 June 2018 at 11:29 am

        I think Key was the cheerleader. It was only when he changed the tax rules to create our 0% tax haven status for non residents and encouraged all the money launderers and poorly educated to Auckland to be converted into residents, prices skyrocketed with affordable houses in particular skyrocketing off the stratosphere.

        Up until a few years ago much of the Auckland market in particular the apartment market was kept quite low as they required a major deposit by banks and so many in NZ could not afford to buy them therefore they were cheaply rented out.

        Once people could rock up with $$$$ in cash and buy up cheap property outright while in many cases getting residency or renting to burgeoning numbers of international students converting to residents with a chef diploma for example or driving a truck or a ‘restaurant manager’ at Burger King, the ball was set rolling.

        Other countries demanded MBA’s from residents, good language skills and more, NZ became the place to send your less academically minded child who after a small period of time could sign on and get an accomodation benefit, free health care, the DPB and oldies get free medical and rest home provided by the NZ tax payers…

        In 2014, you could buy a freehold studio apartment in Auckland for $160k now you would be lucky to pay $300k… doubling affordable housing in a matter of a government term…Houses in west Auckland used to be $350k before Key’s third term, now they are $700k…

        Try building a 3 bedroom house and connecting it to utilities… building more houses will not deliver any more affordable as we have become a rip off nation, even if the land is free.

        Now the powers that be, are ripping off people even more, by making them pay for all the new infrastructure that has come out of Key’s legacy. Now ordinary citizens are displaced outside of the main city areas of Auckland and are now the ones who have to pay more for the infrastructure via petrol taxes and higher rents and mortgages.

        Something is wrong when someone in Pukekohe on under $50k is now effectively paying for infrastructure of a rail or tram line (ha ha) for tourism from the airport, and using 300 workers coming into NZ to build the luxury hotels on the water front for offshore companies tourism ventures.

        They should be putting on a tourist tax to pay for that train travel of infrastructure at the very least as well as making those offshore companies used local labour and pay NZ rates so those people are are displacing at least get a job or training out of it!

        If we never train local people and allow them access to jobs in construction, then they will never gain access into the industry, keeping the Ponzi scheme going.

        $50+ p/h is the going rate of a plumber/carpenters and most charge outs (often much more) so I’m not sure why the worker rate for overseas workers is not $100k+ for the construction industry – that is what us locals have to pay for those workers!

        • saveNZ 6.1.1.1
          3 June 2018 at 11:47 am

          As soon as they upped the retail immigration scam to $20p/h to sponsor in overseas workers, guess what, companies stared thinking of using local people who would otherwise probably never be considered into the workforce due to local discrimination, like autistic workers.

          They need to do the same across every industry in NZ so we only get the best migrants not scams (including the NZ resident employers doing the scams) and local and international companies operating here to use a broader ranger of local workers into the work force and give them opportunities that have been lost to them via the immigration scams.

        • greywarshark 6.1.1.2
          3 June 2018 at 12:09 pm

          savenz
          You are right. As for a tourist tax, the businesses set up for tourism start saying it will reduce numbers. They are simple souls, educated with upward moving graphs showing endless growth in their chosen field. Unfortunately fields have a total capacity level for tourists, or cows. In both we are over-stocked to the disadvantage of the resources they need to keep them viable.

          And of course as you say savenz, to the disadvantage of the NZs who are not favoured by the authorities, being often third-class people because they are poor who are then prevented from working their way up to second-class. Know your place you losers, is the unspoken? slogan for them as they get penned up and driven by the dogs of economic war.

          It can’t be emphasised too much, how cruel NZ is to its citizens. We need to keep in mind how our country is diminishing its standards and not just find excuses for the latest evidence of it and dismiss each matter as an
          aberration. It takes determination to stop it by thinking people who have ideals, practicality and integrity, otherwise the downward slide will continue. Even with effort it can only be held and a bit improved. Too much has been lost already and patterns of behaviour and thinking, once not countenanaced, are ingrained and hard to clean out.

          • saveNZ 6.1.1.2.1
            3 June 2018 at 12:44 pm

            Thanks, greywarshark.

            So many people don’t want to acknowledge we have lost enough and patterns of thinking had become ingrained and hard to clean out, probably because so many are at the trough, benefiting from the confusion or championing it.

            It’s not just immigration, although it’s one of the biggest issues. It is also shown by themeth stats which led to the the eviction of many innocent people and $100million plus unnecessary clean up bills, were decided by a committee of 30 groups ranging from health, housing, charities and meth agencies. None of them based in any scientific knowledge and making crap up that often benefited themselves.

            In another example of a clean out needed, Auckland council apparently will be spending 50% of everybody’s rates money on it’s own salaries from next year. It is crazy. They don’t even pay a living wage so clearly something seems to be wrong there, when we have less housing, more pollution and higher rates, and 50% of the money goes on themselves to support themselves and their very poor decisions!

            Also just saw a disabled person complaining how there seem to be many groups that get all the funding to support them, and seem to enjoy $100k salaries and conferences paid for by the government which doesn’t seem to be getting to the actual disabled people as individuals who are ignored at the conferences which are all about saying rah, rah, disabled women are powerful or whatever lovely slogan they can come up with.

