Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today, ahead of tomorrow's RBNZ policy rate updated.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here either.
STAGNANT
There were fewer expatriate New Zealanders returning home but there are also fewer NZ citizens leaving long-term in February. More generally, for the year ended February compared with the same year in 2021 there were +44,500 migrant arrivals, down -26%, and -52,200 migrant departures, up 2%. That means we had an annual net migration loss of -7,600, which was a reversal of the net gain of +9,500 in the prior year.
BUSINESS CONFIDENCE FALLS
Business confidence fell in March. The latest Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion (QSBO) from the NZIER reveals costs and prices soaring for businesses. As a consequence, ANZ economists say this latest survey results shows urgent need for RBNZ to hike rates, despite the weak confidence. They also think next Thursday's CPI result (April 21) will see annual inflation of 7.1% for the March quarter.
HEARTLAND WRESTLES WITH OUTGOING PAYMENTS PROBLEM
Heartland Bank says a problem affecting customer payments should be fixed by 4pm Tuesday. A Heartland customer contacted interest.co.nz saying they had been trying all Tuesday morning to find out what had happened to a transfer from their Heartland account to ANZ account on Monday. "The money has left Heartland but not arrived at ANZ. The phone lines are perpetually overloaded with calls," the customer said. Heartland posted the following on its website: "We are aware of an issue which has affected some payments from 11 April 2022. We are working to resolve this as quickly as possible." And a bank spokeswoman told interest.co.nz: "The payments issue being experienced relates to outgoing payments made last night (11 April). We’re working with Westpac to resolve this as quickly as possible and expect it to be resolved by 4pm. If Heartland customers are experiencing issues with payments, we encourage them to get in touch with us."
FINCO SURVIVORS
Very few finance companies survived the GFC, and those that did are either a shadow of their former selves, or have had major ownership changes. Among the few that have hung on successfully and expanded are Avanti Finance, Geneva Finance, and Instant Finance, all with roots in small loans to the part of society that struggles with banking relationships. These three are now quite distinctive in varying ways. Geneva Finance is celebrating 20 years. Avanti Finance is 17 years. Instant Finance however is 30 years old.
PRETENDING
James Shaw released the country's net greenhouse gas inventory for 2020 today. They amounted to 55.5 Mt CO₂-e (net). He says it needs to fall to 44 Mt CO₂-e to meet the 1990 level we committed to. China's 2020 emissions were 13,800 Mt CO₂-e, and increasing by more than twice our total annual gross*. Even if we abandoned the whole country, our sacrifice would have zero global impact. Even the UK, which adopts a holier-than-thou attitude to this, emitted 44 Mt CO₂-e just from their agriculture sector in 2020 (p21). The whole UK economy emitted 375 Mt CO₂-e. The whole US economy emitted 6,000 Mt CO₂-e in 2020. New Zealand's agriculture sector emitted 27.8 Mt CO₂-e. The drive for us to 'do our share' is in the vacuum of most large economies doing virtually nothing material, meaning our efforts are only necessary to meet trading standards imposed by those same large markets. It's not going to contribute anything to global change. Missing our target by 5 or 10 or 20 Mt CO₂-e just won't be noticed anywhere. Achieving our goals is almost certainly not going to "limit warming" as Shaw claims. Adaption and mitigation are going to become essential as these global efforts fail. (*To fight their looming recession, China is about to launch major construction programs, pouring vast amounts of concrete, installing vast amounts of steel, inducing vast amounts of freight movements. To pretend that isn't about to happen is willful blindness. Xi's 'common prosperity' are already abandoned. Their claimed green goals haven't even gotten off the start line.) All this global inaction means that financial stability risks will rise sharply, and sooner than we realise. Solvency risks for insurance companies are something to watch out for.
NEW TREASURY WORK ON WELLBEING
Treasury Secretary Caralee McLiesh today launched the paper Trends in Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2000-2020 and a refreshed Living Standards Framework Dashboard. This is part of a Treasury work programme ahead of the publication of Te Tai Waiora: Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand 2022, a new requirement under the Public Finance Act. This is set to be published in November. The Wellbeing Trends Report investigates how wellbeing in New Zealand compares to other countries, how wellbeing has changed over time, and how wellbeing is distributed across various groups of the population, McLiesh says.
BUSINESS OPTIMISM RISES IN AUSTRALIA
In Australia, business conditions surged higher in March and confidence also strengthened. Trading conditions and profitability rose markedly, suggesting demand remains strong, and employment also rose. The improvement was largely driven by the retail sector. Overall business confidence rose, continuing the steady rise since December.
GOLD FIRM
In early Asian trading, gold is up +US$12 from this time yesterday at just on US$1956/oz.
