What happened Friday

Business / news

A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; rate change impetus runs out of puff, weak new dwelling completions, strong EV prospects, PredictIt slapped, swaps flatter, NZD stable, & more

5th Aug 22, 3:59pm by David Chaston

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you already work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Cooperative Bank have also cut many fixed rates following others. Late yesterday both Westpac and TSB came through with their own cuts and the TSB ones were market-leading.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None to report here today - so far at least.

INHIBITED
Building industry disruptions have reduced the construction of new homes in Auckland by more than -10% over the June year.

REGIONAL BANKING HUB TRIAL EXPANDS
The six banks participating in a regional banking hub trial are adding four hubs and extending the trial until the end of 2023. The new hubs, from mid-2023, are set for Whangamatā, Ōpōtiki, Tūrangi and Waimate. The existing four are in Martinborough, Ōpunake, Stoke and Twizel. The trial, which launched in November 2020, includes ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank, TSB and Westpac. They have committed to not close any regional branches until the end of 2023.

EVs WILL WIN ALMOST ALL NEW CAR SALES SOON
Analyst Fitch Solutions is saying that the April 2022 introduction of a 'bonus-malus' scheme - which provides rebates on the purchase of lower CO2-emitting vehicles, but levies a fee on higher CO2-emitting vehicles - as part of the Clean Car Discount scheme has boosted the near-term prospects for both EV and PHEV sales leading to ten years of exponential growth for NEVs. In 2021 they recorded 18,620 NEV sales (EV plus PHEV). In 2031 they forecast 102,000. (For perspective in 2022 sales of all passenger cars/SUVs are running at 110,000 annual rate.)

MORE SECURITISED VEHICLE LOANS
FleetPartners NZ (a division of listed Aussie parent Eclipix Group) has securitised "a pool of operating and finance lease receivables secured by passenger cars and commercial vehicles" with a face value of $225 mln with margins of between 155 bps an 500 bps over the BKBM rates.

JAPANESE SURPRISE
The Japanese have reported something of a surprise with household spending rising quite sharply in June to be +3.5% higher than a year ago, up +1.5% from May alone. No analyst saw that jump coming. These are 'real' gains, after adjusting for inflation. True it is only one month and that doesn't make it a trend. But quite a string of Japanese data has been positive recently, so this household data may have legs and underpin the inflation rise the Bank of Japan has been seeking for decades. Separately, they reported better than expected incomes growth as well.

CFTC ORDERS VUW's PREDICTIT SERVICE TO CLOSE
In 2014, Victoria University was granted an exemption from regulation by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission to operate an academic market for political election contracts in its PredictIt market. The American exemption was needed because many of these Contracts operated in the US. However, that exemption has been pulled today on the basis that Victoria University hasn't complied with the conditions of the original agreement, and the CFTC requires all contract that have a US link to be closed out within six months. The PredictIt team disputes the CFTC judgement.

CRICKEY
The RBA released its Monetary Policy Statement today and among its forecasts it is expecting their jobless rate to fall to 3.4% by the end of 2022 as inflation there rises to 7.7%. That means they might be challenging us for the Trans-Tasman crown of the lowest unemployment rate. (Ours was 3.3% as at June compared to theirs at 3.5% at the same time.)

SWAP RATES FLATTEN
Wholesale swap rates probably moved little today and any changes will be a flattening of the curve. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +2 bps at 3.23%. That is a 7-year high, its highest since June 2015. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 3.13% and down -3 bps from this time yesterday. The China 10 year bond rate is now at 2.74% and unchanged. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 3.35%, down -3 bps, and now well below the earlier RBNZ fix for this bond which was up +3 bps at 3.39%. The UST 10 year is now at 2.69% and down -3 bps from this time yesterday.

EQUITIES LIMP TO END WEEK UP
On Wall Street, the S&P500 ended the day (Thursday) virtually unchanged to be up a mere +0.5% so far this week. Tokyo has opened its Friday session up +0.7% and heading for a +1.1% weekly gain. Hong Kong is flat today to be up +0.7% so far this week. Shanghai is up +0.2% to limit is weekly loss to -1.6%. The ASX200 is up +0.3% in afternoon trade heading for a +0.8% weekly rise. And the NZX50 is flat and that locks in a good +2.1% weekly rise.

