For landlords. If your business is too highly geared it is your fault, not the customers. You are using your customers to buy the house for you. You wouldn't get loans for a normal business, if the outgoings were so close to the costs. It is only the banks expectations that you will, in fact, make a large profit in the end from capital gains, that they base their lending on.
That so many can borrow beyond the rentals earnings, as a going concern, is a consequence of steeply rising prices. Especially if they already have other houses as collateral. And a prime cause of the whole merry go round.
The same thing has happened with farms, where banks will lend on the land, at levels way in excess of any possible earnings from a going concern farm, in the expectations of the land making huge gains on sale.
No one who simply wants a home, or to farm can keep up.
Exactly. Landlords, whether one or multiple property owners, are hardly the entrepreneurial geniuses ‘housing the nation’ that their spokespeople try to portray.
If interest rates rise, Accomodation Supplements are canned or reduced, or a CGT instituted, it will be tears at bedtime and w-w-wailing for bailouts.
After so many years, untaxed or lightly taxed profits from property are a no-go area for the main Parliamentary parties apart from Māori and Greens perhaps.
But the answer is there–supply–start a Govt. Dept., fully publicly owned, to plonk modular houses and apartments from one end of the country to other until everyone is housed satisfactorily. And institute rent control right now to send “a signal” while plans are actioned.
"hardly the entrepreneurial geniuses housing the nation"……….lol. Couldn't of put it better. As I commented in my time being a landlord it was money for jam……..easiest "work" I have every done!
That's because as a person who has only 'worked' to earn a living you don't really grasp what it is to put a price on 'risk'. And the very basic bit of landlording you did didn't involve much risk and with maybe only a handful of tenants involved you never struck a bad one.
But ask yourself this – why do you think the banks won't lend to just anyone and everyone who wants a home? If they would do that then there would be no need for anyone to ever rent.
Red Logix. Often appreciate your point of view, so don't want to get into a battle with you. I am sorry if the new housing regulations are proving stressful for you, really I am.
I have run my own business since 2006. So I have an idea about risk. Before that I was a paid employee, and have done a wide range of jobs.
Most of us live very conservative, safe lives, we avoid real risk like the plague. We default to the idea of labour being the only 'real' measure of money (I still have this hard-wired into me) – but a few among us escape this trap.
One day I got a 40 min helicopter ride sitting next to Phillipe Pascal, the man who had raised U$7.5b for this project. This is real risk, and getting to success was incredibly hard work for everyone involved. I worked most of 2019 on this site, it was an amazing experience and I watched this with some pride.
It's transformed the economy of a whole country. Of course the anti-capitalists here will line up to take pot-shots, and to be fair as with anything human there are flaws and failings that can be rightly criticised. But how many among us here at The Standard – can say that we've achieved something like this?
Is that all that's important to you? Something to attack? It's odd how you've expressed no interest in how it's transformed the lives of the local communities. People getting out of poverty and all that.
But yes there was considerable labour conflict on site for a period. On my first rotation I arrived completely unaware of a major riot that had occurred in another location (it's a huge site, it takes an hour to drive from the coast where I was working to the mine entrance). There were multiple unions active on site, but one of them was determined to gain leverage and literally shut the place down for weeks. Gangs of men in trucks patrolled around the site, throwing rocks, confronting anyone they met, stopping supplies, cutting communications, wrecking offices and camps. It was really very violent and dangerous and I was totally cut off from the outside world along with a small team of Australians (just the six of us) in one of the smaller camps on the coast for four weeks.
In the end it was us, a couple of managers, some cooks and a dozen heavily armed security guards, hunkered down keeping a very low profile. We got through it OK, and we actually got a lot of work done without anyone else breathing down our neck. But it was more of an adventure than advertised.
The union did have something of a valid complaint in that while there were many thousands of skilled ex-pat workers onsite who were there legitimately and authorised by the govt labour dept, there was also a large Chinese labour contractor who was blatantly breaking the rules and undercutting the local labour. It's not necessarily and easy or quick thing to solve, sure you can ditch the problematic contractor, but that leaves you with a big gap in resource. Eventually the govt and First Quantum found a way around it all – but as with anything in Latin America it took way longer than you or I would think reasonable.
So there is something for you to be outraged over.
RL – I'm not sure that there has been a lot of risk in residential property investment over the last two decades? As you yourself said yesterday, "And the simple answer is that for several generations now the only reliable investment in this country has been property."
I absolutely don't blame people or think they are evil for acting in a financially rational manner – we all want our families to eat. I might however raise an eyebrow (Judith style) when people try to glamourise that rationality as some sort of virtue – such as providing homes for people, or wealth creation, or risk taking.
In terms of the linked video, although some business enterprises do involve remarkable people with vision and a bravery in the face of risk, it's not really the norm. Most businesses are risk averse. Innovation and new product development is hard – it is much easier to turn a profit by cutting labour costs, outsourcing to low-wage economies, monopoly/cartel behaviour, ticket-clipping, externalising costs (environmental, social) onto the taxpayer, etc..
Disclaimer: In an earlier life before the venture capitalists decided that two Indians and half a German could do my job for less money – I had the financial resources to invest in residential property. I decided not to – partly because although it was low-risk it was also a lot of hassle, plus I had vague thoughts that maybe it wasn't particularly socially responsible. I claim no virtue in this decision, it is just how things work out.
For most landlords with just the one unit (usually an ex-family home) – it's not very risky at all. But then the returns are pretty modest as well. It's only when you start leveraging up a stack of 10 or more that it becomes substantially more difficult. But relatively few get there, Pareto’s law applies to landlording too.
it is much easier to turn a profit by cutting labour costs, outsourcing to low-wage economies, monopoly/cartel behaviour, ticket-clipping, externalising costs (environmental, social) onto the taxpayer, etc..
Each one of those is worth several posts and many threads, but in general yes there are many commercial activities that fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum between pure labour and pure entrepreneur. And I agree that not all of them have equal social merit.
And yes there are plenty of unpleasant, ego-driven, status-seeking people in the business world doing things we find ethically deplorable. The transformation of the human heart lies in our future. But for the time being at least capitalism gives these people something to do other than actual war, rape and pillage.
Unlike the promoters of marxist utopia's, I don't defend capitalism because I think it's any kind of ideal. It's not even very ideological, it's really just a handful of economic tools and ideas that have evolved into something incredibly complex and pervasive. And as such I expect it will continue to evolve into new forms as our social horizons and moral vision expand.
Yeah, that would be something to see. We should have followed immediately after Australia removed them.
In Australia the percentage of IO loans for residential was quite high..from memory 30 or 40%. Not sure how many are IO in NZ but probably similar as it’s been encouraged.
Im stirring….I dont think they will (immediately) especially without waiting to see how the package plays out, but the option is there.
