Five things that mattered in the week to July 2

Plus charts, quotes, numbers, milestones and scoops of the week, including the final collapse of bipartisan hopes for RMA reform, bouncing confidence in the economy & more

Anyone thinking that RMA reforms might unblock new surges of housing supply or transport mode shift should think again. Without bipartisan agreement, they’re as good as dead. It’s also debatable whether they would have made much difference anyway, given they didn’t solve the fundamental problems of a lack of agreement (again) between the Government and Councils about how to fund growth. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

TL;DR: Divisions over long-term city planning between National and Labour and the Crown and Councils widened again this week, further weakening any confidence builders, developers and investors might have in how many new houses might be built, when, and at what cost in the long run.

Meanwhile, Immigration NZ is looking at joining a ‘Five Eyes’ scheme to bring in thousands of approved temporary workers from central America and New Zealand formally lengthened its reciprocal holiday traveller works rights programme with the UK that will allow thousands more British backpackers to work here for up to three years.

Perhaps coincidentally, housing activists in Queenstown pointed to reports of over 25 people living in one house with partitioned bedrooms and regular power outages after too many residents turned on their devices at once.

Elsewhere in our political economy here and overseas this week

• PM Chris Hipkins led a business delegation to China and met President Xi Jinping, who said New Zealand was a partner, rather than a rival, while Hipkins spent a big chunk of time talking to New Zealand media about Kiri Allan’s mental health break and unidentified allegations of bullying against her.

• Business and consumer confidence perked up sharply in June as sharply higher migration, a plateauing of interest rates, high employment and signs of falling inflation helped boost house prices and appetites for spending and house-buying.

• After protests from academics and former PM Helen Clark over hundreds of redundancies proposed at Victoria University of Wellington and University of Otago, the Government gave universities $128 million in temporary extra funding to deal with lower domestic student enrollments, although the redundancies appear to be proceeding anyway.

Subscribers on the fully paid tier can see more detail and analysis below the paywall fold. I trialled for a month publishing everything fully to both paying and free subscribers, but found subscriptions flattened out. So I’m going back to offering these short previews for free subscribers, and giving the fully monty to those on the full paying tier, who also get exclusive access to our chat section, and can comment on articles.