I haven’t the time nor the inclination to watch that - what between working a busy job and posting on here, how would that be possible? But seriously, the majority of them act incredibly childish, just trying to score points against each other. Grant Robertson would have to be close to the worst of the lot.Have you watched the Acting PM in question time today and could you please tell me what your thoughts are on his behavior
Politics 🗳️ NZ Politics
- Thread starter wizard of Tauranga
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John Nick
Contributor
Wiz you carry on as if you are actually in the debating chamber.
Do you think that these promises will be carried out and if not why not.
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- #3,283
I do actually find it concerning that the Maori party and NZ First have been the biggest agitators post the election and have gained the most votes.
If we give our votes to those that put on the biggest show, we’re in for an entertaining 3 years…
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Wouldn’t have a clue - it’s only been 2 weeks and they have been written off without a chance by someWiz you carry on as if you are actually in the debating chamber.
Do you think that these promises will be carried out and if not why not.
Ask me again in 2 years!
John Nick
Contributor
Not by me and I can assure you that I hope they can make the improvements that they have promised.Wouldn’t have a clue - it’s only been 2 weeks and they have been written off without a chance by some
To QUOTE your good self "Wouldn't have a clue ".
As long as their decisions don't have unwanted results for the country and the people.
They've upset more than they have satisfied already.
Nothing at all.
My dig is NZ ISNT a nation of entrepreneurs at all. If housing speculation wasn’t allowed, 80% of the population would pour their money into the markets which would drive actual innovation.
This whole anti business neoliberal schtick is always a smokescreen for cutting costs and increasing profits. Which isn’t actually a fantastic economic driver.
If you actually interested in supercharging economies in small geographical countries, NZ should be looking at South Korea and South East Asia.
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Just so people know how to read polls, Claire Trevett (big lefty) article:
Despite the noise and outrage outside Parliament in the last two weeks, one of the first polls since the election two months ago indicates there is little voter remorse over that election result.
Voters have not changed their minds since October 14.
The results of the latest Curia poll would have delivered the same grouping of parties into government: National, Act and NZ First.
Claire Trevett: To Winston the spoils as the battlefronts keep opening
Winston Peters enjoys the sun as protests keep rolling out at Parliament.
Rick O’Shay
Contributor
Insightful piece by Scott Gilmour the chair of the I Have A Dream Trust.
OPINION
Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a proud Kiwi and an unabashed capitalist. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have worked in the IT industry since gaining a B Com from Otago Uni in the late 70s and had the privilege of living and working in the United States for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s.
Yet I’m also saddened by the direction and distance our country has travelled in the past 40-plus years.
This became especially evident to me when I returned to New Zealand in 1997 from the United States, only to realise that my rose-tinted view of our country was no longer accurate. We were travelling down the same road as the US – just 20 years behind – with increasing polarisation in society between the haves and the have-nots.
My life changed in 2002, when we sold a start-up I’d been involved with in Oregon, which meant I could pursue an interest in the I Have a Dream programme that I’d read about in 1991 in the local paper.
For the past 20 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some truly amazing people in some of our more challenged communities. I’ve been honoured to see the pride and joy in children and families who have little in the way of material comforts, but who have boundless amounts of joy, laughter, community spirit and optimism.
We need to start with a definition of what it means to be in poverty.
A 2022 report from Statistics NZ states the proportion of children living in households in material hardship (lacking six or more of 17 essential items) was 10.3 per cent.
Why is this important? Dr Russell Wills, the former Children’s Commissioner, wrote in the NZ Herald recently: “Child poverty matters because it drives poor health, education, and social outcomes, and because it’s just wrong. This is not who we are. NZ was once an egalitarian country where one’s life opportunities were not determined by the parents you were born to.”
Along my 20-year journey, I’ve collected some deep impressions of the challenges and opportunities that NZ faces … what I term “Facts for Thoughtful People”.
