Bernard’s Saturday Soliloquy for the week to April 26

Chris Bishop has unveiled plans for new roads in Tauranga, Auckland and Northland that will cost up to a combined $10 billion. Photo: Lynn Grieveson

Long stories short from Aotearoa political economy around housing, poverty and climate in the week to Saturday, April 26:

1. Chris Bishop ploughed ahead this week with spending on the design stages for $10 billion worth of roads and bridges, even though their benefit-to-cost ratios of one to two dollars for every dollar invested are less than a third of the 6.4 per dollar generated by the $380 million busway investment he also announced.

2. Nicola Willis was forced this week to direct IRD to review the Government’s ‘Family Boost’ childcare rebate policy after Labour uncovered figures showing just 249 families were claiming the rebate regularly, vs the 21,000 promised by National before the election. See more below in number of the week.

3. Fresh statistics showed New Zealand’s R&D spending was 1.5% of GDP in 2024¹, stagnant at levels barely half those of the OECD average and set to fall in 2025 after cuts at Callaghan Innovation and science research funds. See more below in my Top Things of the week.

4. The Government’s hopes landlords will borrow to fund an affordability-improving surge in rental property building is fading as landlords are pulling back from a market they see as risky, with stagnant house prices and falling rent inflation. See more below in my Top Things and Chart of the Week.

5. Chinese officials have demanded² that Donald Trump unilaterally remove all tariffs before China starts negotiations, adding that Trump’s claims that talks had started were “fake news” and China would fight the US “to the end.” See quote of the week below about a ‘bell and a tiger.’

6. In some good housing news illustrating how the ‘culture of no’ works in Aotearoa, a development in Northland has finally been approved 20 years after the land was zoned residential, but only after Fletcher Building got the new residents to agree not to complain about a neighbouring quarry.³

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$10 billion of spending on poorly-performing roads