A lot of statistics.
And moving away from whether sending any more public money Eden Park’s way is worth the disruption down Sandringham and Balmoral roads.
New Zealand public debt has been good compared to international statistics. As you point out, it was ready for the pandemic and kept companies going, and yes, keeping the businesses going. Not so worried that you joined the pay it back movement I take it?
Yes that inflation pushed house prices up too.
But also there was a raft of measures that encouraged clean, healthy rentals, renters rights and provided for investment in building public housing that helped increase housing supply and make the experience of renting more tolerable for those outside university years and/or trying to raise a family.
All that public building was canceled, which brought the construction industry to a screeching halt. That’s fairly deflationary.
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/kainga-ora-axes-60-of-social-housing-projects-planned-for-2025-46815
60% that is.
All that imperative to make sure renters had homes without black mould and so on, gone from legislation. The support to go to the landlord to get things done to minimum standards.
As for investment in our country, which seems to be a bad thing outside roads, from the Kaka:
And moving away from whether sending any more public money Eden Park’s way is worth the disruption down Sandringham and Balmoral roads.
New Zealand public debt has been good compared to international statistics. As you point out, it was ready for the pandemic and kept companies going, and yes, keeping the businesses going. Not so worried that you joined the pay it back movement I take it?
Yes that inflation pushed house prices up too.
But also there was a raft of measures that encouraged clean, healthy rentals, renters rights and provided for investment in building public housing that helped increase housing supply and make the experience of renting more tolerable for those outside university years and/or trying to raise a family.
All that public building was canceled, which brought the construction industry to a screeching halt. That’s fairly deflationary.
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/kainga-ora-axes-60-of-social-housing-projects-planned-for-2025-46815
60% that is.
All that imperative to make sure renters had homes without black mould and so on, gone from legislation. The support to go to the landlord to get things done to minimum standards.
As for investment in our country, which seems to be a bad thing outside roads, from the Kaka:
-
The capital investments in the September quarter were at least $267 million less than forecast in the May Budget and were less than half the depreciation recorded in the accounts for the quarter of $2.101 billion.
Government spending isn’t bad, especially in a small economy. It’s one way to balance out the shocks from outside the economy. But much of the slow growth has been the fault of daft decisions, such as the finance minister’s choice to cancel a ferry contract and replace it with a worse one for later. And there are things we need to invest in.
And if nonsensical spending is a worry here are some incredibly poor value investments which will have extremely high opportunity costs for generations: the 40-50 billion dollars simply on roading. And they changed the way the business case was calculated so they still look bad, but not so bad.
For example just one road is 10% of all our infrastructure costs for the next ten years:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/one-road-to-dominate-10-of-infrastructure-spending-for-next-25-years-with-warning-costs-could-double/CRY7AYNIUFF4ROYNFPSRSYL6KM/
Not of our roading, not of our transport, but of all our infrastructure, including any preparation we need for climate change resilience and adaptation.
It’s ideological madness.
Much like the reading announcement:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/government-expected-to-reveal-education-data-showing-positive-signs-for-childrens-reading-skills/4IBZB3G7PZGVPOE22JHBUPEOVI/
What this data meant was kids could read like the Amiga 500 of 35 years ago. They can recognise and produce sounds. They can’t understand anything, analyze anything or respond. We’re congratulating ourselves on our kids being 30-40 years behind current simple AI.
Gotta save some energy for the double header here bud!
But can’t agree with all the great venues across a very spread out city that EP should get first pick at events which might be better suited elsewhere. TINA never worked for me.
And the national football stadium is the RoF!