Please allow me to share these with you:
First, no one chooses to be poor. Every family that we’ve worked with wants the best for their children. The problem is they face huge difficulties in providing that when they’re in low-wage jobs, living in damp and cold housing, are in “food deserts” (i.e., no healthy eating choices within walking distance), have limited access to healthcare and are often served by struggling schools.
Second, poverty reduces the ability to navigate other areas in life. An article from Princeton University explains how poverty and all its associated stress requires so much mental energy that those who are impacted by financial hardship suffer reduced mental bandwidth to cope with many basic areas of their life. As a result, they are more likely to make mistakes or decisions that can further perpetuate their financial woes. This is all blindingly obvious, once you think about it, but it is something which is usually overlooked by talkback radio hosts, social media commentators, many politicians, and the designers and administrators of government service delivery.
This quote from one of the paper’s authors sums it up: “Previous views of poverty have blamed poverty on personal failings, or an environment that is not conducive to success. We’re arguing that the lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function. The very condition of not having enough can actually be a cause of poverty.”
Third, the Government’s attempts to help sometimes do the opposite. The problems arise when mistakes (eg, benefit overpayments) are clawed back, and failures in other parts of the system (eg, excessive housing costs that mean people are forced to borrow from Winz to cover the basics) result in increased – and unaffordable – debt.
A recent article in The Post said that, according to government figures, about 560,000 low-income earners owe about $3.5 billion of combined debt to MSD, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), and Inland Revenue (IR).
This is almost 10 per cent of our population, over-represented by beneficiaries, families with young children and Māori/Pasifika. The Labour Government Cabinet signed off a paper titled “A Framework for Debt to Government” in July 2023 that acknowledged owing money to the government can be the cause of “unaffordable and persistent burden” which can contribute to “financial hardship, stress, poor physical and mental health, stigma and social exclusion”.
Fourth, poverty imposes a huge cost on our society. Richie Poulton, the director of the Dunedin Study who recently died, stated “What was most important about that original finding, was that you can’t really undo what happens during childhood. The experience of intense or regular poverty is long-lasting.”
In December 2016, the Dunedin Study put out a media release headlined: “Childhood disadvantage strongly predicts costly adult life-course outcomes. Simply stated, the poorest 22 per cent of the cohort accounted for 54 per cent of cigarettes smoked; 57 per cent of hospital nights; 66 per cent of welfare benefits; 77 per cent of fatherless child-rearing; 78 per cent of prescription fills; and 81 per cent of criminal convictions.”
Which is why Sir Bill English has pointed out that “Those people who need well-integrated, comprehensive, flexible, and trusted services – they do not get it from the government. That group is about 15 per cent of the population and they drive about half of all government spending in social and health sectors.”
Therein lies the carrot: If we can fix this problem of childhood poverty, we can not only dramatically improve life outcomes for these children and families, but we can also save massive amounts of social sector spending down the line.
Surely, any thinking capitalist can see the return on investment in that outcome!
Next week, I’d like to discuss how – with already proven programmes applied consistently for a generation – we can overcome poverty in New Zealand.
OPINION
Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a proud Kiwi and an unabashed capitalist. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have worked in the IT industry since gaining a B Com from Otago Uni in the late 70s and had the privilege of living and working in the United States for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s.
Yet I’m also saddened by the direction and distance our country has travelled in the past 40-plus years.
This became especially evident to me when I returned to New Zealand in 1997 from the United States, only to realise that my rose-tinted view of our country was no longer accurate. We were travelling down the same road as the US – just 20 years behind – with increasing polarisation in society between the haves and the have-nots.
My life changed in 2002, when we sold a start-up I’d been involved with in Oregon, which meant I could pursue an interest in the I Have a Dream programme that I’d read about in 1991 in the local paper.
For the past 20 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some truly amazing people in some of our more challenged communities. I’ve been honoured to see the pride and joy in children and families who have little in the way of material comforts, but who have boundless amounts of joy, laughter, community spirit and optimism.