            We have become a nation of bureaucrats where money is being siphoned off before it gets to the venerable, too many people are posing as vulnerable or poor who are not and still seem to be getting benefits they should not be getting while those who need them are being lockout, information is decided by committee’s who are clueless and benefit from all the problems, and government money under the private practise models are being siphoned off and stupids decisions are being made by clueless morons aka the Meth, before it gets to the recipients the bureaucrats are supposed to be working or championing for and making everything worse.

            • OnceWasTIm 6.1.1.2.1.1
              3 June 2018 at 7:27 pm

              You two fellas above aren’t bloody strupid are ya! (@savenz and @grey)

              I’m amused somewhat by the pompous Woodhouse on RNZ today commenting on immigration changes. Basing his comments btw, supposedly on advice from his ‘officials’, although he was neck-deep in it all right the way through – as were his predecessors.
              Let’s be very clear. Past policies re immigration were planned and intentional. (Sometimes they were so lazy, they were simply copies or bastardisations of those we see as our kin – the Canadians, the Brits, the Okkers, the Yanks, etc., and not of those ‘other’ – unless of course there was enough black money involved)
              The only caution I have is that the system and structure not only adversely affected NZers (driving down wages, introducing and encouraging avenues for corruption, exploitation, and coming bloody close to people trading/smuggling), but it also the foreigners who fell victim to what was designed.

              Previous Ministers actually have blood on their hands (as do some public servant senior muddlement ‘officials’) – there have been suicides and vast numbers of overseas people have literally lost everything – or close to – and are heavily in debt. They were encouraged here to prop up the lazy, ill-thought-out policies and they’ve been seen as expendable.
              Incidentally, just as there is a case for those victims of the P/meth moral panic to be compensated, there is a growing number of people who probably have a legitimate case for compensation for the failure of government agencies to just do their fucking job.
              We’ve had an Immigration Advisor’s Authority who should have been monitoring agent’s scams and shutting them down, we’ve had a Labour Inspectorate who should have been shutting down shithouse employer scams, we’ve had Worksafe, and we’ve had NZQA.

              The fact that all those entities were probably underfunded, and definately under-resourced is NOT the fault of the victims of various forms of exploitation and ripoffs that have been produced.

              I think this government is gradually learning just how fucked up things have become (and often by design). WINZ……MPI…..MoBIE and it’s various failings…..
              I think we can be pretty sure there’s more to come

              • greywarshark …
                3 June 2018 at 9:08 pm

                OncewasTim
                That first line of yours was an interesting one.

                You two fellas above aren’t bloody stupid are ya!
                That sentence appears to be a rhetorical remark with a positive thought.

                The same with a question mark would indicate a low opinion of us. What a difference a squiggle makes.

            • greywarshark 6.1.1.2.1.2
              3 June 2018 at 8:59 pm

              savenz
              50% of rates or near, on salaries?? The meme woven through the rhetoric about the amalgamation into the Supershitty was that it was going to be more co-ordinated, have better (bigger) regional projects, and be more efficient and effective which the economic and financials said would be cheaper, because government is too expensive and needs the smoothing and soothing touch of the private sector. Hah! Read that on one breath!

              And the welfare groups notice that if they do become efficient and effective they get their funding run down until they fail. Then a private trust can be set up to do the work that they have been unable to do on a halfpenny. As we know halfpennies are not legal tender any more. That welfare groups have the unreal idea that they can keep going on defunct funding levels is an example to government that they are not only unworthy of being funded but that they are batty for trying. So they get hoist by their own petard. Someone with nice speech who has a university degree on the meaning of life then ends up with the contract.

          • cleangreen 6.1.1.2.2
            3 June 2018 at 7:28 pm

            greywarshark, 100% correct,”

            Tourism NZ actually already gets plenty of subsidies from the public purse to make tourism more emjoyable so dont have any right to complain here.

            “As for a tourist tax, the businesses set up for tourism start saying it will reduce numbers.”

        • Ed 6.1.1.3
          3 June 2018 at 12:46 pm

          Key’s crimes are more serious than his underlings.
          Betraying the interests of one’s country and its citizens would incur a severe sentence.

          • mary_a 6.1.1.3.1
            3 June 2018 at 5:05 pm

            Absolutely spot on there Ed (6.1.1.3) … treason used to be considered a very serious offence, which either incurred hanging or a very long time in prison. Apart from his treachery, Key is also seriously involved in committing war crimes against civilians in Afghanistan, something for which he must be held accountable for.

            Speaking of Key. I’m still wondering why he suddenly upped sticks, left Parliament and “moved on”! Hopefully his sins will catch up to him soon and he will pay the price for his betrayal of NZ and signing off civilian death warrants!

            • chris73 6.1.1.3.1.1
              3 June 2018 at 5:14 pm

              Thats Sir John Key thank you very much

              • greywarshark …
                3 June 2018 at 8:47 pm

                Tell us Chris73 what John Key gave you that made you say ‘thank you very much’ – or has he changed his name with that tag on the end of it?

                Sir John Key TYVM. I think ‘Thank you very much’ sounds a bit long. I expect he would abbreviate it.

    • greywarshark 6.2
      3 June 2018 at 12:53 pm

      But all that said Robert, that’s how almost 50% of NZs like it. Everything is okay for them as long as they can get what they want when they want it. They aren’t unreasonable people, easily pleased, don’t demand the world.

      They merely want to be near the front of any elite queue when the world’s offerings are being divided up and that the rabble aren’t allowed in to claim part. They can have what is leftover, and clean up after the aristo-advantaged have finished their feast.