GOLD FIRM
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$22 from this this time yesterday, now at US$1,791/oz.

NZD LITTLE-CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar has firmed today to 63 USc with a minor gain from this time yesterday. Against the AUD we are unchanged at 90.4 AUc. Against the euro we are soft at 61.4 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 is now at just on 71.2.

BITCOIN SOFT
Bitcoin is now at US$22,818 and down -1.3% from where we were this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at just over +/-1.7%.

Daily exchange rates

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Source: RBNZ

Source: CoinDesk

Daily swap rates

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Source: NZFMA

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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80 Comments

by Independent_Observer | 5th Aug 22, 4:01pm 1659672068

"Think the RBNZ is facing unpleasant trade-offs? The Bank of England forecast CPI inflation hitting 13.3% in its update overnight, as petrol prices and energy bills bite. Accordingly, it raised its policy rate by 50bp to 1.75% - even as it forecast a year-long recession next year" - Sharon Zollner

https://twitter.com/sharon_zollner/status/1555363714014285824?s=20&t=4S…

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 4:11pm 1659672677

13.3% inflation and 1.75% cash rate. A bit behind the curve aren't they. Maybe they meant 500bp?

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 4:14pm 1659672873

Brexit isn't looking so clever all of a sudden...

by WellingtonInvestor | 5th Aug 22, 4:55pm 1659675333

Guessing voters weren't aware of the consequences

by bender | 5th Aug 22, 5:07pm 1659676023

Told mega lies.

by Jonny.Foe | 5th Aug 22, 5:23pm 1659676996

Seriously dumb move. The UK inflation is basically about fuel and household energy costs - both almost completely detached from the cost of credit. They are crashing their economy and chucking hundreds of thousands of people on the dole to make it look like they are doing something. The world has gone mad.

by Norm | 5th Aug 22, 5:31pm 1659677476

So you must therefore be proposing they don't increase their OCR, leaving it at emergency levels? Seriously? If they don't take the heat out of their economy they will experience a wage price spiral worse than ours will be. Good luck with that.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 6:17pm 1659680255

If it makes no difference to inflation then may as well set it to -30%.

by gnx | 5th Aug 22, 7:03pm 1659683011

What happens when kiwis can’t afford houses and food?

I think we about to find out why no country has got rich by selling its real estate to each other for twenty years.

by singautim | 5th Aug 22, 8:02pm 1659686536

Almost every Kiwi can afford one or the other. It is both that is tricky.

by Independent_Observer | 5th Aug 22, 5:52pm 1659678765

As is my regular response to your posts...the seriously dumb move happened more in the past than perhaps in the present. That is extending excessive amounts of cheap debt against our housing markets across the anglosphere because we were importing deflation from cheap labour/goods as a result of globalisation.

by HouseMouse | 5th Aug 22, 6:00pm 1659679255

The current hiking is *nearly* as dumb as the cutting…

by WellingtonInvestor | 5th Aug 22, 6:10pm 1659679838

2.5% is very low. 4.5% is what the OCR started off at in 1999, and has been as high as 8.25%

by HouseMouse | 5th Aug 22, 7:55pm 1659686150

People keep spouting this nonsense.

You have to look at both interest rates AND levels of debt.