We need to start with a definition of what it means to be in poverty.
A 2022 report from Statistics NZ states the proportion of children living in households in material hardship (lacking six or more of 17 essential items) was 10.3 per cent.
Why is this important? Dr Russell Wills, the former Children’s Commissioner, wrote in the NZ Herald recently: “Child poverty matters because it drives poor health, education, and social outcomes, and because it’s just wrong. This is not who we are. NZ was once an egalitarian country where one’s life opportunities were not determined by the parents you were born to.”
Along my 20-year journey, I’ve collected some deep impressions of the challenges and opportunities that NZ faces … what I term “Facts for Thoughtful People”.
Please allow me to share these with you:
First, no one chooses to be poor. Every family that we’ve worked with wants the best for their children. The problem is they face huge difficulties in providing that when they’re in low-wage jobs, living in damp and cold housing, are in “food deserts” (i.e., no healthy eating choices within walking distance), have limited access to healthcare and are often served by struggling schools.
Second, poverty reduces the ability to navigate other areas in life. An article from Princeton University explains how poverty and all its associated stress requires so much mental energy that those who are impacted by financial hardship suffer reduced mental bandwidth to cope with many basic areas of their life. As a result, they are more likely to make mistakes or decisions that can further perpetuate their financial woes. This is all blindingly obvious, once you think about it, but it is something which is usually overlooked by talkback radio hosts, social media commentators, many politicians, and the designers and administrators of government service delivery.
This quote from one of the paper’s authors sums it up: “Previous views of poverty have blamed poverty on personal failings, or an environment that is not conducive to success. We’re arguing that the lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function. The very condition of not having enough can actually be a cause of poverty.”
Third, the Government’s attempts to help sometimes do the opposite. The problems arise when mistakes (eg, benefit overpayments) are clawed back, and failures in other parts of the system (eg, excessive housing costs that mean people are forced to borrow from Winz to cover the basics) result in increased – and unaffordable – debt.
A recent article in The Post said that, according to government figures, about 560,000 low-income earners owe about $3.5 billion of combined debt to MSD, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), and Inland Revenue (IR).
This is almost 10 per cent of our population, over-represented by beneficiaries, families with young children and Māori/Pasifika. The Labour Government Cabinet signed off a paper titled “A Framework for Debt to Government” in July 2023 that acknowledged owing money to the government can be the cause of “unaffordable and persistent burden” which can contribute to “financial hardship, stress, poor physical and mental health, stigma and social exclusion”.
Fourth, poverty imposes a huge cost on our society. Richie Poulton, the director of the Dunedin Study who recently died, stated “What was most important about that original finding, was that you can’t really undo what happens during childhood. The experience of intense or regular poverty is long-lasting.”
In December 2016, the Dunedin Study put out a media release headlined: “Childhood disadvantage strongly predicts costly adult life-course outcomes. Simply stated, the poorest 22 per cent of the cohort accounted for 54 per cent of cigarettes smoked; 57 per cent of hospital nights; 66 per cent of welfare benefits; 77 per cent of fatherless child-rearing; 78 per cent of prescription fills; and 81 per cent of criminal convictions.”
Which is why Sir Bill English has pointed out that “Those people who need well-integrated, comprehensive, flexible, and trusted services – they do not get it from the government. That group is about 15 per cent of the population and they drive about half of all government spending in social and health sectors.”
Therein lies the carrot: If we can fix this problem of childhood poverty, we can not only dramatically improve life outcomes for these children and families, but we can also save massive amounts of social sector spending down the line.
Surely, any thinking capitalist can see the return on investment in that outcome!
Next week, I’d like to discuss how – with already proven programmes applied consistently for a generation – we can overcome poverty in New Zealand.
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Increasing capacity would definitely help but we also need to change the ways we access new building products. When the Building Act/Building Code was devised, the major suppliers/manufacturers supplied MBIE with their construction details which formed the ”acceptable standards”. The amount of money required for new products outside of that has put a number of people wanting to bring oversea products to market off.miket12, you work in the industry.
