Dawn chorus for Saturday, March 1

Plans to replace development contributions with pre-set development levies and to give councils powers to set targeted rates won’t be finalised until well into 2026. Meanwhile, the Waikato District Council has stopped accepting new building consents for Pokeno because of wastewater infrastructure shortages. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

Long stories short, my top six news items in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Saturday, March 1 are:

1. Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop announced plans in a speech yesterday to abolish development contributions (DCs) to councils and replace them with pre-set development levies, along with giving councils powers to set targeted rates on new and existing residents benefiting from new infrastructure;

2. However, the plans won’t be finalised until well into 2026, potentially disrupting or suspending developments dependent on new infrastructure and arrangements set by councils, such as Christchurch Council, which has only just proposed increasing its DCs to as much as $44,000 per home.¹

3. Meanwhile, the Waikato District Council has just suspended accepting new building consents for Pokeno because of wastewater infrastructure shortages, the Waikato Times-$$$ reported this morning;

4. Treasury has disclosed the outpatients building being built next to Dunedin Hospital has been delayed by a further nine months to September 2026 because of cost pressures and construction delays, the ODT’s Matthew Littlewood reported this morning;

5. ANZ’s Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence survey for February released yesterday found attitudes to spending and the wider economy remained subdued at January’s sharply lower levels, extending frustration that leading indicators are not showing a strong rebound in the economy, as the Government had hoped; and,

6. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump clashed repeatedly and angrily in public this morning before a formal meeting to sign off on a minerals-for-security deal, which now looks very much in doubt, with Trump accusing Zelenskyy of “gambling with World War Three” and Zelenskyy telling Trump to make “no compromises with a killer.”²

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the video and podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing.)

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Further reading elsewhere

Today’s must-read