“Nearly 40% of bank lending to residential property investors is on interest-only arrangements – RBNZ tight-lipped on whether this is too high, but raises concerns over leverage”
Yeah, everybody else was prepared for the pandemic and could see it coming as soon as that bat fled that cave except for those who find themselves financially struggling. Clearly, they made bad personal choices and should suffer the consequences.
Is this comment too much ‘lefty resentment’ or too ‘RWNJ’? What do you think?
The already rich are on the line heading upwards – getting richer because of a range of Government policies aimed at responding to Covid-19. Meanwhile, renters, beneficiaries and the working poor are getting poorer because their rents are rising, their incomes are falling and they have received barely any more direct help than they got before the pandemic.
This isn’t a binary issue, and continuing to frame it as such is unhelpful. Personally I feel for anyone who is struggling to pay their bills regardless of what they are, one would argue these people are on the lower leg of the ‘K recovery’ like the working poor and renters etc.
We are all closer to becoming destitute than becoming a billionaire.
How many riding the 'up elevator' reallywant all elevators to go up?
It would be a great 'trick' to pull off – in the meantime we can beef up redistribution so that the 'down escalator' travels more slowly.
Really don't understand how a bit more redistribution could put everyone on the down escalator – can you talk me through it? Lets say the Government instituted a wealth tax or some other policy that resulted in the transfer of 2% of your wealth to those on the 'down escalator.' How might that transfer put you on the ‘down escalator‘?
I'm curious as to why you think the financial security of everyone on the up escalator is so marginal – seems to me that the opposite is true. I write as someone on the 'up escalator.' Sure, my position is towards the bottom of that escalator, but it feels secure to me – a 2% wealth tax would barely affect me.
In my view your answer [Redistribution] really amounts to taking everyone off the up and putting them on the down. Very marxist. – RL @11:02 am
RL, please can you talk/walk me through how ‘a bit more‘ redistribution could put everyone on the ‘down escalator‘? Note that I’m definitely not seeking some sort of Marxist utopia – that wouldn’t suit me at all. But a bit more redistribution sure could go a long way to slowing that ‘down escalator‘, and there but for the grace of God…
“I believe that with great wealth comes great responsibility, a responsibility to give back to society and a responsibility to see that those resources are put to work in the best possible way to help those most in need.” – Gates
And, while I've never met anyone who told me that they thought poverty was/is a good thing, I believe that some on the 'up escalator' have become overly reliant on relative poverty – for example, those that can't cope when the tap of cheap labour is turned off.
Historically the only place where poverty could operate as a virtue was within the very specific settings of some form of monastic lifestyle. In particular it only works where sex and having family is prohibited.
I'm curious as to why you think the financial security of everyone on the up escalator is so marginal – seems to me that the opposite is true. @11:43 am
RL, please can you talk/walk me through how ‘a bit more‘ redistribution could put everyone on the ‘down escalator‘? @12:08 pm
Probably my misinterpretation, in which case apologies.
RL, I've never met anyone who personally sought out poverty, which is a pity really because I'm sure their worldview would be interesting.
Well I have been in the fortunate position to have met some one like that. He sleeps "rough" here in Thames and I get to meet him on a regular basis. I've often discussed with him the possibility of moving in to better accommodation than behind his favourite building. But his chosen site is where he prefers. He is his own person and while he would like to have someplace he could have a shower on occasions and a place to heat up some food, the lifestyle he chooses is his own, and at the moment suits him. Although tangata whenua, he claims no river and no mountain, he claims no one. He is a very spiritual person, preferring his own company.
Of the 20 or so rough sleepers in our town I have written on their behalf to the 4 ministers and associate ministers responsible for housing and homeless persons, suggesting that they consider working with a local ngos towards the establishment of a Hub where these people could have shelter, a shower, meet, and share food. Funding would be directed to the employment of staff for the supervision of the centre. I have not received any response.
A decent answer is well beyond the scope of a short comment. But in brief the answer I would offer is that we already do a great deal of redistribution (especially around education, health and security) to ensure everyone gets a reasonable equal opportunity.
But it's much harder and far more problematic to ensure equal outcomes. Some element of competitive innovation or 'doing better' has to be built in otherwise most people simply stop bothering. The Soviet Union was the great example — "they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work".
Perhaps we could make more progress if we worried less about the material measures of wealth inequality, and started to ask more questions around what defines true wealth and what are the best uses it can be put to? And in this I keep coming back to the concept of a social and economic life based on ideas of duty and service.
Sorry – that does fall short of answering your question.
@Macro (1:52 pm) – thanks for that. Your vision of a 'homeless(ness) Hub' is very valuable and positive. I hope that you continue your lobbying and are (eventually) successful.
My brother lives in Thames now, and we know the place well. It's likely you'll bump into him one day.
Your rough sleeper is essentially what we used to call a 'hermit'. Single men who have stepped outside of society have always existed in our history. It's just that our climate and DoC don't really let them live on mountain tops these days.
And respect for you willingness to reach out to him and advocate for those in a similar position. It's not an easy task helping people and I sincerely look up to those who are good at it.
@RL (2:02 pm) – that's helpful. Tbh I reckon many of those on the 'down escalator' couldn't give a toss about ensuring "equal outcomes" – they just need a bit more help. As to how to fund it, well, there's no getting around the fact that NZ is (on the whole) a wealthy country.
And I think your observation that some seem overly concerned about material wealth is on the money – focusing on the inequality of material wealth is so punitive.
Wow my 'creaming it" comment has really struck a nerve. Maybe I should be more careful with my language.
The people I object to are the ones who own property, rent it out, will push the rents up no matter the impact on the tenants, because they have over leveraged and scream and howl that its not fair, not owning that most likely they are in a far better position than their tenants, the consequences for which could mean eviction, trying to find another place to live in an over priced under supplied market, may forgo back necessities to keep a roof over their head by paying the rent increase, have no hope of ever buying their own digs. Their situation is always in the fore front of my mind. As was young first home buyers being out bid by investors, some of who turn out to be unhappy because now they will have to hold on to the property longer and gradually no longer be able to claim interest as a tax deduction.
But yes I will be more careful with my language in future. I am not here to inflame things
Checked the Australian figure. Three years ago 25% of all residential property loans were interest only so not as bad as I thought. Still that's a huge number.
"Interest-only home loans used to rival their principal and interest (P&I) repayment counterparts, accounting for around 40% of all outstanding mortgage balances in the mid-2010s. But that was before regulatory bodies introduced measures to slow down this form of lending. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) imposed a 30% restriction on the number of home loans issued by banks that could be interest-only in 2017."
As a mortgage underwriter in Australia, we are seeing a rise of interest only owner occupied loan applications, scraping through in terms of serviceability. LVR's ranging wildly, but not exceeding 80%.
