Dawn Chorus: 'Unaccountable on housing'

TLDR & TLDL: The Human Rights Commission has issued a scathing report into housing conditions and affordability, calling for independent measures to hold the Government accountable. Currently, the Government has no agreed measure of affordability or how Aotearoa-NZ is doing vs those measures.

(See more on that in my article and podcast yesterday on housing affordability, and why neither party really wants to know how unaffordable our house prices and rents are)

Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt said when releasing the report this morning the Commission was concerned the divide between owners and renters was a major cause of resentment between New Zealanders of different generations and cultures.

Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKaka

Elsewhere in the news this morning:

• Aucklanders are on the move to the north, the south and into the air on the first day they can travel over the borders without an exemption, as long as they’re vaccinated or have a negative test;

• there’s some confusion over whether every vehicle will be stopped and checked at the northern border – police said last night holidaymakers were likely to be checked, but this morning indicated they did not want to unreasonably delay travellers (RNZ);

• a South African study found the Pfizer vaccine helped 70% of omicron cases avoid hospitalisation, down from 93% in the previous delta wave of infections (Reuters);

• however, Pfizer also reported final trial results of its antiviral pill Paxlovid cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death by up to 89% in high-risk patients;

• China reported its second case of omicron overnight as multiple factories shut down in the east coast manufacturing hub province of Zhejiang bordering Shanghai (the province includes Ningbo, Shaoxing and Hangzhou and last night reported a rapid spread of 217 locally transmitted cases) (Reuters, CNN);

• just as our Reserve Bank is considering imposing a mortgage interest rate affordability floor, the Bank of England said overnight it planned to remove its rule that borrowers be able to handle a rate 3% higher than their existing rate, which would allow an extra 85,000 borrowers to afford a mortgage (Guardian);

• the bipartisan ‘Townhouse Nation’ bill passed its third reading in Parliament overnight to become law after earlier tweaks to lower three storey buildings, which cut 4% or 1,690 homes off the expected increase in housing supply to an extra 37,477 homes over the coming decades; and,

• Ttere’s more scoops and longer reads from others below the paywall fold.

Coming up later today:

• I’ll be in the Treasury lockup for the Half Yearly Fiscal and Economic Update (HYEFU) for the year, which is expected preview climate change spending for Budget 2022 and keep borrowing plans this year unchanged because of stronger GDP growth;

• I’ll be watching the final Parliamentary clashes of the year in Question Time and the General debate; and,

• I’ll be doing interviews for my weekly Spinoff podcast, When the facts change, which will be on big moves to install solar power generation much closer to electricity users.

I welcome comments and suggestions for questions from paid subscribers in the comments section below.

(And remember, here’s this special last-time-ever offer from me to you and other existing ‘free’ subscribers who’ve been putting it off, subscribe fully now for 50% off for a year to join the The Kākā discussion community, to get full access to all my daily emails and articles, and to get all my daily podcasts (like the one above paid subscribers can listen to).

This ‘Gravy Day’ offer is open until the end of Dec 21, 2021, to celebrate the first three months since we launched The Kākā on Sept 21. It’s the last special offer I’ll make for the foreseeable future. Subscribe to support my type of accountability and explanatory journalism about housing affordability, child poverty and climate change. You’ll also be able to find out what’s below the paywall fold today and see what’s in the full daily email, along with listen to my podcast above.)