EQUITIES ALL LOWER
On Wall Street, the S&P500 closed down -1.7% in Monday trade, falling away as the session progressed. Tokyo has opened down -1.4%, Hong Kong has opened flat after Monday's large retreat, and Shanghai has opened marginally lower after their drop yesterday. The ASX200 is down -0.7% in early afternoon trade. The NZX50 is down -0.2% in late Tuesday trade.
SWAPS RUSH HIGHER AGAIN
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. They are likely to be a little firmer yet again from yesterday, another +3 bps or more on top of last weeks big rises. More than 80% of a +½% OCR rise is now priced in. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp at 1.71%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark bond rate is up +8 bps from this morning, now at 3.08% and the first time in eight years it has been above 3%. The China Govt 10yr is little-changed at 2.82%. And the New Zealand Govt 10 year bond rate is up a sharp +8 bps at 3.58% and above the earlier RBNZ fix for that 10yr rate at 3.52% (up another +5 bps). The US Govt ten year is now at 2.82% and up another +9 bps since this time yesterday in a big renewed push higher and a new 4½ year high.
NZ DOLLAR HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar is now at 68.2 USc and unchanged since this time yesterday. (The average over the seven years since the start of 2015 is 69 USc.) Against the Aussie we are a tad higher at 92 AUc. Against the euro we are little-changed at 62.7 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is now at 74.1, and marginally firmer than this time yesterday.
BITCOIN FALLS
Bitcoin is lower from where we opened this morning, now at US$39,537 and down -6.3% since this time yesterday. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been very high at just on +/-4.0%
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68 Comments
4th captioned paragraph & 8th captioned paragraph read distinctly different don’t they. Could we question whether our government is either aware or concerned accordingly. Certainly if the ANZ is correct in their assessment, then NZ’s outlook is indeed bleak and as our present government has been both quick to & fond of drawing lines of comparison with Australia, whenever the narrative suited them of course, what will they now have to say about the vastly different status & outlooks comparatively speaking?
The drive for us to 'do our share' is in the vacuum of most large economies doing virtually nothing material, meaning our efforts are only necessary to meet trading standards imposed by those same large markets. It's not going to contribute anything to global change.
This is dangerously misguided David. Eighteen countries emit 76% of the worlds greenhouse gases - should everyone else do literally nothing? Perhaps the same warped logic could be applied to individual states or cities in the US. I mean what's the point of smaller states taking any action when Texas, Florida and California emit so much more than everyone else? Maybe India could argue that they want to be considered equivalent to 276 New Zealands and be given a pass on meeting their targets too?
The climate change challenge relies on collective action - when people fall back on deflect and delay discourses they undermine this action. It's reckless.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-discourses-of-delay-are-used…
No mention of the EU in those figures either.
When Shaw says We, he means the world as a whole , and recognise it is important for every country to make an effort .
I wonder if those critical of China are prepared to not buy any Chinese goods ?It may be possible , but difficult and not cheap .
I think most kiwis would be willing to make some personal sacrifices on consumer goods, oersonal behaviours etc if it was clear that our collective goal was greater self-sufficiency in food and energy, insulation from an increasingly volatile global economy, a healthier natural environment etc.
David's comment is an oxymoron.
If nothing is done, there is no economy.
Anywhere.
Hard to cut off your nose to spite your face when you're dead. Said face tends to be past caring.
What's more interesting is that the wheels are falling off fast now; I'm not sure we aren't looking at a crash which will solve much of the CO2 problem. Problem is, said crash could well eliminate perhaps 50% of humanity; mostly those crammed into first-world cities fully outside-dependent and with no appropriate (post-crash) skills.
Or we can just engineer a war - pick a villain - Khomeini, Saddam, Hitler, Putin - send a little (lethal) gas and blame it on the others (Reagan/Iraq/Iran) then use it as an excuse to take the oil you needed all along. Fisk is a good read about now
https://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Great-War-for-Civilisation-Robert-Fisk…
Agree. It’s a really stupid comment, a fallacy.
where do you stop with it? So Aussie doesn’t have to do anything as it’s a small-mid sized nation? Oh how bout France, only mid-sized, doesn’t make any difference in the big scheme of things…
before you know it you have 20 mid sized nations saying the same thing, with a significant combined population of say 500 million…
there’s a moral responsibility for ALL countries to respond…
Agreed HM so every country gets a discount in the order of nzs emissions so nz doesn't have to upset its farming lobby. We need to pull our weight so as to encourage others to do likewise, we outsource our emissions to china and others and don't count those for eg imported fertilizers.