      If there is no bread, let them eat the cake left over, that would only be fair. And they should have good quality tents, and shoes, and pavements they can walk on without being run down by the bicycle people. The elite are fair and practical and want what is reasonable for those unable to achieve their standards of living.

  7. Pete 7
    3 June 2018 at 11:01 am

    Such sense in the Entertainment section.

    Alice Snedden: The AM Show’s Mark Richardson has an ‘old-fashioned’ way of thinking

    “This week Mark Richardson used his platform on The AM Show to talk about why he didn’t want government/state housing developments going up in his neighbourhood.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/104317848/alice-snedden-the-am-shows-mark-richardson-has-an-oldfashioned-way-of-thinking

  8. Rosemary McDonald 8
    3 June 2018 at 12:04 pm

    Methinks its going to require the Gummint to issue hob- nailed boots to the army of Healthy Homes Guarantee Act enforcers come July 2019.

    Wellington’s voluntary scheme managed to get two…yes a grand total of two… rental properties over the line to achieve a rental WOF.

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/348964/dismal-rental-wof-uptake-blamed-on-tight-market

    And landlords are whining already…https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/358797/new-heating-costs-could-lead-to-overcrowding

    faux concern for the tenants…

    “He says landlords back the Government’s plans for warmer and drier homes, so long as it’s cost effective.

    “If rental prices don’t increase, but the costs increase, we’re going to see fewer people being able to provide rental properties and are going to get a lack of supply.

    “So either way, whether we get rental price increase then that’s not good for tenants, but if we don’t then we’re going to get a reduction in supply which will create overcrowding and that’s not good for tenants either,” “

    • Draco T Bastard 8.1
      3 June 2018 at 12:42 pm

      A lack of rental properties by rentiers is a Good Thing™ because rentiers (ie, all capitalists) are a drag upon the economy and society.

    • Sabine 8.2
      3 June 2018 at 1:05 pm

      according to these rubbish comments and ‘oh my gosh the sky is gonna fall on my head’ attitdue all the people in germany bar a few are living in ditches.

      oh yeah, they don’t.

      The landlord of my commercial property ‘fixed’ his leaking roof by putting another roof over it. So now all the moisture, rotten wood etc is locked in and will eventually show its ugly head in form of black mod at which stage he can knock the building down. But maybe that is what he is waiting for.

      Hopefully i am out of this property before it falls on my head.

    • The Chairman 8.3
      3 June 2018 at 1:49 pm

      The criteria for Wellington’s rental WOF was/is rather stringent.

      Thus I found the following comment below (from your link) rather telling.

      The council would not provide the number of landlords who had applied for a WOF but whose properties failed.

      I personally know people that live in homes that wouldn’t pass a warrant but are happy as the rent is cheap. The last thing they want is higher rent, thus don’t support extra costs being placed upon landlords as they know those costs will be passed onto them.

      • Rosemary McDonald 8.3.1
        3 June 2018 at 1:55 pm

        Short answer to that problem is rent freeze.

        What sort of miserable low-life bottom feeding scumsucker would even contemplate for a second renting out a home that is unwarrantable?

        Being “happy as” to simply have an address indicates just how low our expectations have sunk.

        Crying shame.

        Sorting out NZ’s housing crisis is going to require the pain to be shared.

        Slum renters and homeless people have endured their share…

        • The Chairman 8.3.1.1
          3 June 2018 at 2:08 pm

          A rent freeze hasn’t been proposed. Thus, so much for sharing the pain.

          Most NZ homes are unwarrantable. Achieving and maintaining one will come at a hefty ongoing expense, which in turn will be reflected in the rent.

          • Ankerrawshark 8.3.1.1.1
            3 June 2018 at 6:41 pm

            The chairman. I was a landlord for 10 years. The reason I was in this position was that I left Auckland for work and thought it was possible I would move back, thus let out my house. During that time I put in two lots of insulation(given bad advice about the first lot, which wasn’t so effective. I also installed a dvs, so in that way, I was better to my tenants than I was to myself. I am proud of that.

            When I sold my house I was told I could have been charging tenants an extra $100.00 a week. I did increase the rent over ten years, but not by that much. Why would I have? Yes insurance and rates went up, but interest rates went down, as did my mortgage.

            Nothing makes me more furious than hearing landlords bleating on, poor me….if they are so shit at providing a decent service and so poor at doing their sums, get the hell out of rental property(scum)

  9. Triedrown 9
    3 June 2018 at 12:10 pm

    Duke of earl Rod Oram knows more about business than most.
    His criticism of Fonterras ongoing failures is accurate and well researched.
    His initial criticism was the monopoly set up which has lead to poor management decisions mainly continuing down the volume over added value option.
    The Quick buck mentality that farmers seem to jump on that band wagon all the time.
    Farming is highly cyclical to break that cycle huge investment in research and development is required a long with patience.
    Research takes 15 year’s on average for major developments to bring to market.
    So Fonterra did little or no R&D for many years relying on volume low cost and buoyant markets.
    Other countries caught on and with lower land prices/labour costs transport costs left NZ behind.
    Fonterras many botched overseas forays .
    Rod Oram’s hounding and challenging of inferior management has been the main reason why Fonterras has changed its strategy ever so slowly.
    Farmers are their own worst enemy voting in a govt that goes cheap and nasty on biosecurity and research and development is a recipe for disaster.
    Now they are to big to have fail bail out the free market bene bashers.

  10. David Mac 10
    3 June 2018 at 12:34 pm

    Of course it’s important we have safe dry rental houses….