What would help bring house prices down in your opinion?
Increasing sector capacity (labour & materials, more capacity in alternative building methods - modular)?
Would MDRS have helped?
Do we need to break up Fletchers?
Land tax?
All of the above.
Take asphalt shingle roofing (ASR) on plywood substrates for example. Over in the States, it’s one of the cheapest forms of roofing while it's one of the most expensive here because there a huge number of manufacturers there producing the products but only a handful supply to NZ because the compliance costs are too high and, because our acceptable standard for the exterior envelope for a building deals with concrete tiles, metal tiles and metal roofing, they require larger flashings than is typically used for ASR roofs in the States. Only a limited number of producers have been prepared to manufacture wider flashings for the NZ market.
While MDRS was a move in the right direction, it only removed the need for a Land Use resource consent (covering things like building and landscape coverage, building height, HIRB requirements, living and service courts) but compliance for these was still needed to be accessed by a town planner at building consent stage. A number of people think they can now build three houses, as off right, without worrying about the compliance. They also don’t realise they still need to apply for a subdivision resource consent which covers things like maximum driveway gradients, connection to public drainage or a private sanitary joint system.
What a lot of people also didn’t realise is that they already had the right, provided the land area was large enough, to put two houses on a site without applying for a land use consent and a number of councils already allowed for three within certain residential zones.
In terms of Fletchers, it’s hard to know what to do. Most years, a number of their divisions don’t make money (typically their commercial building and some manufacturing) and are subsidised by their retail, development and residential arms. Maybe the best move would be to separate the retail from their manufacturing.
Land Value Taxes are currently used in six counties: Denmark (96), Estonia (70), Lithuania (51), Russia (24), Singapore (28) and Taiwan (15). The number in brackets is where the country ranks out of 106 countries in terms of the housing affordability index (HAI) the higher the number, the more affordable the housing is i.e. Taiwan is the 15th ranked country with a HAI of 22.1 while Denmark is ranked 96 with a HAI of 6.7. Based on what is being achieved overseas, it’s hard to tell whether a land value tax would make a difference.
BTW, California has recently brought in a form of land value tax charged when property over a certain value is sold. California has one of the highest HAI numbers in the States at over 16 while the whole of the States is ranked 102 in the world with a HAI rate of 4.2. It will be interesting to see if the land tax in California drops their HAI down.
And a second BTW, Australia and NZ are ranked 73 equal out of 106 countries in terms of housing affordability with a HAI of 9.9.
Maybe we need to look at pulling more resources out of the ground, drilling for more oil or becoming more capitalist because most affordable countries in the world are: 102 United States 4.2, 103 South Africa 3.3, UAE 3.3, Oman 3.2 and Saudi Arabia 2.9.
Oh, and for those who think that we should follow the examples of South-East Asian countries by investing in the economy outside of housing and that would bring down the cost of housing in NZ, think again. Nine or ten (depending on if you count Mongolia as a SE-A country) of the twenty most expensive counties in terms of housing affordability are found in SE-A.
The figures for the housing affordability index are from this website:
Property Prices Index by Country 2024 Mid-Year
Property Investment Index by Country. Contains comparison of indicators for residential property investment. Apartment price to income ratio, price to rent ratio, gross rental yield, loan affrodability index, ...
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TBH, it's very dependent on where the goods are coming from. A number of people were importing glass for balustrades and showers directly from China and stamping with a NZS identification. Plumbing fittings don't have to meet a standard and there's coming into the country I'd never use. It's not really a matter of getting rid of the system by streamlining it to allow more competition and innovation.
