19 Comments

Morning Bernard; If the cost of building new homes (or even doing Reno's on older homes) is rising at 7% pa, at some point house prices must rise /yes! (at least for new builds, the cost must go up) but house prices are dropping/yes! so at what point does the higher cost of house materials, flow on to see house prices increase ? is it the land price that's dropping? because cost to build a new house is skyrocketing? i.e where is the 7% inflation going, if the price of a house is dropping. Cheers John

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Yes - Three waters is Hollywood level creative accounting solution to the overall problem of decades worth of under funding public infrastructure by shuffling around ownership of council owned assets to an organisation that can use them to as collateral for structured loans (+*).

The silly thing is that in theory it is actually a potential solution that in the medium term (decade ), would cost the tax payers the least. Which is why in this current centrist political climate it is probably the only type of action that will be taken.

My only major complaint with it is the split into separate "local" regions - a mistake that Labour is finally undoing with the DHB health system.

(+*) Never mind the fact that effectively it is only the land that the water treatment are sitting on that is usable as collateral with the water treatment plant removed, the plant itself being a sunk cost, since no centrist government in its right mind is going to raise user charges to actually cover the loans.

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Might be time for Country Calendar to roll out their Foot and Mouth episode (if you’re young you won’t remember it) it put the shits up me at the time and would be a timely reminder of that horror scenario. On a lighter note It would be interesting to see how much blowback they’d get from their highly over sensitive rural critics.

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“There is common ground, one area where we absolutely all agree except potentially bar the opposition…..”

Yes, Prime Minister there is common agreement. The vast majority of NZers DO NOT want Three Waters and yet you continue trying to force it through.

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Unfortunately that Core Logic report doesn't state an actual dollar cost per square metre. It would be a helpful number when calculating the cost of a new build.

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Instead of having to click on "Like and Comment" can't you just have a category "Comment"

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Bernard, have you seen this scathing article on interest? I'd be very interested to hear your perspective on that and maybe some international comparison

https://www.interest.co.nz/business/116829/christopher-luxon-right-nz-business-soft-so-what-he-going-do-about-it

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Agree with your comments on 3 waters. The issue with water infrastructure has always been under funding by Councils. Centralising the management of water assets doesn't address this issue unless there is an additional tax take or other source of funds. Councils generally face too much opposition to rates increases and don't go through with them, so Central Government may be better placed to raise funds through a tax. Funding is the issue though, not want entity manages the water assets. Consenting for infrastructure is another issue that needs to be addressed as well.

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