    I’m sure a headline that reads “300 landlords fined $5000 in the first month of law change” will have some cheering “Ha, that’ll teach the greedy slumlords.”

    Ultimately I think it will be detrimental to our rental house situation. The winners will be first home buyers and blue-chip share prices.

  11. saveNZ 11
    3 June 2018 at 12:49 pm

    No need to worry when the landlords sell up I’m sure the government has plenty of affordable homes for people to rent… oh no sorry, it seems they are selling off the new houses to pay for the houses they built… well last least developers can profit!!

    • solkta 11.1
      3 June 2018 at 10:53 pm

      No need to worry when the landlords sell up

      are going to start about the disappearing houses again?

  12. millsy 12
    3 June 2018 at 12:53 pm

    Do you have rental property Wayne? If so did u put your rent your last year.

    • McFlock 13.1
      3 June 2018 at 1:45 pm

      SST? Is that the trust that’s no longer a trust because it was primarily political?
      Seems legit then lol

      • chris73 13.1.1
        3 June 2018 at 2:03 pm

        Hey its all good to me if you and Andrew Little ignore it

        • One Anonymous Bloke 13.1.1.1
          3 June 2018 at 2:08 pm

          Clutch at that straw. Clutch at it!

          *cough* power company privatisation referendum *cough*

        • McFlock 13.1.1.2
          3 June 2018 at 6:25 pm

          Little has better things to look at. That includes vaguely reliable polling.

          • chris73 13.1.1.2.1
            3 June 2018 at 8:06 pm

            Maybe if he had looked at polling a little more in the past he might have actually won well…something as a politician

            • Incognito 13.1.1.2.1.1
              3 June 2018 at 8:28 pm

              What a lovely pass, chris73! During the election campaign Andrew Little paid attention to the polls and stepped down as Labour Leader and the rest is history …

              He took one for the team, the team won, and that makes him a winner in many eyes.

              Bang! 1-0

              • chris73 …
                3 June 2018 at 8:30 pm

                The game is still playing so its 2-1 with still plenty of time left to go

                • Incognito …
                  3 June 2018 at 8:37 pm

                  It is o.k. to concede defeat, chris73, it really is and it won’t hurt or kill you. In fact, it will help you to move on and make you a better person 😉

                  At least we can agree that Andrew Little did pay attention to polling and did win big as a politician if you can say that.

                • McFlock …
                  3 June 2018 at 9:49 pm

                  Lol the game is eternal – but your team is on the wrong bench at the moment.

                  Maybe by the time you get back in charge your own poll watching will have sent this policy the way of pro-smacking and marriage inequality.

      • greywarshark 13.1.2
        3 June 2018 at 8:40 pm

        McFlock
        I hadn’t caught up with the removal of the Sensible Sentencing Trust from the register of charities. If so it is the proper decision, what a rort it has been.

    • Ankerrawshark 13.2
      3 June 2018 at 6:42 pm

      The chairman. I was a landlord for 10 years. The reason I was in this position was that I left Auckland for work and thought it was possible I would move back, thus let out my house. During that time I put in two lots of insulation(given bad advice about the first lot, which wasn’t so effective. I also installed a dvs, so in that way, I was better to my tenants than I was to myself. I am proud of that.

      When I sold my house I was told I could have been charging tenants an extra $100.00 a week. I did increase the rent over ten years, but not by that much. Why would I have? Yes insurance and rates went up, but interest rates went down, as did my mortgage.

      Nothing makes me more furious than hearing landlords bleating on, poor me….if they are so shit at providing a decent service and so poor at doing their sums, get the hell out of rental property(scum)

      • The Chairman 13.2.1
        3 June 2018 at 10:17 pm

        Doing their sums is what I’m talking about. When extra costs are added, the money has to come from somewhere. Which tends to be from those who use the improved service.

        • McFlock 13.2.1.1
          3 June 2018 at 11:00 pm

          I’m impressed that these landlords are all charging their tenants such low rates out of the kindness of their hearts.

          I thought they charged what they reckon they can get.

          • The Chairman 13.2.1.1.1
            3 June 2018 at 11:08 pm

            Pricing is influenced by a number of factors, extra costs and improvements are but two.

            • McFlock 13.2.1.1.1.1
              4 June 2018 at 12:51 am

              Supply vs demand. All else is whining that is irrelevant to the price.

              If the landlord chooses to sell the property rather than upgrade to WOF, either the new owner upgrades so zero change in supply and demand, or owner lives in it and supply and demand go down by the same number.

              It will only increase prices if the homes are left newly unoccupied (lowered supply), which is a stupid thing to do if a government is promising to significantly increase housing supply in the near future. Some might want to wear that cost out of spite, and others will expand to fill the vacancy.

              • The Chairman …
                4 June 2018 at 9:24 am

                While supply and demand is another, it’s far from the only relevant factor.

                It’s not as simplistic and black and white as you suggest.

                We currently have a property shortage, growing population and high immigration. Therefore, demand is strong and supply is tight. And will be for at least a decade.

                And that is before we even start to calculate how many landlords may pull out.

                Moreover, an overheated market is the wrong time to introduce new costs (thinking they won’t be passed on) as a overheated market allows far more scope for costs to be passed on.

                • solkta …
                  4 June 2018 at 9:30 am

                  And that is before we even start to calculate how many landlords may pull out.

                  Not another one talking about disappearing houses.