This is quite eye opening coming back to underwriting from my secondment with the COVID19 hardship response team, as there was a push for borrowers who reached maximum assistance (6-10 months moratorium) to go interest only. I wouldn't really like to consider what % our portfolio is on IO repayments, treading water.
Yup. We were never tempted to go interest only either. Only speculators or the very marginal go down that path. Long term investors want to get the mortgage paid off eventually and IO doesn't get you there.
For owner occupiers (not investors) is interest only still cheaper than rents? It gives people time to recover without losing a deposit or being subjected to the renting merry go around.
Yesterday I commented that landlords were creaming it and I got howls of protests about overgeneralizing and most landlords aren't like that and what do you think being a land lord is……a social service.
KJT you are spot on. If their business is too geared it is their fault/responsibility. They took a risk with an investment and it didn't work out…….maybe, they made a poor business decision.
The govt actually had to take very significant action on this. Just like they did with Covid.
I also commented that I was a landlord once when I had to move city and thought it possible I would move back home and wanted to hold onto my home. This was a few years back now. Being a landlord is money for jam. Its like a hobby really. You have a property manager, your accountant sets things up vey nicely for you. Occasionally you have to make decisions about ………actually I am struggling to think of what decisions I had to make. Oh thats right, if the tenants request things, which I was always happy to go along with as I had a small mortgage and I was happy to use the low rent I was charging to make improvements for them.
It would be interesting to know how many landlords are highly geared. If interest rates went back up to 5% or 6% if they could cope with that. Hopefully they have been smart enough to realise that the current interest rates are as low as they have ever been and at some point may increase and have budgeted for that. I do feel for any landlord that has recently purchased a rental and have only say 80% equity, as this will be a game changer for them now that the interest non deductibility is phased in. Like I say, the non deductibility is like them receiving an interest rate rise, so hopefully they have budgeted for the possible increase.
My guess is that many long-term 'buy and hold' landlords who have been in the business for more than say 15 yrs will have a total LVR under 60%. The reason why is that the price inflation we have been seeing means that any new property you purchase is going to be negative cash flow for many years, and there is a real limit to how often you can do that.
But what is also happening is that while interest rates are low for the moment, but at the same time other fixed costs like rates and insurance have increased dramatically. We have one unit where the latest insurance bill now consumes 22% of the rent.
Interestingly here in Australia one of the internal rules the banks are using to check the serviceability of new lending is to assess what would happen with an interest rate of 6.45%. So they understand that the current low rates are not likely to last forever. Indeed as the current generation of boomers retire over the next few years, and transition from the greatest investors of all time, to the greatest consumers of capital there is a real argument that rates could easily go over 10% again.
That 5-7% aligns with our experience here in Australia.
Where interest rates will go in future depends a lot on how long govts around the world can keep printing money to keep them where they are now. If they fail in this, then all bets are off, I don't think anyone knows how that will play out.
That so many can borrow beyond the rentals earnings, as a going concern, is a consequence of steeply rising prices.
80% of landlords never go beyond the one unit – because it's not as easy as you portray. If you're negatively geared (as we were for a long period – at 9% interest rates that was inevitable even when we never went over 60% LVR), the bank isn't going to lend more to you just because you queue up and smile sweetly.
Banks don't look at just the increased equity, they look at your serviceability and past a certain age your exit strategy as well. The idea that you can borrow without limit is just wrong. The relatively few people who do manage to get to more than 10 units have negotiated a tricky balance of cash flow, costs, lots of leg work – plus a bit of luck – to get there. Most people don't want to do that because the risk goes up substantially and it becomes close to a full time job to manage. No-one is portraying landlords as 'entrepreneurial geniuses' – in normal times it was always considered a relatively modest strategy that took decades to pay off. People don't want to play casino with their life savings.
Well as I've said elsewhere, established owners with little or no borrowing will be very happy – this govt has just eliminated virtually any new competition in the rental market.
"It is only the banks expectations that you will, in fact, make a large profit in the end from capital gains, that they base their lending on."
Isn't more the ease of claiming the security for the loan than the expected capital gain? That's of course buoyed by record capital gains that're occurring at the moment, but are banks really lending against what they think a future sale price might reach?
Its both…the banks want the income stream and are happy to extend the credit in a rising market because should you default they have an asset of increased value that they can dispose (or preferably releverage) with a reduced fear of loss…..and the fees theyll add.
That would appear a strange anomaly….and the fact his unit still has quake damage is appalling….though I wonder if the units are earmarked to be replaced so upgrades are avoided.
I don't know the answer to this, but are you saying that banks are lending against a projected value of the asset, rather than its actual value at the time of the lending?
Taking out a mortgage only pushes up the prices of whatever product you are selling. The ideal situation is where an investor is sufficiently cashed up that he can invest without borrowing. Alternatively, he might be able to get an interest free loan. Long live Social Credit!
Someone dial 111, Judith Collins is involved in another train wreck on the radio.
From the thoroughly fake sounding surprise greeting (akin to real estate agent photos in the paper), to the assertions that rent controls never work anywhere, to the antagonistic tone taken when challenged on her assertions.
Can anyone be harmed by excessive schadenfreude? I may need medical attention.
“Behold,” he could have said, “the reality of global trade. Behold the tankers full of the oil that warms the climate and keeps the vile House of Saud in power. Behold the trillion tonnes of cheap consumer goods, from the factories of Asia to the landfills of Europe. Just look at it all. It cannot be sustainable. And how easily we could wean ourselves off it. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not too late.”
It's incredibly lazy for people like Bennett to write snarky pieces like this, in complete ignorance of how the world works. Virtually everything about his modern comfortable life has been enabled by just this 'global trade' that he sneers at. He just doesn't know it.
People like him would stand by cheering when the house burned down because they didn't like the decor in the upstairs bathroom.
Well I guess he got paid for churning out his silly bit of click-bait – which is about the sum total of it's merit.
I suspect Mr Bennet knows pretty well what provides for his lifestyle and I also suspect he isnt a big consumer of frippery…sadly nuance is becoming in increasingly short supply as is humour.
Well I'll give Bennett credit for having the curiosity and energy to ask the question and chase down some answers. How well he succeeded might be gauged by some of the review comments.
But the question is certainly worth asking – and the answer lies very much buried within CCP policy and their basic purpose for money. In the West we view money as a tool to enable economically worthwhile productivity, market pricing being a tool to manage this. The CCP uses money as a tool to maximise employment and maintain social stability, price being of relatively lesser importance – if any in the case of the underpants.
How is it that NZ prisoners are not allowed access to the internet while Putin's most feared opposition incarcerated in the most punishing gulag Russia has , can operate an Instagram account ?
People we manage in our prisons do not have access to computers with internet connection so cannot use email.
