How our housing market distorts education too

The Press details how increasing numbers of Christchurch parents are faking addresses, desperate to get into the ‘right’ schools even if they can’t afford to be in zone. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

Kia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, November 6:

1. There’s fresh evidence this morning of parents faking their residential addresses to get their kids into what they see as the best schools, reinforcing the distorting effects of widening wealth inequality between suburbs because of sky-high residential land prices. The Press’ Brett Kerr-Laurie

2. Scoop of the day: The IRD is writing to up to 268,000 taxpayers who it turns out have had their names and addresses supplied to Facebook’s owner Meta in raw data dumps designed to help the IRD target advertisements at taxpayers. The Post’s Tom Pullar-Strecker

3. Deep-dive of the day: David Seymour’s decision to close off payments by the former EQC for Christchurch quake repairs is given a closer look in this piece by Maddy Croad at The Press.

4. Solutions news: Taranaki Base Hospital has found a great way for a dialysis patient to avoid having to fly or drive regularly to Auckland and Hamilton for treatment with a special blood treatment machine. RNZ’s Robin Martin

5. Quote of the day: Ayesha Verrall points out the incovenient truth behind giving free and frank advice to Casey Costello. RNZ’s Craig McCulloch

6. Chart of the day: Net new lending guaranteed by anything other than residential and commercial land remains remains stalled, reinforcing the low wage and low productivity nature of our economy, which remains a housing market with bits tacked on while capital gains on leveraged investment in land remains tax free.

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

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1. How our housing market distorts education too

Press launches series on school zones in Christchurch

The Press has opened up its website for all this morning, starting a series of deep-dive reports into school zones. It illustrates just how much the lack of a capital gains tax is distorting our education system, as much as it distorts our economy and society.