Top 10 at 10 am for Thursday, Nov 30

Building liability set to fall in insurance hole; Banks' climate models vastly under-estimate storm damage with 3 degrees of warming; Study finds 75% of NZ rivers polluted; Scoops & Op-Ed of the day

There are fears that mooted changes to building consent liability could end up driving the building industry into an uninsured hole. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

TL;DR: Here’s my pick of the top 10 news and analysis links elsewhere as of 10 am on Thursday, November 30, including:

1. The new Government’s plans to shift building consent liability away from councils assumes insurers will pick up the slack, which is in doubt;

2. The models used by our banks are way too optimistic about the damage caused by a likely three degree rise in temperatures;

3. A major new study has found three quarters of Aotearoa NZ’s land is polluting rivers with E.Coli at rates above safe levels;

4. Local scoop of the day: Australian private equity firm Anchorage Capital is looking at buying Mediaworks and NZME may buy Mediaworks’ billboards unit;

5. Global scoop of the day: Saudi Arabia is looking at investing heavily in Iran to try to stop the Israel’s war with Hamas escalating;

6. Deep-dive of the day: Alan Kohler writes in detail about how to fix Australia’s housing mess, which is a lot like ours;

7. Op-Ed of the day: A doctor worries about the new Government’s probe of the University of Auckland’s Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme;

8. Thread of the day: Stu Donovan has some excellent advice for our political parties on expanding housing supply;

9. Column of the day: Toby Manhire details how Christopher Luxon’s honeymoon and victory parade were rained on by Winston Peters and cigarettes; and,

10. Substack of the day: Emily Atkin previews Cop 28.

The full detail, links, excerpts and analysis is below the fold for paying subscribers.

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Fears grow that moving liability away from councils will stymie building