Navalny said in a post on Instagram that he had been given six reprimands over two weeks, and that two reprimands would be technically enough for a prison tribunal send a prisoner to a punishment cell.
Ask Kim Hill to ask that question next she does a piece on this, or any news/current events show on RNZ for that matter, I am sure they will be only too willing to shift from the established narrative.
When Peters couldn't answer a question or didn't want to answer a question, he would turn it into a he said/she said argument so that the question was never answered. Only he was better at doing it than Judith.
His statements seemed to me to be at least as general as were those of Judith Collins. However not a single one was questioned in any way and no evidence was requested for any of them. And people still think that Radio NZ is "impartial"?
The renter advocate's statements may have been general alwyn but they were much clearer and far less equivocal than Judith Collins. I almost had the feeling she was being deliberately ambiguous for the sake of it.
Having said that, I agree with you that some RNZ radio hosts are not always impartial. There are one or two of them who enjoy arguing for the sake of it which doesn't achieve much imo.
Please when you address a particular commenter put the name or pseudo. I want to know what about and to whom you are talking, Some people certainly cry out to be called w…s and I want to see if you have picked the right one in my opinion.
By no means – some people handle the powers of petty bureaucracy generously, others become martinets.
Freedom campers, once merely known as campers, are losing the local version of allemansrätten to a failure of local government imagination.
Not so keen on extending the generalization to teachers however – most do their best within the constraints of a system that gives them relatively little freedom of action.
Is it just me or do others feel like these calls for, in this case tech entrepreneurs, everyone to move to a new silicon valley (NZ) more than a bit arrogant and condescending? Have they not noticed that a lot of people live here already and that they may have a different view about others deciding to "invade" their country? Maybe we actually don't want them? It's not like Silicon Valley has made life wonderful for all the people who live or used to live in the area. Some studies have shown that incomers in places like Seattle and Portland have just pretty much displaced existing populations.
And aren’t a bunch of them just selfish opportunists leeching off the work of others?
Even worse are the US Republicans that go "I'll move to NZ" as if they have some absolute right to turn up here and enjoy living that results from policy that is pretty much everything that they have always worked against.
ACC is just plain wrong here. There's nothing in the Act that requires instruments to be used in order for an injury to be regarded as a treatment injury. It's ACC hunting for ways to shaft the claimant yet again.
Sepuloni is being weak here. As minister she has more power than what people are led to believe. In this case she just needs to tell ACC to pull its head in.
A major problem, amongst many, with ACC is that they're assumed to have more power than they in fact have. ACC has become so arrogant in its drive to find ways of refusing cover and kicking people off compensation that it now actively challenges cases in the courts where someone's appealed a decision based on legislation the government has introduced for a specific purpose. In other words, ACC sees no problem setting out to (mis)use the judicial process to thwart clear legislative intent.
Sepuloni needs to start looking at the real problems at ACC instead of believing what those nasty pricks at ACC head office so deceivingly tell her is the case. ACC operates in a very dark place. It's a great opportunity for Sepuloni to create a lasting legacy by successfully taking them on. The only problem is that I don't think she's got the guts or the smarts to do it. A pity.
NZ – one wonders just where our systems of control went – now it seems anything goes.
A woman was crashed into by a Lime Scooter in 2019. The Court has to decide whether it is a vehicle! You get injured first, and then that prompts someone who has authority to decide whether it is safe, should be used etc.
Christensen credited the two scarves she had been wearing to combat the cold with saving her life.
McIntyre has been on trial before Judge Christopher Field, who had to consider whether a Lime Scooter was a vehicle under the Land Transport Act. Because Christensen had one foot on the bus, he also had to consider whether she was a passenger or a pedestrian…
McIntyre was sentenced to pay $4000 reparations to her.
How long can the perp string the payments out and what happens if nothing is paid? Do our Courts serve the little person? Well as Flanders and Swann chirruped, it all makes work for the working man [Judge] to do; virtually making law on the hoof, said in the kindest way of course.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
For landlords. If your business is too highly geared it is your fault, not the customers. You are using your customers to buy the house for you. You wouldn't get loans for a normal business, if the outgoings were so close to the costs. It is only the banks expectations that you will, in fact, make a large profit in the end from capital gains, that they base their lending on.
That so many can borrow beyond the rentals earnings, as a going concern, is a consequence of steeply rising prices. Especially if they already have other houses as collateral. And a prime cause of the whole merry go round.
The same thing has happened with farms, where banks will lend on the land, at levels way in excess of any possible earnings from a going concern farm, in the expectations of the land making huge gains on sale.
No one who simply wants a home, or to farm can keep up.
Exactly. Landlords, whether one or multiple property owners, are hardly the entrepreneurial geniuses ‘housing the nation’ that their spokespeople try to portray.
If interest rates rise, Accomodation Supplements are canned or reduced, or a CGT instituted, it will be tears at bedtime and w-w-wailing for bailouts.
After so many years, untaxed or lightly taxed profits from property are a no-go area for the main Parliamentary parties apart from Māori and Greens perhaps.
But the answer is there–supply–start a Govt. Dept., fully publicly owned, to plonk modular houses and apartments from one end of the country to other until everyone is housed satisfactorily. And institute rent control right now to send “a signal” while plans are actioned.
"hardly the entrepreneurial geniuses housing the nation"……….lol. Couldn't of put it better. As I commented in my time being a landlord it was money for jam……..easiest "work" I have every done!
easiest "work" I have every done!
That's because as a person who has only 'worked' to earn a living you don't really grasp what it is to put a price on 'risk'. And the very basic bit of landlording you did didn't involve much risk and with maybe only a handful of tenants involved you never struck a bad one.
But ask yourself this – why do you think the banks won't lend to just anyone and everyone who wants a home? If they would do that then there would be no need for anyone to ever rent.
Red Logix. Often appreciate your point of view, so don't want to get into a battle with you. I am sorry if the new housing regulations are proving stressful for you, really I am.
I have run my own business since 2006. So I have an idea about risk. Before that I was a paid employee, and have done a wide range of jobs.
Most of us live very conservative, safe lives, we avoid real risk like the plague. We default to the idea of labour being the only 'real' measure of money (I still have this hard-wired into me) – but a few among us escape this trap.
One day I got a 40 min helicopter ride sitting next to Phillipe Pascal, the man who had raised U$7.5b for this project. This is real risk, and getting to success was incredibly hard work for everyone involved. I worked most of 2019 on this site, it was an amazing experience and I watched this with some pride.
It's transformed the economy of a whole country. Of course the anti-capitalists here will line up to take pot-shots, and to be fair as with anything human there are flaws and failings that can be rightly criticised. But how many among us here at The Standard – can say that we've achieved something like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrCOR0QAdv0
Well what were the flaws and failings that can be rightly criticised for this project?
