Mōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 12 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below are:
The National-ACT-NZ First Government, which has a ‘Going for Housing Growth’ policy designed to massively increase housing supply to improve affordability, has just blocked a Kāinga Ora-led ‘Specified Development Project’ to develop 2,600 ha of greenfields land for up to 37,000 houses in the ‘Western Corridor’ area of Tauranga, saying the ‘costs and benefits outweigh the risks’. Public notice and via Newsroom Pro-$’s Andrew Bevin this morning.
The Hamilton City Council has opted out of housing densification rules under the once-bipartisan Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) that were designed to allow the building of three three-storey townhouses per normal section without a resource consent. The move dramatically reduces the future housing capacity of one of Aotearoa’s fastest growing cities and came after Councillor Geoff Taylor described the MDRS rules as “cooked up by someone’s feverish mind somewhere in Wellington,” and that Hamilton already had too much in-fill housing, The Waikato Times’ Stephen Ward reports this morning.
After one day as Railways Minister, Winston Peters has declared the ferry plans announced by Finance Minister Nicola Willis on Wednesday as “on hold,” saying he was now in charge and there were many options yet to be considered. Peters also told off his soon-to-be successor as Deputy PM, David Seymour, for commenting ‘unhelpfully’ on the ferries issue. See more in Quote du Jour below from Thomas Manch’s reporting this morning for The Post.
Retail spending figures published yesterday by Stats NZ show retail spending per-capita after adjusting for inflation remained stagnant at 2013 levels in November, despite interest rate cuts and tax cuts having started in August. Economists for BNZ, Westpac & ANZ are now both forecasting GDP figures due next Thursday will show GDP fell another 0.4% in the September quarter.
BNZ’s revelation to a select committee earlier this week that it has told petrol stations to repay their debt by 2030 because of climate concerns has spooked the sector and is worrying farmers who think they may be next, as Ke-Xin Li reports this morning for The Waikato Times.
ACC announced yesterday a range of levy increases for the next three years that are set to be double expected CPI inflation. It’s another example of the Government’s austerity drive simply driving up costs of living for consumers as agencies and councils starved of central Government funds pass those costs on with administered inflation.
(Normally at this point we would have a paywall for free subscribers and only paying subscribers could both listen to the Dawn Chorus podcast above and read the analysis and detail below in the Pick ‘n’ Mix. But during our ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’ until Dec 22, we have opened everything up for all immediately to give everyone a full taste of the public interest journalism your subscription supports. And here’s our ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’ deal until Dec 22.)
The best of the rest
I’m up from 3am daily and read around all sorts of news websites1 to get a sense of what’s happening in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate, both here and overseas2.
Here’s my top six in the pick ‘n’ mix as of 9.00 am on Friday, December 13 for all subscribers.
Top 6 links in Friday’s pick ‘n’ mix
Health & Austerity: Retrofit not recommended ODT’s Matthew Littlewood
Politics & Austerity: Nicola Willis likely to exceed target for reducing consultant spending, saving $800m NZ Herald’s Thomas Coughlan
Transport & Politics: 'Such a load of s***' – Speed limits test Tasman mayor's patience 1News’Max Frethey
Transport & Politics Seymour wrong on cost of ferry replacement project, says Peters"You're talking to the minister in charge now, not the one that's not in charge," Peters said. 1News
Politics: 'Dashboard crap': Peters says he doesn't have quarterly plans, contradicting PM NZ Herald’s Jamie Ensor
Health & Austerity: Govt could waste ‘once-in-a-generation’ chance with new Mental Health Bill, experts say. A group of mental health professionals has denounced the new Mental Health Bill as being “the old act with some new lipstick”. The Post’s Mariné Lourens
Quote du Jour:
“Those plans are all on hold. There’s a new minister – well the old minister’s come back. We’re starting as fresh as we can, and we’re in day one. There are far more viable propositions that are yet to be considered.” Winston Peters on the new Cook Strait ferry project via The Post.
Charts du Jour: Spending like it’s 2012
Timeline-cleansing nature pic
Mā te wā
Bernard
Links with -$ are to paywalled websites. Some sites have both paywalled and non paywalled articles (The Post/Press currently, the NZ Herald, Newsroom & ODT) and I’ll make clear if it’s paywalled by adding -$. No dollar sign means no paywall today.
I subscribe to and check FT-$, WallStreetJournal−$, Bloomberg-$, The Guardian, WashingtonPost−$, New York Times-$, TheEconomist−$,RNZ,1News,Stuff,ThePost−$, ThePress−$,BusinessDesk−$, Politik−$, NZHerald−$ & NZ Herald; Interest.co.nz, Newsroom, Newsroom Pro-$,AFR−$, NBR-$ and The Spinoff. The Press is currently not paywalled. I will include gift links where I can (some from the likes of FT-$ only work a few times) and if I have any left (Bloomberg-$, NZ Herald-$ & Economist-$ have monthly limits)
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