                  Funny how you righties suddenly forget how markets work when it suits your argument.

                  • The Chairman …
                    4 June 2018 at 9:52 am

                    “Not another one talking about disappearing houses”

                    No, not at all. If you look at the wider context, it was in reference to McFlock’s reply (re whether or not landlords, sell upgrade, or move in themselves).

                    Houses don’t tend to disappear (though some may be demolished) it’s their use that may and can change.

                    And I’m not from the right.

                    • solkta …
                      4 June 2018 at 10:27 am

                      Generally speaking houses only have one use – people live in them. Those people can either rent or own depending on affordability. When an investor leaves the market a family gains home ownership. If the investor wants out they will need to accept what the market offers. If there are no investors interested the price will have to drop to what a homeowner can afford.

                      The only exception to this is where an investor is actively having new dwellings built, but for those the building code has long required insulation and other stuff a rental warrant would cover anyway so no issue.

                      And you are SO obviously right wing. You really are a crap troll.

                  • The Chairman …
                    4 June 2018 at 11:39 am

                    I was referring to the official status of their use – i.e. whether it’s a rental, airbnb, owner occupied, commercial, guest house or holiday home etc.

                    If a landlord decides to pull out of the residential rental market, it doesn’t necessarily mean the house will go up for sale, it may merely change its status. Going from residential to commercial use for example. Or as you say, it may become owner occupied. Which, in turn, risks a reduction in rental supply. Further compounding our current shortage.

                    The issue here is rents will further soar as, in this overheated market, there is real scope for costs to be passed on.

                    Instead of continuously asserting I’m from the right, how about you prove it.

                    • McFlock …
                      4 June 2018 at 7:29 pm

                      Lol piss off.

                      Companies require basic standards in their premises. It’s an osh issue.

                      At the moment companies have to provide better conditions than landlords do.

                    • Muttonbird …
                      4 June 2018 at 7:49 pm

                      Chairman. It’s good you believe Airbnb is an official usage of residential property because that means they can pay their way as tourist accomodation providers having taken their house off the tenancy market.

                      This after all is what you claim to be concerned about – the availability and affordability of housing for NZ tenants.

                      Your post history suggests otherwise however. It suggests you are primarily concerned with the comfort and wellbeing of landlords. You want meth levels to be raised beyond even the new standard so that landlords won’t be put out, and yo are after compensation for landlord who paid for meth clean-ups.

                      Also, you rail against any and all policy aimed towards healthy dry and warm homes lest it inconvenience amateur landlords and stop them from taking their next overseas trip.

                      You’d rather vulnerable tenants continue to live in cold damp conditions than two-bit landlords having to own up to social responsibilities.

                      And all the way through you blame the Labour party for all the ills of the country and excuse the last National government from any responsibility whatsoever.

                      You are worse than a simple right wing person because you are a simple right wing person pretending to be a socially conscious left wing person.

                      I’ve had enough of your shit. You are contrarian, argumentative, and dense scum.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      4 June 2018 at 8:29 pm

                      “You are worse than a simple right wing person because you are a simple right wing person pretending to be a socially conscious left wing person.”
                      QFT

                    • The Chairman …
                      4 June 2018 at 9:53 pm

                      Muttonbird

                      Highlighting the potential use of a property and the most likely outcome of a rental WOF’s impact doesn’t disprove my concern about the availability and affordability of housing for NZ tenants. It explains it.

                      I have no problem with Airbnb paying their way.

                      Be honest. My post history shows I want meth levels to be raised beyond the new conservative standard so as to avoid making the same mistakes as what took place under National. And I want to see all that were negatively impacted to be compensated for what even this Government admits was unfair.

                      I support healthy dry and warm homes but I don’t want to see it implemented in a way that will result in tenants facing large rent increases.

                      You’ll find a number of tenants make a choice (from what’s available) between what they are comfortable paying and what they are comfortable living in. A rental WOF will reduce that choice as rents increase. Forcing people to either move out, squeeze more in, or pay more in rent. Is this what you want to happen?

                      I highlight Labour’s shortfalls but I don’t blame them for all the ills in the country. Nor do I excuse the Nats from any responsibility.

                      Your disgust is misconstrued and your insults and lies don’t strengthen your argument. Not that you had a valid one to begin with.

                      The ultimate solution is for rentals to go from being provided under a profit producing business model to being provided as a public service, undertaken by the state.

                      But seeing as this Government isn’t that left, all that is on offer is some ill thought-out patch ups that create more problems than they solve. Evident by Government subsidizes being given to landlords and tenants with both ultimately going to subsidizes private profit.

                    • The Chairman …
                      4 June 2018 at 9:57 pm

                      McFlock

                      They may find the higher rental yields is worth the switch.

                      I see a number of landlords have switched to Airbnb

                    • Muttonbird …
                      4 June 2018 at 10:03 pm

                      The ultimate solution is for rentals to go from being provided under a profit producing business model to being provided as a public service, undertaken by the state.

                      This is great news…

                      …for amateur landlords and investment property owners. The Chairman now wants all rentals to be bought by the state, presumably at market rates.

                      Get your Maserati brochures, landlords, theres some massive tax money coming your way!

                      You should be furious with property owners who are getting a free ride with Airbnb having taken their houses away from ordinary tenants. Your concern for tenants should tell you that this is a false economy which services the tourist sector while harming struggling NZ families and communities.

                      You are a fat, clumsy fake imo.