Is that all that's important to you? Something to attack? It's odd how you've expressed no interest in how it's transformed the lives of the local communities. People getting out of poverty and all that.
But yes there was considerable labour conflict on site for a period. On my first rotation I arrived completely unaware of a major riot that had occurred in another location (it's a huge site, it takes an hour to drive from the coast where I was working to the mine entrance). There were multiple unions active on site, but one of them was determined to gain leverage and literally shut the place down for weeks. Gangs of men in trucks patrolled around the site, throwing rocks, confronting anyone they met, stopping supplies, cutting communications, wrecking offices and camps. It was really very violent and dangerous and I was totally cut off from the outside world along with a small team of Australians (just the six of us) in one of the smaller camps on the coast for four weeks.
In the end it was us, a couple of managers, some cooks and a dozen heavily armed security guards, hunkered down keeping a very low profile. We got through it OK, and we actually got a lot of work done without anyone else breathing down our neck. But it was more of an adventure than advertised.
The union did have something of a valid complaint in that while there were many thousands of skilled ex-pat workers onsite who were there legitimately and authorised by the govt labour dept, there was also a large Chinese labour contractor who was blatantly breaking the rules and undercutting the local labour. It's not necessarily and easy or quick thing to solve, sure you can ditch the problematic contractor, but that leaves you with a big gap in resource. Eventually the govt and First Quantum found a way around it all – but as with anything in Latin America it took way longer than you or I would think reasonable.
So there is something for you to be outraged over.
'Something of a valid complaint' sounds a tad grudging.
It is you, it seems, who is outraged that I should ask for an explanation of something you outlined.
But thanks anyway.
Interesting
RL – I'm not sure that there has been a lot of risk in residential property investment over the last two decades? As you yourself said yesterday, "And the simple answer is that for several generations now the only reliable investment in this country has been property."
I absolutely don't blame people or think they are evil for acting in a financially rational manner – we all want our families to eat. I might however raise an eyebrow (Judith style) when people try to glamourise that rationality as some sort of virtue – such as providing homes for people, or wealth creation, or risk taking.
In terms of the linked video, although some business enterprises do involve remarkable people with vision and a bravery in the face of risk, it's not really the norm. Most businesses are risk averse. Innovation and new product development is hard – it is much easier to turn a profit by cutting labour costs, outsourcing to low-wage economies, monopoly/cartel behaviour, ticket-clipping, externalising costs (environmental, social) onto the taxpayer, etc..
Disclaimer: In an earlier life before the venture capitalists decided that two Indians and half a German could do my job for less money – I had the financial resources to invest in residential property. I decided not to – partly because although it was low-risk it was also a lot of hassle, plus I had vague thoughts that maybe it wasn't particularly socially responsible. I claim no virtue in this decision, it is just how things work out.
For most landlords with just the one unit (usually an ex-family home) – it's not very risky at all. But then the returns are pretty modest as well. It's only when you start leveraging up a stack of 10 or more that it becomes substantially more difficult. But relatively few get there, Pareto’s law applies to landlording too.
it is much easier to turn a profit by cutting labour costs, outsourcing to low-wage economies, monopoly/cartel behaviour, ticket-clipping, externalising costs (environmental, social) onto the taxpayer, etc..
Each one of those is worth several posts and many threads, but in general yes there are many commercial activities that fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum between pure labour and pure entrepreneur. And I agree that not all of them have equal social merit.
And yes there are plenty of unpleasant, ego-driven, status-seeking people in the business world doing things we find ethically deplorable. The transformation of the human heart lies in our future. But for the time being at least capitalism gives these people something to do other than actual war, rape and pillage.
Unlike the promoters of marxist utopia's, I don't defend capitalism because I think it's any kind of ideal. It's not even very ideological, it's really just a handful of economic tools and ideas that have evolved into something incredibly complex and pervasive. And as such I expect it will continue to evolve into new forms as our social horizons and moral vision expand.
Tiger Mountain gave the bit of that statement "housing the nation" as a direct quote coming from landlord's spokespeople.
Who are these spokespeople? Where and when did they say it?
Consider the howls if the RBNZ takes ‘interest only ‘ finance off the table….
Yeah, that would be something to see. We should have followed immediately after Australia removed them.
In Australia the percentage of IO loans for residential was quite high..from memory 30 or 40%. Not sure how many are IO in NZ but probably similar as it’s been encouraged.
Im stirring….I dont think they will (immediately) especially without waiting to see how the package plays out, but the option is there.
“Nearly 40% of bank lending to residential property investors is on interest-only arrangements – RBNZ tight-lipped on whether this is too high, but raises concerns over leverage”
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/109356/nearly-40-bank-lending-residential-property-investors-are-interest-only-arrangements
Who cares about people struggling to pay the mortgage; they’re ‘creaming it’ \sarc
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124699937/covid19-mortgage-holiday-scheme-ends-with-3700-mortgages-still-in-repayment-deferral
Just goes to show how flawed the whole model is eh?
Yeah, everybody else was prepared for the pandemic and could see it coming as soon as that bat fled that cave except for those who find themselves financially struggling. Clearly, they made bad personal choices and should suffer the consequences.
Is this comment too much ‘lefty resentment’ or too ‘RWNJ’? What do you think?
I think that covid has simply highlighted that which was already there….and that is neither left nor right wing.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nzs-k-shaped-covid-19-recovery
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/the-side-eye/25-03-2021/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-k-shape/
This isn’t a binary issue, and continuing to frame it as such is unhelpful. Personally I feel for anyone who is struggling to pay their bills regardless of what they are, one would argue these people are on the lower leg of the ‘K recovery’ like the working poor and renters etc.
We are all closer to becoming destitute than becoming a billionaire.
Yup – now ask yourself, how do we want to fix this?
With more people riding the up elevator or more on the down one?
Redistribution.
I am sure redistribution in the form of Accomodation Supplement is OK.
Just as we can only tolerate a certain amount of inequality, there is also probably a limit on how much redistribution is tolerable as well.
In my view your answer really amounts to taking everyone off the up and putting them on the down. Very marxist.
A much better trick would be to find a way to make all elevators go up.
In my view your answer really amounts to taking everyone off the up and putting them on the down. Very marxist.
You have constantly demonstrated you don't understand Marxism so your opinion on the ideology that motivated what I said is not appreciated.
A much better trick would be to find a way to make all elevators go up.
Ah yes, I too try to imagine as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Apologies to Alice.
How many riding the 'up elevator' really want all elevators to go up?
It would be a great 'trick' to pull off – in the meantime we can beef up redistribution so that the 'down escalator' travels more slowly.