Another area I didn't mention is the compliance costs to develop land in the first place. 1990's and the cost to buy land and develop sections meant it was still possible to buy land for $40K and build a house which would sell for under $150K. The changes to the Resource Management Act in the early 2000's allowed extra compliance and engineering costs which meant the cost just to get a title for a piece of land (not including the purchase price) leapt from $10-15K to will over $120K. Around that time is when Bealsey Homes and Initial Homes went out of business or moved more "upmarket" such as Signature and Lockwood because land cost got too high to provide for first homes (Hardiplank specials).
There's also the fact that consumers just "want more". More bedrooms, more bathrooms, a media room, three living and dining areas. We've gone from when a first time home was 3 bedrooms and one bathroom when kids shared rooms to wanting separate rooms for all the kids, multiple bathrooms. When I first started out, a typical house was 85 to 95m².... now it's at least 180m² and most would be over 250m².
Even just what I charge has gone up dramatically.... not because I'm trying to rip the client off but because of the amount of information now that is needed to get a Building Consent. The standard I use most often in NZS 3604: light timber framed buildings not requiring specific design. That used to be around 80 pages long.... it's now over 200 pages. And it used to cover things which are now covered in the thousands of pages in the Acceptable Standards of the Building Code. The house I now live in, I drew the plans for it in the early 90's and it required the equivalent to 6 x A3 drawings.... we're thinking of doing some alterations/additions and it will be well over 20 x A3 drawings to get a building consent.... not counting the small trees worth of manufacturers specifications and details that need to accompany the drawings.
Okay, so any ideas how to better streamline the process?
If I remember correctly compliance changes in the 2000s came in because of the leaky homes drama.
How do you have good compliance without making it too onerous and expensive?
Of the top of my head.... if a recognised laboratory has already certified a product, then allow it to be used here in NZ. After all, MedSafe checked the results for trials done overseas... we don't have a lab that reruns every trial for every medicine approved overseas. But, at the moment, despite the testing already done overseas for building products, they have to be redone here by the likes of BRANZ or a university. If a product is certified safe enough to withstand a hurricane in Florida, then why does it need to be retested here to see how it would cope in the lesser winds of our cyclones?
You've also got to remember that the main difference between compliance before the 2000's is that now the compliance is based on systems on not so much on the products. Provided a system can provide documentation proofing it's flashing meets the requirements of the Building Code, then it should be approved. You've got to remember, Colorsteel have never had to prove that their 130mm wide gable flashing will work in controlled laboratory conditions that an overseas supplier wanting to get into the NZ market would need to provide lab testing showing their 130mm wide gable flashing would work. The existing window manufacturers here never needed to provide lab test showing that their aluminium double-glazed systems comply with the thermal requirements of the Building Code but it you wanted to bring in a new system from overseas as a start-up company, you have to have your system tested here to show it complies to the minimum standards.
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John Nick
Contributor
Not true imo.
Looking around the country and all the sole lawn mowing guys. Market stallholders. Sole shopkeepers hairdressers uber drivers and I can go on and on.
Much simpler to startup a business here than in Australia. At least it was a few years ago. Apparently there's over 350000 sole traders in NZ.
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- #3,297
Whats stopping all those sole traders employing people? What stops them growing bigger?
John Nick
Contributor
I have never felt the need but as I am older I am not a great example.
I was replying to a previous post about us not being a nation of entrepreneurs.
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'No mandate from public': Survey reveals Kiwis overwhelmingly support smokefree legislation Govt wants to scrap
Even more than half of National voters support the legislation.
www.newshub.co.nz
67% oppose the government scrapping the smoke free proposed legislation. Doesn’t a democracy support the majority?
John Nick
Contributor
Maori not happy. Workers not happy. Health care not happy. Charities not happy (except Mike King)'No mandate from public': Survey reveals Kiwis overwhelmingly support smokefree legislation Govt wants to scrap
Even more than half of National voters support the legislation.
67% oppose the government scrapping the smoke free proposed legislation. Doesn’t a democracy support the majority?
Haven't heard anything though from the bosses farmers and shareholders...