                    • McFlock …
                      4 June 2018 at 10:15 pm

                      “A number”.
                      Lolk

                      Meanwhile, in the real world, what percentage is ” a number”?

                      Because unless supply reduces by a significant percentage in relation to demand, nobody will face an increase in price. All your bleating will be for nowt.

                    • The Chairman …
                      4 June 2018 at 10:44 pm

                      Muttonbird

                      Your sarcasm highlights your failure to see the solution required while also highlighting you’re not that left. Yet you have the audacity to call me a fake. Piss off.

                      I’m furious talk of a rental WOF is driving more landlords to consider switching to Airbnb. But that’s the thing with the private sector, it’s profit driven.

                      However, I’d rather see locals capitalize from our tourist sector than offshore owned hotels. But not at the expense of local tenants missing out. Which comes back to our housing shortage largely overseen by the private sector. Thus, further highlighting the need for the state to intervene.

                      Are you happy with the state giving subsidies so the private sector can profit? Better to buy them out and do away with the subsidies with the service model removing profit, thus providing lower rents.

                    • Muttonbird …
                      4 June 2018 at 10:52 pm

                      I have certainly picked up that you prefer locals capitalise on Airbnb. But then you say you want profit to be removed entirely from residential housing.

                      Have you actually stopped and taken a look at your bizarre contradictory statements?

                      I am perfectly happy for the state to subsidise insulation and standard main-room heating if it is to help low income earning families secure warm and dry homes so they can work and provide for healthy kids who go to school happy. You however want to wring your liver-spotted hands over the cost to amateur landlords.

                      You must think readers of your stumbling, anti-Labour comments are stupid. You are and always will be on the side of price gouging amateur landlords. That much is obvious for all to see.

                    • The Chairman …
                      4 June 2018 at 11:19 pm

                      Muttonbird

                      When it comes to tourism, would you prefer offshore owned hotels to capitalize rather than locals?

                      Locals profiting from tourism advances our economy. Locals profiting off locals (charging each other more for houses) doesn’t grow our national wealth or advance our economy overall. Hence, there is no contradiction.

                      “You are and always will be on the side of price gouging amateur landlords. That much is obvious for all to see.”

                      Considering the ultimate solution I’ve put forward, it’s obvious for all to see you are a liar.

                    • The Chairman …
                      4 June 2018 at 11:36 pm

                      McFlock

                      As I’ve already explained to you above, we currently have a property shortage, growing population and high immigration.

                      Therefore, demand is strong and supply is tight. And will be for at least a decade. Thus, rents are likely to further increase as the overheated market provides scope for costs to be passed on.

                      And that is before we even start to calculate how many landlords may pull out.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 June 2018 at 12:16 am

                      And that “explanation” is complete shit. Changes in price come from changes in supply vs demand. If a landlord is just waiting for an excuse to pass costs on as some sort of dick move, that landlord is already charging as much as they think they can get.

                    • solkta …
                      5 June 2018 at 7:19 am

                      Or as you say, it may become owner occupied. Which, in turn, risks a reduction in rental supply. Further compounding our current shortage.

                      What i said was:

                      “When an investor leaves the market a family gains home ownership. If the investor wants out they will need to accept what the market offers. If there are no investors interested the price will have to drop to what a homeowner can afford.”

                      But of course you are just trolling.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 June 2018 at 12:33 pm

                      I also love that the owner isn’t living anywhere until they decide to live in their old substandard rental unit full of mould and drafts and no insulation.

                    • The Chairman …
                      5 June 2018 at 7:30 pm

                      McFlock

                      “I also love that the owner isn’t living anywhere…”

                      With our high immigration, they could have lived overseas, staying here temporarily with friends or relatives before they purchase.

                    • The Chairman …
                      5 June 2018 at 7:33 pm

                      solkta

                      I wasn’t trolling, that’s Guyton’s game.

                      The reference (owner occupied) was merely affirming your remark (a family gains home ownership).

                    • The Chairman …
                      5 June 2018 at 7:37 pm

                      McFlock

                      “And that “explanation” is complete shit”

                      No. it’s not complete shit.

                      We do currently have a property shortage, a growing population and high immigration.

                      “Changes in price come from changes in supply vs demand”

                      Rents have been on the increase for some time. And with demand outstripping supply (coupled with ongoing increases in landlord costs) are expected to further continue to climb going forward. For at least the next decade while demand remains strong and supply is playing catch-up.

                    • solkta …
                      5 June 2018 at 8:38 pm

                      You really are a crap troll.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 June 2018 at 9:07 pm

                      Lol so now international landlords are couchsurfing with no intention of buying until they decide to live in a substandard house.

                      What percentage of landlords match that description, do you think?

                    • The Chairman …
                      5 June 2018 at 9:53 pm

                      McFlock

                      I was referring to rentals becoming owner occupied if sold and how that doesn’t necessarily mean another local rental or home will be freed up as the rental may be purchased by a new immigrant.

                      Same applies for a landlord living offshore returning to reoccupy.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 June 2018 at 10:33 pm

                      And the point is that unless they immigrate because that substandard home is available then the WOF affects neither the housing supply nor demand. They come here anyway. The housing WOF has nothing to do with it.

                    • The Chairman …
                      5 June 2018 at 11:01 pm

                      A WOF may impact the supply of rentals if rentals become owner occupied or become an Airbnb etc.