Really don't understand how a bit more redistribution could put everyone on the down escalator – can you talk me through it? Lets say the Government instituted a wealth tax or some other policy that resulted in the transfer of 2% of your wealth to those on the 'down escalator.' How might that transfer put you on the ‘down escalator‘?
I'm curious as to why you think the financial security of everyone on the up escalator is so marginal – seems to me that the opposite is true. I write as someone on the 'up escalator.' Sure, my position is towards the bottom of that escalator, but it feels secure to me – a 2% wealth tax would barely affect me.
How many riding the 'up elevator' really want all elevators to go up?
Have you ever met anyone who thought poverty was a good thing?
People vary a lot in what they think the causes of it are, and what the best solutions may be – but hardly anyone is for poverty.
RL, please can you talk/walk me through how ‘a bit more‘ redistribution could put everyone on the ‘down escalator‘? Note that I’m definitely not seeking some sort of Marxist utopia – that wouldn’t suit me at all. But a bit more redistribution sure could go a long way to slowing that ‘down escalator‘, and there but for the grace of God…
RL, I've never met anyone who personally sought out poverty, which is a pity really because I'm sure their worldview would be interesting.
And, while I've never met anyone who told me that they thought poverty was/is a good thing, I believe that some on the 'up escalator' have become overly reliant on relative poverty – for example, those that can't cope when the tap of cheap labour is turned off.
Historically the only place where poverty could operate as a virtue was within the very specific settings of some form of monastic lifestyle. In particular it only works where sex and having family is prohibited.
Makes historical sense.
Probably my misinterpretation, in which case apologies.
Well I have been in the fortunate position to have met some one like that. He sleeps "rough" here in Thames and I get to meet him on a regular basis. I've often discussed with him the possibility of moving in to better accommodation than behind his favourite building. But his chosen site is where he prefers. He is his own person and while he would like to have someplace he could have a shower on occasions and a place to heat up some food, the lifestyle he chooses is his own, and at the moment suits him. Although tangata whenua, he claims no river and no mountain, he claims no one. He is a very spiritual person, preferring his own company.
Of the 20 or so rough sleepers in our town I have written on their behalf to the 4 ministers and associate ministers responsible for housing and homeless persons, suggesting that they consider working with a local ngos towards the establishment of a Hub where these people could have shelter, a shower, meet, and share food. Funding would be directed to the employment of staff for the supervision of the centre. I have not received any response.
A decent answer is well beyond the scope of a short comment. But in brief the answer I would offer is that we already do a great deal of redistribution (especially around education, health and security) to ensure everyone gets a reasonable equal opportunity.
But it's much harder and far more problematic to ensure equal outcomes. Some element of competitive innovation or 'doing better' has to be built in otherwise most people simply stop bothering. The Soviet Union was the great example — "they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work".
Perhaps we could make more progress if we worried less about the material measures of wealth inequality, and started to ask more questions around what defines true wealth and what are the best uses it can be put to? And in this I keep coming back to the concept of a social and economic life based on ideas of duty and service.
Sorry – that does fall short of answering your question.
@Macro (1:52 pm) – thanks for that. Your vision of a 'homeless(ness) Hub' is very valuable and positive. I hope that you continue your lobbying and are (eventually) successful.
@Macro
My brother lives in Thames now, and we know the place well. It's likely you'll bump into him one day.
Your rough sleeper is essentially what we used to call a 'hermit'. Single men who have stepped outside of society have always existed in our history. It's just that our climate and DoC don't really let them live on mountain tops these days.
And respect for you willingness to reach out to him and advocate for those in a similar position. It's not an easy task helping people and I sincerely look up to those who are good at it.
@RL (2:02 pm) – that's helpful. Tbh I reckon many of those on the 'down escalator' couldn't give a toss about ensuring "equal outcomes" – they just need a bit more help. As to how to fund it, well, there's no getting around the fact that NZ is (on the whole) a wealthy country.
And I think your observation that some seem overly concerned about material wealth is on the money – focusing on the inequality of material wealth is so punitive.
Wow my 'creaming it" comment has really struck a nerve. Maybe I should be more careful with my language.
The people I object to are the ones who own property, rent it out, will push the rents up no matter the impact on the tenants, because they have over leveraged and scream and howl that its not fair, not owning that most likely they are in a far better position than their tenants, the consequences for which could mean eviction, trying to find another place to live in an over priced under supplied market, may forgo back necessities to keep a roof over their head by paying the rent increase, have no hope of ever buying their own digs. Their situation is always in the fore front of my mind. As was young first home buyers being out bid by investors, some of who turn out to be unhappy because now they will have to hold on to the property longer and gradually no longer be able to claim interest as a tax deduction.
But yes I will be more careful with my language in future. I am not here to inflame things
Checked the Australian figure. Three years ago 25% of all residential property loans were interest only so not as bad as I thought. Still that's a huge number.
Your 40% figure for Oz was correct.
"Interest-only home loans used to rival their principal and interest (P&I) repayment counterparts, accounting for around 40% of all outstanding mortgage balances in the mid-2010s. But that was before regulatory bodies introduced measures to slow down this form of lending. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) imposed a 30% restriction on the number of home loans issued by banks that could be interest-only in 2017."
https://www.savings.com.au/home-loans/interest-only-home-loans
As a mortgage underwriter in Australia, we are seeing a rise of interest only owner occupied loan applications, scraping through in terms of serviceability. LVR's ranging wildly, but not exceeding 80%.
This is quite eye opening coming back to underwriting from my secondment with the COVID19 hardship response team, as there was a push for borrowers who reached maximum assistance (6-10 months moratorium) to go interest only. I wouldn't really like to consider what % our portfolio is on IO repayments, treading water.
" I wouldn't really like to consider what % our portfolio is on IO repayments, treading water."
I wouldnt either….fortunately (or perhaps not) that sort of data is closely held.
Absolutely. Big non-believer in interest only repayments, would love to see their death.
Yup. We were never tempted to go interest only either. Only speculators or the very marginal go down that path. Long term investors want to get the mortgage paid off eventually and IO doesn't get you there.
For owner occupiers (not investors) is interest only still cheaper than rents? It gives people time to recover without losing a deposit or being subjected to the renting merry go around.
Yesterday I commented that landlords were creaming it and I got howls of protests about overgeneralizing and most landlords aren't like that and what do you think being a land lord is……a social service.
KJT you are spot on. If their business is too geared it is their fault/responsibility. They took a risk with an investment and it didn't work out…….maybe, they made a poor business decision.
The govt actually had to take very significant action on this. Just like they did with Covid.
I also commented that I was a landlord once when I had to move city and thought it possible I would move back home and wanted to hold onto my home. This was a few years back now. Being a landlord is money for jam. Its like a hobby really. You have a property manager, your accountant sets things up vey nicely for you. Occasionally you have to make decisions about ………actually I am struggling to think of what decisions I had to make. Oh thats right, if the tenants request things, which I was always happy to go along with as I had a small mortgage and I was happy to use the low rent I was charging to make improvements for them.