Fair enough. I have heard that argument for years. I am an old guy, but in my 20s at graduate school that argument played out then. Our New Zealand action or inaction, no matter how well intended (the action, that is) isn't going to change the disaster trajectory we are on. Gilding that is greenwashing in my view. The cat is out of the bag. No-one talks anymore about the melting tundra in Siberia. New Zealand's action isn't even a decimal point to that. "Feeling good" about doing our bit is useless in the global circumstance. Our efforts would be better directed at adaption and preparation for what's coming. The tragedy of the commons is playing out because most of the big emitters are in this commons. No point in 'feeling good about doing our part' when it clearly won't mean anything. The oft-quoted "Texas/Florida/California" argument vs the smaller US states is just rhetoric. These are sovereign country decisions. Sovereign countries signed up, and the sovereign countries are all failing. Sure, many small LDC's or EMs didn't start the problem and will be victimised. But only the large emitters could actually do anything about it. If you think they will, then your individual effort will help. I hope you are right, but it is all based on 'hope'. If it that doesn't happen, you wasted time and energy that would have been better used to prepare. I don't think preparation is anywhere near advanced enough.
Many of the possible solutions do not just have the benefit of reducing our emissions. Promoting active transport, public transport e-bikes and where necessary electric cars will make our air cleaner and reduce our dependency on imported oil. Reducing agricultural emissions could also benefit our rivers and environment, if done well. Reducing meat consumption could make us healthier and save us money on a household level. Insulating our houses improves our quality of life. More renewable power generation means less coal imported.
It's not all doom and gloom.
This. Less car dependency also means less road space and parking, less asphalt which can be replaced with trees and planting. Less asphalt and more trees will help with the heat island effect which will be even worse as the planet heats up. Less asphalt, more trees and more rain gardens will also help manage stormwater and reduce the impacts of severe flooding. These are all win wins.
So in the grand scheme of things of this nature why is our government party to the construction of a wide bodied jet airport on rural land in Central Otago? How much steel,concrete,asphalt, plastics, diesel, oil and other minerals and elements need to go into that construction and future operation and how much do we as citizens each have to cough up in emission compensations etc as a nation resultantly.
because all these climate change laws and taxes don't apply to the mega-rich.
We will live with incredible restricts on where we can go, how we live and what we can eat in order to fight climate change while the mega-rich will continue to live as if nothings changed for them.
You want an example, recent carbon has been imposed on airlines in the EU, but private jets are exempt.
Speaking of "reducing meat consumption"
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/the-truth-about-cats-and-dogs-enviro…
Can't we do both? Transforming our dairy farms to crops that make us less reliant on importing food would kill both birds.
Clearly technology will play a part (plant based meat substitutes) and it's not hard to picture beef and milk becoming as socially unacceptable as smoking is today.
Consumers will still make choices, it may be too late, but they will change their behaviour as the ship goes down.
I'm really not sure what your calling for here - protection of waterfront properties? We can't even insulate our homes, much less make them cyclone proof?
An older generation shrugging their shoulders and muttering about how they'll be dead before it really hurts, so who cares?
It's pretty par for the course for this website I am afraid. It has tolerated climate change disinformation for well over a decade (heck the guy who posts the weekly incorrect forecasts on the direction of the Kiwi $ makes absolutely no bones about where he stands on the 'science') and now the editor makes the effortless switch to 'we are too small to count, let's do nothing'. Marvelous.
I'm with David on this one. We can all do our bit to reduce our footprint and the government can take action, but the bulk of our money should be devoted towards adaptation. If government policies make us poorer (as the NZIER analysis of the CZ2050 Bill calculated) then we'll have less ability to adapt when the change comes (as it will) and we'll be even worse off than if we'd done nothing.
Tragedy of the commons, it's a known effect, but people love to confuse intent and results (which is what we can do) with actuals. If we intend to cut our emissions severely and are able to do so, it shows a path for those big players to follow. This actually makes us as a small, nimble nation more powerful, if we can illustrate to others a way to resolve much of our emissions, we can export that knowledge to those big players (who are basically too big to change course), thereby lowering the worlds emissions.
But we don't, and that's the sad part. We sit on our hands and delay/delay/delay instead of funding climate change research into the billions and coming up with a bunch of solutions. Solutions that can be sent elsewhere or where we can create our own market. There's some amazing stuff we could be doing:
- Farming of red seaweed and finding a way to maximise it's potential in cattle and essentially create edible food pellets for cows that we can export
- Even more efficient farming, using things like Halter and much better fertilizer management
- Following Aus with their solar panel/battery subsidies for roof top solar, particularly in sunny areas
- Get back to boat building, actually throw a lot of money into building electric ferries (the new Wellington East by West electric ferry is the first of it's kind in the world). We could become a major player in taking stuff we developed in the America's cup and scaling it up for things like cargo ships
And meanwhile, since we are doing nothing, it appears the deluges even in NZ are becoming more and more frequent/intense. Talking to old people around me, they can't remember having such crazy rain so often...