                      Nevertheless, even if you wish to ignore this impact, with demand outstripping supply (due to our housing shortage, growing population and high immigration) the scope to pass on costs still remains.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 June 2018 at 11:23 pm

                      A WOF may impacted the supply of rentals if rentals become owner occupied or become an Airbnb etc.

                      Nevertheless, even if you wish to ignore this impact, with demand outstripping supply (due to our housing shortage, growing population and high immigration) the scope to pass on costs still remains.

                      Bollocks.
                      Owner occupied means one less tenant looking for a house, and an airbnb with mould and no heat would get rave reviews. Good luck with that.

                      There is no scope to pass on costs unless the landlord is charging below-market rents. And if they’re cool enough to do that, they wouldn’t be letting out substandard dwellings in the first place.

                    • solkta …
                      6 June 2018 at 7:48 am

                      The stupid troll has dug hole and has nowhere left to go.

                    • The Chairman …
                      6 June 2018 at 9:11 am

                      McFlock

                       “Owner occupied means one less tenant looking for a house,”

                      Not necessarily, as I’ve already explained. Moreover, when a rental becomes owner occupied, the tenants will require to find a new place to stay.

                      Additionally, of course there is scope to pass on costs in a overheated market where demand is outstripping supply. It’s already happening with soaring rates and insurance costs. Rents are on the increase, have been for a while now and will continue to climb for some time to come.

                    • The Chairman …
                      6 June 2018 at 9:27 am

                      solkta

                      Far from it. The only one digging a hole is McFlock which you seem to have fallen into.

                      He keeps going on about supply and demand while overlooking that demand is outstripping supply and will do for some time. Resulting in there being scope for costs to be passed on. Which is already happening with soaring council rates and insurance cover. That are two main costs driving up rents.

                    • The Chairman …
                      6 June 2018 at 10:34 am

                      McFlock

                      “There is no scope to pass on costs unless the landlord is charging below-market rents.”

                      Rubbish. Market rents aren’t currently static, they’re increasing due to costs such as soaring council rates being passed on. Facilitated by demand outstripping supply.

                    • solkta …
                      6 June 2018 at 10:48 am

                      The main driver of rent increases is house prices, obviously. Runaway house prices have put huge pressure on rents to increase but they have not done so at the rate of house inflation because there isn’t the ability there for people to pay.

                      You really are a crap troll. Get out of your hole and go and find a bridge to sit under.

                    • McFlock …
                      6 June 2018 at 1:09 pm

                      “Owner occupied means one less tenant looking for a house,”

                      Not necessarily, as I’ve already explained.

                      oh yes, your landlord returning from overseas just to live in a substandard house that they can’t rent out because of the wof.

                      I don’t think that would occur at a level high enough to impact the real world.

                      Moreover, when a rental becomes owner occupied, the tenants will require to find a new place to stay.

                      Indeed, and (barring your overseas landlords who returned home solely because they wanted to live in their slum) that doesn’t affect the ratio of supply vs demand because the landlord’s old home is now vacant

                      Additionally, of course there is scope to pass on costs in a overheated market where demand is outstripping supply. It’s already happening with soaring rates and insurance costs. Rents are on the increase, have been for a while now and will continue to climb for some time to come.

                      Rents are on the increase because the supply of housing is not increasing at the same pace as demand. Exactly the same reason home ownership is so low and house prices have been booming.

                      Or are rates and insurance the reason house ownership is getting more expensive, too?

                      Sale price (including rental) has fuckall to to with the vendor’s costs unless the vendor has a monopoly and people need the product. Landlords do not have a monopoly.

                    • The Chairman …
                      6 June 2018 at 1:40 pm

                      solkta

                      I agree, increasing house prices is another cost driving up rents.

                      However, there are a number of reasons why rents have not increased at the same rate of house inflation.

                      One being not all rentals were purchased at the same time, thus return on investment largely varies.

                      For example, if you bought a rental 20 years ago, you can charge far less (while maintaining the same margin) than someone who purchased one recently.

                      Another is capital gains over the long-term help offset lower rents.

                      Then there are those using rentals to write off losses from other income.

                      As housing is a necessity most wouldn’t want to go without, people will find the ability to pay. For example, by overcrowding, taking on a boarder, moving to somewhere smaller or further away from a main centre etc.

                      Therefore, while demand continues to outstrip supply, cost will be passed on just as rents have and will continue to further climb.

                    • McFlock …
                      6 June 2018 at 1:55 pm

                      As housing is a necessity most wouldn’t want to go without, people will find the ability to pay

                      40,000 homeless call bullshit on that

                    • The Chairman …
                      6 June 2018 at 2:08 pm

                      McFlock

                      “I don’t think that would occur at a level high enough to impact the real world.”

                      That’s cool, I didn’t say the impact from that alone would be massive. Moreover, as I explained before, even if you wish to ignore this impact, with demand outstripping supply (due to our housing shortage, growing population and high immigration) the scope to pass on costs still remains.

                      Soaring council rates and insurance cost are adding to the cost of home ownership too. One has to factor in these costs along with mortgage repayments.

                      In a overheated market, with demand outstripping supply, vendors and landlords largely hold the power, thus call the shots.

                      Surely you’ve seen the reported queues of people at rental openings? And you must have heard how tenants are basically entering into a bidding war?

