TLDL & TLDL: This week anti-vax protestors tried to storm Parliament and failed, but have managed to bully and harass teachers and parents into not running mass vaccination clinics as the school year starts.
Elsewhere, Fletcher Building stopped taking new orders for Gib plasterboard and will ration it out from July, America’s inflation was higher than expected and bumped wholesale interest rates higher, and most countries ordered their citizens to leave Ukraine because they expected an imminent Russian invasion, which some oil traders think would push the oil price up another 30% to US$120/bbl.
In Friday’s weekly ‘hoon’ with Peter Bale and myself (it’s in podcast form above) we talked about the protests and what might happen in Ukraine. We also welcomed in special guest Nicola Willis (from 30min in) to talk about Labour’s housing performance and National’s own housing affordability ambitions and proposals. She wouldn’t say she wanted house prices to fall because she said it wasn’t the role of politicians to predict prices, but said she understood others who wanted prices to fall and committed National to lowering the house price to income multiple, although would not say what to.
Five things to note
1. Anti-everything convoy comes to Parliament
About 1,000 anti-vax, anti-mandate, anti-1080, anti Three Waters, anti-Jacinda, anti-5G and pro-Trump protestors parked their cars and trucks around Parliament’s grounds and set up camp on the lawns in front of the steps of Parliament and the entry to the Beehive.
I wrote a column about it after discovering anti-vaxxers had bullied and harassed teachers into not setting up vaccination clinics to help accelerate the vaccination of 5-12 year olds as they start the new school year.
2. Intense stress and inflation in building materials
Fletcher Building’s Winstone Wallboards, which has 94% of the plasterboard market, announced it wouldn’t take or process orders for Gib from July, and would instead ration it out in an unspecified way.
In Friday’s Dawn Chorus, I did a podcast about the role of duopolists in New Zealand’s inflation problems.
This chart shows the building materials price index, with the shaded area since Covid.
3. RBNZ and Fed may bring their bazookas
US CPI inflation hit a 40-year high of 7.5% in January, which was higher than expected and lifted expectations the US Federal Reserve will hike 50 basis points when it starts hiking on March 16.
The Reserve Bank published its survey of 33 economists and business leaders on Friday showing higher inflation expectations. There are also growing expectations our central bank will hike 50 basis points, rather than 25 basis points, in its next decision next Wednesday (Feb 23).
4. Ardern defends affordability thoughts and prayers
PM Jacinda Ardern defended the Government’s housing record, but remains of the view that affordability can be improved to some unspecified level without a house price crash.
5. Small, fast tweaks to CCCFA are coming
This week Nicola Willis proposed carving bank mortgage lending out of the CCCFA rules on assessing affordability, which David Clark rejected. But the Commerce Minister said he was likely to proceed with smaller and faster regulatory tweaks the banks wanted. We talk about that in the podcast above.
A fun thing
Ka kite ano
Bernard
The week that was for the week's end