It would be interesting to know how many landlords are highly geared. If interest rates went back up to 5% or 6% if they could cope with that. Hopefully they have been smart enough to realise that the current interest rates are as low as they have ever been and at some point may increase and have budgeted for that. I do feel for any landlord that has recently purchased a rental and have only say 80% equity, as this will be a game changer for them now that the interest non deductibility is phased in. Like I say, the non deductibility is like them receiving an interest rate rise, so hopefully they have budgeted for the possible increase.
My guess is that many long-term 'buy and hold' landlords who have been in the business for more than say 15 yrs will have a total LVR under 60%. The reason why is that the price inflation we have been seeing means that any new property you purchase is going to be negative cash flow for many years, and there is a real limit to how often you can do that.
But what is also happening is that while interest rates are low for the moment, but at the same time other fixed costs like rates and insurance have increased dramatically. We have one unit where the latest insurance bill now consumes 22% of the rent.
Interestingly here in Australia one of the internal rules the banks are using to check the serviceability of new lending is to assess what would happen with an interest rate of 6.45%. So they understand that the current low rates are not likely to last forever. Indeed as the current generation of boomers retire over the next few years, and transition from the greatest investors of all time, to the greatest consumers of capital there is a real argument that rates could easily go over 10% again.
NZ banks vary as it is seen as a commercial decision around risk tolerance, but are usually in the range of 5-7%.
That 5-7% aligns with our experience here in Australia.
Where interest rates will go in future depends a lot on how long govts around the world can keep printing money to keep them where they are now. If they fail in this, then all bets are off, I don't think anyone knows how that will play out.
We have very little debt now. Our one property that still has a mortgage has that mortgage paid for by the rent. Doesn't cover anything else.
I know two larger professional landowners with LVR's hovering uncomfortably around 50%.
One is selling one property to bring that down.
The other is holding fire at the moment.
That so many can borrow beyond the rentals earnings, as a going concern, is a consequence of steeply rising prices.
80% of landlords never go beyond the one unit – because it's not as easy as you portray. If you're negatively geared (as we were for a long period – at 9% interest rates that was inevitable even when we never went over 60% LVR), the bank isn't going to lend more to you just because you queue up and smile sweetly.
Banks don't look at just the increased equity, they look at your serviceability and past a certain age your exit strategy as well. The idea that you can borrow without limit is just wrong. The relatively few people who do manage to get to more than 10 units have negotiated a tricky balance of cash flow, costs, lots of leg work – plus a bit of luck – to get there. Most people don't want to do that because the risk goes up substantially and it becomes close to a full time job to manage. No-one is portraying landlords as 'entrepreneurial geniuses' – in normal times it was always considered a relatively modest strategy that took decades to pay off. People don't want to play casino with their life savings.
Well as I've said elsewhere, established owners with little or no borrowing will be very happy – this govt has just eliminated virtually any new competition in the rental market.
One of the reasons banks can lend so much on houses is die to the rental market being propped by government subsidies,
"It is only the banks expectations that you will, in fact, make a large profit in the end from capital gains, that they base their lending on."
Isn't more the ease of claiming the security for the loan than the expected capital gain? That's of course buoyed by record capital gains that're occurring at the moment, but are banks really lending against what they think a future sale price might reach?
Its both…the banks want the income stream and are happy to extend the credit in a rising market because should you default they have an asset of increased value that they can dispose (or preferably releverage) with a reduced fear of loss…..and the fees theyll add.
I thought that this personal anecdote would fit into the housing discussion. He is the real person that all the commenters here have in their minds.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300049683/new-zealands-twotiered-social-housing-system–a-massive-inequity
That would appear a strange anomaly….and the fact his unit still has quake damage is appalling….though I wonder if the units are earmarked to be replaced so upgrades are avoided.
I don't know the answer to this, but are you saying that banks are lending against a projected value of the asset, rather than its actual value at the time of the lending?
Im saying their desire to extend credit is enhanced in a rising market….and gave the reason why.
Taking out a mortgage only pushes up the prices of whatever product you are selling. The ideal situation is where an investor is sufficiently cashed up that he can invest without borrowing. Alternatively, he might be able to get an interest free loan. Long live Social Credit!
Someone dial 111, Judith Collins is involved in another train wreck on the radio.
From the thoroughly fake sounding surprise greeting (akin to real estate agent photos in the paper), to the assertions that rent controls never work anywhere, to the antagonistic tone taken when challenged on her assertions.
Can anyone be harmed by excessive schadenfreude? I may need medical attention.
Edit, A link should be up on RNZ site soon.
Here 'tis:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018789770/shane-reti-s-decision-not-to-get-vaccinated-with-government-his-to-explain-judith-collins
When it comes to Collins it can only be a wholesome schadenfreude.
“Behold,” he could have said, “the reality of global trade. Behold the tankers full of the oil that warms the climate and keeps the vile House of Saud in power. Behold the trillion tonnes of cheap consumer goods, from the factories of Asia to the landfills of Europe. Just look at it all. It cannot be sustainable. And how easily we could wean ourselves off it. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not too late.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300265195/the-bloke-who-blocked-the-suez-canal
Gotta love Joe Bennet
It's incredibly lazy for people like Bennett to write snarky pieces like this, in complete ignorance of how the world works. Virtually everything about his modern comfortable life has been enabled by just this 'global trade' that he sneers at. He just doesn't know it.
People like him would stand by cheering when the house burned down because they didn't like the decor in the upstairs bathroom.
Well I guess he got paid for churning out his silly bit of click-bait – which is about the sum total of it's merit.
I guess you didnt 'like' it then.
I suspect Mr Bennet knows pretty well what provides for his lifestyle and I also suspect he isnt a big consumer of frippery…sadly nuance is becoming in increasingly short supply as is humour.
There seems to be a cold war-ish Manichaean worldview, and the arguments are a false dilemma. No nuance allowed.
Indeed….grey is not bleak
"..It's incredibly lazy for people like Bennett to write snarky pieces like this, in complete ignorance of how the world works."
I offer this as a defence of Bennett:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3322867-where-underpants-come-from
Well I'll give Bennett credit for having the curiosity and energy to ask the question and chase down some answers. How well he succeeded might be gauged by some of the review comments.
But the question is certainly worth asking – and the answer lies very much buried within CCP policy and their basic purpose for money. In the West we view money as a tool to enable economically worthwhile productivity, market pricing being a tool to manage this. The CCP uses money as a tool to maximise employment and maintain social stability, price being of relatively lesser importance – if any in the case of the underpants.
That's a very negative spin you've put on it. Could you maybe be more constructive?