                      As for non-warranted houses being slums, not all are. I’d live in this (below).
                      https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/98200714/wellington-landlord-says-councils-rental-warrant-of-fitness-needs-some-work

                    • The Chairman …
                      6 June 2018 at 2:17 pm

                      McFlock

                      As I said, housing is a necessity most wouldn’t want to go without, the reality is 40,000 is a very small percentage of the population.

                      Most are not homeless, thus find the ability to suffice.

                    • McFlock …
                      6 June 2018 at 3:19 pm

                      with demand outstripping supply (due to our housing shortage, growing population and high immigration) the scope to pass on costs still remains.

                      Nope.
                      With demand outstripping supply, slumlords will still extract as much money as possible from their tenants, regardless of the costs they face.

                      Surely you’ve seen the reported queues of people at rental openings? And you must have heard how tenants are basically entering into a bidding war?

                      Yes.
                      And if the landlords were simply dictating a price and getting tenants, you’d have a point. But they’re pitting tenants against each other to extract as much money as possible, regardless of the costs they (the landlords) face.

                      As for non-warranted houses being slums, not all are. I’d live in this (below).

                      Yeah, security isn’t an issue for you. Yay. And yet for the cost of a bulb and some latches, according to you he’d have an excuse to inflate his rents.

    • Ankerawshark 13.3
      3 June 2018 at 6:47 pm

      Chris 73 @ 13:::::

      This will be a foreign concept to you but this government doesn’t govern according to polls. They know it is the right thing to do.

      Most people favour three strikes cause they likely are not well informed about what it involves

      • chris73 13.3.1
        3 June 2018 at 8:47 pm

        “Most people favour three strikes cause they likely are not well informed about what it involves”

        and theres the left attitude we all know and love: “the plebs are just to stupid to understand how smart Labours policies are”

        • KJT 13.3.1.1
          4 June 2018 at 12:13 pm

          Not correct. We are simply acknowledging the effectiveness of National’s propaganda/ sorry, “alternative news”. . The one thing they are good at!

          “A lie has gone around the world twice, before truth has a chance to get off the ground”.

      • Naki man 13.3.2
        3 June 2018 at 9:41 pm

        “This will be a foreign concept to you but this government doesn’t govern according to polls. They know it is the right thing to do.”

        Maybe you could give this gentleman a job babysitting some of your family when Little and co let him out early. Cos it is the right thing to do.

        https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/06/meet_a_second_striker_4.html

        • One Anonymous Bloke 13.3.2.1
          4 June 2018 at 7:39 pm

          The government is going to pass a law requiring judges to use their discretion to release the worst offenders?

          Or you are a fool to believe anything that trash tells you.

          Geez, that’s a toughie 🙄

          Unfortunately, it’s no laughing matter: your support for Graham Capill creates more recidivism and therefore more crime. You should be ashamed of yourself, for supporting a child rapist and creating more crime. What a scumbag.

  14. Incognito 14
    3 June 2018 at 1:55 pm

    https://sciblogs.co.nz/guestwork/2018/06/02/the-social-science-of-mycoplasma/

    Usually when animal disease strikes, it is the advice and expertise of the veterinary sciences that is sought.

    However, recent disease outbreaks such as Foot and Mouth in the UK in 2001, have led to the recognition that the social sciences should also play an important role in the management of animal disease. They should also be important to help understand and manage the impacts of mycoplasma in New Zealand.

    A piece that’s worth a read IMO.

  15. Ad 15
    3 June 2018 at 3:48 pm

    For those amongst us who get a bit melancholic about the state of the United States, here’s one for you, using Elvis as the touchstone:

  16. NZJester 16
    3 June 2018 at 4:20 pm

    Main Roundup Ingredient Is Unsafe At Nearly ALL Levels

  17. pat 17
    3 June 2018 at 11:08 pm

    “Around 600 million Indians are experiencing high water stress, according to the World Resources Institute. Major cities such as Delhi and Bangalore have faced disruptions to supplies in recent years.

    In 2016, tensions between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu state over how to share supplies from a major river erupted into riots.

    Many of those who do have water find their supply is tainted. A World Bank study estimated that about 163 million Indians had no access to safe drinking water and that 21% of communicable diseases in the country were linked to polluted supplies.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/31/tourist-told-to-stay-away-from-indian-city-shimla-water-crisis

    “I went to check our sites at Dalsetter and Troswick last week to compare numbers of Arctic terns with those we counted during Seabird 2000, the last national seabird census carried out across Britain and Ireland,” added Moncrieff. “I found there were around 110 Arctic terns there last week compared with around 9,000 that were counted in the same area in 2000. That is the kind of loss we have sustained here.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/03/shetland-seabirds-climate-change-catastrophe-terns-kittiwakes-puffins

    “A whale has died in southern Thailand after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags, with rescuers failing to nurse the mammal back to health.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/03/whale-dies-from-eating-
    more-than-80-plastic-bags

    Crisis….what crisis?

  18. eco maori 18
    4 June 2018 at 9:18 am

    It makes Eco Maori smile when I read that two Great Maori men have been Knighted Puhipi Busby and John Rowles.
    The Top Twins to Ka pai they have the old school attitude when Maori were treated more Honorable they promoted farming to Kia kaha farmers we will control this bovine virus you are the back bone of Aoteraroa ignore all the bad press about meat and dairy because its these products that is going to make Aoteraroa Wealthy family farms.
    Some people don’t like a little country like OURs having Mana and wealth with a big influence on Papatuanuku. link below Ka kite ano.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12060642 P.S a lot of great ladies got honoured to ka pai