2.5% isn't so low when debt levels are really high.

by Norm | 5th Aug 22, 9:44pm 1659692692

But house prices are too high and levels of debt are too high, both because interest rates were too low, artificially low.

by WellingtonInvestor | 6th Aug 22, 12:16am 1659701783

This is rubbish. Levels of debt have rise to such high levels, solely because interest rates have been driven lower and lower. Then the emergency cut in 2020 caused house prices to rise around 40% between 2020 and 2022. As soon as they hiked the rates back up, then house sales stall and house prices drop. It was predicatable, but many said they wouldn't increase rates much beucase they don't want to see house prices fall, and some people were saying that the governmetn woldn't allow peoples largest asset to fall in value. IMO if rates hadn't gone lower than 4.5% , then levels of debt would likely be a lot lower, and house prices too would be lower. NZers went on a debt fueled spending spree after lockdown in 2020, buying up houses with cheap money, and pushing up prices. The level of greed was obscene IMO, driven by the media resulting in FOMO. We don't yet know what harm is going to be caused by it. But a 20% fall in prices will be a house price crash according to one real estate expert.

by Fossil Lover | 5th Aug 22, 8:37pm 1659688658

Inflation is 10%, period. You so called investor's that have made it rich in NZ housing market (speculators) cannot make money if interest rates were above the inflation rate because you are unproductive. You do not produce anything for society. Time for a reset, has Paul Volcher got a son!

by Norm | 5th Aug 22, 6:28pm 1659680892

But increasing interest rates reduces house prices. Don't you wanted house prices to reduce?

by gnx | 5th Aug 22, 7:00pm 1659682841

Well said IO

by Jonny.Foe | 5th Aug 22, 8:55pm 1659689721

Hiking the monetary lever down or up is dumb. It is medieval medicine when faced with supply side issues - hopes and prayers stuff. Anyone who is screaming for rate hikes when prices are going up, or rate cuts when things are slow, is equally misguided.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 6:04pm 1659679491

Gone mad? Cash rates have been the way to curb inflation for decades, and have done a bloody good job. If they don’t increase it, at the very least their currency will turn to rubbish, then watch energy prices! The madness is having such a low rate with such high inflation.

by Jonny.Foe | 5th Aug 22, 8:55pm 1659689753

Nō they haven't! Correlation does not equal causation.

by WellingtonInvestor | 6th Aug 22, 12:20am 1659702004

Just over two decades in NZ, which isn't that long. The thing is whether it is still effective or not, as it is a very very blunt and crude tool. Plus they also now need to consider things like house price sustainability which IMO causes problems with the tool. IMO that shouldn't have been added, and the government should have instead made changes themselves with housing. .

by The Person | 5th Aug 22, 9:43pm 1659692630

fuel and household may be the largest rises, but also

Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices have risen by 9.8%
restaurants and for accommodation rose by 8.6%
clothing and footwear was 6.1%

by Jonny.Foe | 5th Aug 22, 10:30pm 1659695413

Yes. Biggest input cost for food is fertiliser and energy (oil). Restaurants and hotels have had to, errrm, buy food, and pay a bit more to keep staff (good). Clothing and footwear is irrelevant - tiny weighting on CPI.

by Pa1nter | 5th Aug 22, 10:36pm 1659695790

Depending on the food, the biggest input cost is typically labour.

by Norm | 6th Aug 22, 8:31am 1659731484

Exactly, therefore spiraling wages / costs are not being considered by Jfoe. Our labour market is really tight, making this even worse. Look at the figures that came out of the USA today, same problem. The spiral started months ago, and isn't employment is a lagging indicator? Our CPI reducing is going to be a slow grind down, IMO.

by Jonny.Foe | 6th Aug 22, 8:40am 1659732029

Even in the fruit and veg sector, it is fertiliser, diesel, and other input commodities that are pushing costs up. Labour does have a bigger contribution to costs than in dairy (where labour is tiny), but it is the meteoric rise of fertiliser and diesel that is hurting. Labour costs are only up 5% to 6% over the year - and these rises only really started this quarter (i.e. well after prices started to increase).

Worth noting that the correlation between NZ petrol prices and CPI overall is 0.86!

by Pa1nter | 6th Aug 22, 2:47pm 1659754037

The price increases of fertiliser and fuel are greater than labour increases, but labour itself makes up a much greater proportion of the total input costs to make food. Just spitballing off the food sectors I'm close to, but labour is about 60-70% of costs, and things like fertiliser and fuel are only in the low single digits.

