TL;DR: National has campaigned against the Labour Government’s record on inflation and mortgage rates, but there’s now a growing chance the Reserve Bank will hike the Official Cash Rate again as soon as a National-ACT Government is elected, and partly because of consumer expectations of what a new Government would do.
The rate hike would be at least partly because due to a housing boom sparked by that change of Government and expectations of increased demand for rental property, along with record-high net migration that Labour, National and ACT have all promised to grow even more over the next year.
ANZ yesterday increased its forecast for house inflation later this year on signs of growing momentum in the market ahead of the election and warned of a potential post-election rate hike on November 29.
A fresh poll out overnight showed was National-ACT’s for the taking, albeit with the prospect of (maybe) having to include in Winston Peters’ NZ First. Yesterday National Leader Christopher Luxon finally acknowledged he would be open to including Peters in a coalition.
Elsewhere briefly in the news overnight:
Auckland Light Rail is looking at doing PPPs instead of using Government money (BusinessDesk-$$$);
Dunedin Council is looking at buying flood-prone land in South Dunedin;
Franz Josef Glacier has retreated 500m in five years;
Another ACT candidate is in trouble for online actions; and,
A Wellington conference is going online, fearing protesters’ threats to Ashley Bloomfield.
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RBNZ seen hiking rates to cool a National housing boom
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