How is it that NZ prisoners are not allowed access to the internet while Putin's most feared opposition incarcerated in the most punishing gulag Russia has , can operate an Instagram account ?
https://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/prison_sentences/being_in_prison/internet_and_mail
Ask Kim Hill to ask that question next she does a piece on this, or any news/current events show on RNZ for that matter, I am sure they will be only too willing to shift from the established narrative.
In case you hadn't heard, shocking, I know, but inmates across the world find ways to do shit they're not allowed to do.
/
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/exclusive-secret-gang-fight-club-at-mt-eden-prison-revealed-q01845
Last time I looked one didn't need an internet connection to run a fight club.
Smuggling smart phones in and out of boob doesn't require an internet connection either, genius.
/
Apparently not possible for Julian Assange however
British prisons must be run more stringently than Russian ones
And I'm trying to remember when any NZ prisoner ran a social media account and posted regularly, as Navalny does
You're the expert here Joe, let us know
He's in separates so it's hardly surprising he's unable to.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/09/tweeting-jailbirds-social-media-use-by-prisoners-triples
With meth deals and gangsta beats from inside, why not?
Because Navalny's supporters would never post anything on behalf of Navalny, right.
/
Quite a good wee clip…
Defending Glenn Greenwald and Critiquing the Post-Left
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ-lxwBTXUw
Over 21 min long; that’s not a “wee clip”. Why is it “quite good”, in your opinion?
If you didn't hear Judith Collins on RNZ morning report this morning I suggest you do. It was a complete train wreck.
You should to it because it was the sort of interview that triggers leadership challenges.
Yes thanks Sanctuary and Gsays…….started to listen but found it too excruiating. Who will be up to taking the poison challice?
She was doing a Winston Peters.
When Peters couldn't answer a question or didn't want to answer a question, he would turn it into a he said/she said argument so that the question was never answered. Only he was better at doing it than Judith.
Try listening to the interview with a renter's advocate Ashok Jacob a little later in the program.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018789782/tenants-advocacy-group-backs-rent-caps
His statements seemed to me to be at least as general as were those of Judith Collins. However not a single one was questioned in any way and no evidence was requested for any of them. And people still think that Radio NZ is "impartial"?
The renter advocate's statements may have been general alwyn but they were much clearer and far less equivocal than Judith Collins. I almost had the feeling she was being deliberately ambiguous for the sake of it.
Having said that, I agree with you that some RNZ radio hosts are not always impartial. There are one or two of them who enjoy arguing for the sake of it which doesn't achieve much imo.
Was he also lying?
Councils and council staff remind me of teachers – a large number of them aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-democracy-reporting/300264251/caravanners-fear-regional-bylaw-the-end-of-freedom-camping-as-we-know-it
I don't usually descend to personal abuse.
You really are a wanker aren't you.
Stephen D and others
Please when you address a particular commenter put the name or pseudo. I want to know what about and to whom you are talking, Some people certainly cry out to be called w…s and I want to see if you have picked the right one in my opinion.
There is a certain mindset that turns ugly when embiggened by secondhand authority.
You mean mine Stuart? It probably does need a wipe with white vinegar (that is the recommended Green cleansing method).
By no means – some people handle the powers of petty bureaucracy generously, others become martinets.
Freedom campers, once merely known as campers, are losing the local version of allemansrätten to a failure of local government imagination.
Not so keen on extending the generalization to teachers however – most do their best within the constraints of a system that gives them relatively little freedom of action.
Is it just me or do others feel like these calls for, in this case tech entrepreneurs, everyone to move to a new silicon valley (NZ) more than a bit arrogant and condescending? Have they not noticed that a lot of people live here already and that they may have a different view about others deciding to "invade" their country? Maybe we actually don't want them? It's not like Silicon Valley has made life wonderful for all the people who live or used to live in the area. Some studies have shown that incomers in places like Seattle and Portland have just pretty much displaced existing populations.
And aren’t a bunch of them just selfish opportunists leeching off the work of others?
Even worse are the US Republicans that go "I'll move to NZ" as if they have some absolute right to turn up here and enjoy living that results from policy that is pretty much everything that they have always worked against.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124699041/nasa-chief-scientist-says-nz-should-become-a-worldwide-silicon-valley
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/300266100/women-struggle-for-treatment-as-acc-changes-policy-on-perineal-tears
ACC is just plain wrong here. There's nothing in the Act that requires instruments to be used in order for an injury to be regarded as a treatment injury. It's ACC hunting for ways to shaft the claimant yet again.
Sepuloni is being weak here. As minister she has more power than what people are led to believe. In this case she just needs to tell ACC to pull its head in.
A major problem, amongst many, with ACC is that they're assumed to have more power than they in fact have. ACC has become so arrogant in its drive to find ways of refusing cover and kicking people off compensation that it now actively challenges cases in the courts where someone's appealed a decision based on legislation the government has introduced for a specific purpose. In other words, ACC sees no problem setting out to (mis)use the judicial process to thwart clear legislative intent.
Sepuloni needs to start looking at the real problems at ACC instead of believing what those nasty pricks at ACC head office so deceivingly tell her is the case. ACC operates in a very dark place. It's a great opportunity for Sepuloni to create a lasting legacy by successfully taking them on. The only problem is that I don't think she's got the guts or the smarts to do it. A pity.
What power does Sepuloni have to change ACC operational policy?
In cases where ACC gets the law so blatantly wrong she can tell them to sort their shit out.
I have mercifully limited history with ACCand I sure ain't defending them, I just haven't seen a responsible Minister step in like that – or rarely.
NZ – one wonders just where our systems of control went – now it seems anything goes.
A woman was crashed into by a Lime Scooter in 2019. The Court has to decide whether it is a vehicle! You get injured first, and then that prompts someone who has authority to decide whether it is safe, should be used etc.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/439566/man-found-guilty-of-careless-use-of-lime-scooter
The 65-year-old woman, Debra Christensen, received a concussion, facial cuts and bruises as well as bruises to her hip, chest-wall, cheek, chin and hand.
She bit through her tongue and could have lasting nerve damage.
Christensen credited the two scarves she had been wearing to combat the cold with saving her life.
McIntyre has been on trial before Judge Christopher Field, who had to consider whether a Lime Scooter was a vehicle under the Land Transport Act.
Because Christensen had one foot on the bus, he also had to consider whether she was a passenger or a pedestrian…
McIntyre was sentenced to pay $4000 reparations to her.
How long can the perp string the payments out and what happens if nothing is paid? Do our Courts serve the little person? Well as Flanders and Swann chirruped, it all makes work for the working man [Judge] to do; virtually making law on the hoof, said in the kindest way of course.
In an ideal world, the lawyers for both parties would be paid either out of or after reparations are paid.