Cannot stand this type of attitude. Not the 1st time he's come out swinging against taking climate action either.
Great for people to say this kind of thing when they wont live long enough to see the worst of climate change.
Time to stop looking towards lame excuses and take responsibility for all those before that passed the problem onto us.
Poor form.
"That means we had an annual net migration loss of -7,600, which was a reversal of the net gain of +9,500 in the prior year."
Great news in solving the housing shortage. Remind me, how many houses a year are we building?
Not enough at affordable prices - building houses now is basically betting that the borders will be uncorked and we'll blow past 1:1 migration to replace leaving Kiwis. Remember, the people leaving was basically nil and the Govt dished out three years worth of residency spots in one swoop without knowing how many people might apply - and that's before the borders even open.
In my area there a two tidy unit blocks, 2 for sale in each, all 4 failed to sell at auction in march and now are all listed with prices about 5% lower than prices achieved there last nov/dec. They are still not sold 5 weeks later. From this I am seeing a price drop of at least 5% that must come thru the system soon.
10% of our houses are substandard by some reckoning, 180,000 houses, that should keep our builders going for a while, of course they will be replaced by medium density but at least they will be fit to live in.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/104458436/a-tenth-of-new-zeal…
The solution to global warming is technology adoption at scale to drive down cost. NZs objective therefore should be to incentivise changes that increase adoption of technologies that have long term economic and health benefits and/or contribute scale.
An example is electric cars. Electric cars are objectively better than petrol cars - less maintenance, lower cost to drive, faster, less adverse health impacts from pollution. More demand for electric cars will lower the price of electric cars. Therefore NZ should encourage electric cars because consumers are better off and the technology becomes cheaper. Same with insulation, same with heat pumps, same with solar/wind power. The goal isn’t to lower emissions, the goal is to increase scale to make better technologies more cost effective and to drive further innovation.
Action on agricultural emissions is less clear cut. Will taxing agricultural emissions lead to technology adoption or is there no technology to adopt? The point isn’t to lower agricultural production, the point has to be to make a given level of production more efficient. If that isn’t possible then taxing it doesn’t make sense (except maybe to fund an optimal level of research).
Agree with almost everything you're saying apart from the bit about electric cars. They are not really a solution to anything. They bring all the same problems as ICE cars minus the carbon emissions. Same air pollution (particulate emissions), same congestion, same carbon intensive infrastructure (concrete and asphalt roads and parking), same road safety consequences (massive numbers of road deaths and serious injuries). Electrify public transport and freight by all means. Electric bikes already outnumber electric car sales many times over, bring in measures to support further adoption. And if we are going to support electric cars then make sure they are part of a car share scheme where one car can take 12 other cars off the network (less parking and less energy/materials to construct). Overall though agree with the sentiment.
How do electric cars produce particulate emissions?
I think there is a fair argument as to whether you want to go further than electric cars but I think they are qualitatively better compared to ICE. Im in favour of more investment in rail including high speed rail.
I know self-driving cars has been harder than expected but I expect it will happen in the near future and that will massively reduced deaths and injuries.
I agree with you about electric cars, but feel let down by the fact that the Govt doesn't appear to be on top of things. Laws need to be introduced - all new parking areas need a % of charging stations; all charging stations in the country need to be the same (as per a recent law introduced in the US); banks of charging stations need to be placed along all major roads at a set distance.
Why is the RBNZ having their policy meeting ahead of this month's CPI result? Normally you would expect to have your policy meeting after you have seen your results! In Operations Management you have a process called the "Deming" circle which follows the next steps: Plan - Do - Check - Act. You plan an activity (OCR Policy). You act by setting the OCR on the agreed rate. You check the outcome by monitoring the effect of your action (the result of the CPI) and act by adjusting your OCR policy and rate and the circle starts again! Simple as but not for the RBNZ! You can't control processes by acting before checking!
Maybe they are down in the basement running some scenarios....
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research-and-publications/videos/making-money-…
hope they don’t have a flood!
Others more knowledgeable on currencies will know more than me. It seems a bit curious, as the yen is often seen as a safe haven in times of crisis. Their interest rates are very low.
Heavy commodity producing nations like NZ and Aus seem to have strengthening currencies off the back of the war.
The treasury report makes for some stark reading, particularly for young people in the country. Stuff sums it up: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128342963/nz-a-good-place-to-be-old-bu…
I think the Nats need to be careful about their environmental policies as it may be remembered for a long time if they get it wrong. If they are known as the climate change deniers by say cancelling the electric car rebate or light rail etc, and let’s say all those scientists are right and global warming is real bad, then it’s hard to see National ever being re-elected. That might only be 20 years away. If labour had any sense they would adopt policies that National will be forced to cancel to keep their grey vote, it may not win this election but should win a few in the future.
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