So out of every $100, labour going up 6% would account for another $3-4 in costs, the increases in fuel and fertiliser are measured in cents.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 4:09pm 1659672565

"Trans-Tasman crown of the lowest unemployment rate" - still a long way from world standards apparently:

Qatar: 0.3%
Cambodia: 0.6%
Niger: 0.8%
Solomon Islands: 1.0%
Lao PDR: 1.3%
Thailand: 1.4%
Benin: 1.6%
Rwanda: 1.6%
Burundi: 1.8%
Bahrain: 1.9%

By the looks of it, low unemployment is not that aspirational. Still better than:

South Africa: 33.6%
Djibouti: 28.4%
Eswatini: 25.8%
West Bank and Gaza: 24.9%
Botswana: 24.7%

by nzforall | 5th Aug 22, 4:42pm 1659674572

'Spose some countries have the dole and others don't

New Zealand could save a few billions if it tightened up the dole conditions.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 4:46pm 1659674766

Could be as rich as Cambodia?

by WellingtonInvestor | 5th Aug 22, 6:11pm 1659679914

It is false economy, and then creates all sorts of other problems. . They could save even more by slim lining government departments, which is often what happens when the right gets back into power.

NZ needs to be going after these massive companies that don't pay their fair share of tax.

IMO one of NZs biggest problems is the high cost of living when compared to wages, largely due to lack of competition. It has taken years to even get reports done to investigate supermarkets and the building sector. Even though many of us knew that we were overpaying and there was a lack of competition.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 6:29pm 1659680976

Same as the old duopoly mobile phone network, boy did prices come down almost the day that 2degrees started up. Before then the same rubbish: we are just a small country that can’t support 3 providers, etc.

The commerce commission needs a full rebuild, they have cost us more than anything else over the last 20 years IMO. Remember when we had supermarket chains such as woolworths, foodtown, Big Fresh, 3 guys, the commerce commission sat by as one Aussie company bought the lot!

by Nzdan | 5th Aug 22, 11:22pm 1659698537

I've commented on here many a time about how the last time the Commerce Commission really showed some teeth was when they forced Telecom to unbundle the local loop because a bunch of nerds were upset that their 128kbit connections had a 10gig data cap.

by JohnTrz | 5th Aug 22, 4:45pm 1659674757

The figures you show are meaningless. Any person who worked for one hour (by some standards) or four hours (by others) in the preceding week is employed, and therefore not unemployed. Many of the countries you list have no enforced minimum wage. So work for one hour a week for one dollar, and Hey presto! you're not unemployed!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-17/one-hour-workers-one-hour-employ…

by Ahuhyeah | 5th Aug 22, 5:24pm 1659677044

Report fte employment numbers for trend monitoring?

by Officebound | 5th Aug 22, 4:29pm 1659673750

NZ 2-10 Yield curve inverted today

New Zealand Government Bonds - Yields Curve (worldgovernmentbonds.com)

by Independent_Observer | 5th Aug 22, 4:44pm 1659674657

Yes and US 2/10 is back inverted in such a manner as it has been before 2000 - 2008 crashes (and/or any recession in the last 4 decades).

by Audaxes | 5th Aug 22, 4:52pm 1659675176

Four- and eight-week bill auctions saw huge demand again. The 4w high yield was just 2.11%, median of 2.09%. Remember, Fed's RRP is 2.30%. Why so much demand? Collateral. Collateral. Collateral. Link

by Audaxes | 5th Aug 22, 4:55pm 1659675350

The goods keep on coming, just in time for panicky retailers and wholesalers. The problem is up until just recently companies had been fooled into thinking supply would be their biggest risk because Economists said CPI was the economy. It wasn't. Link

by J.C. | 5th Aug 22, 4:39pm 1659674382

Somewhat of a move for the mainstreaming of ol' ratty. The irony here is that while Blackrock is forming a partnership with Coinbase, the SEC is investigating Coinbase as to whether or not it has been trading unregistered digital assets (securities). Looks like Blackrock doesn't give a rats about the SEC and its relevance to the space anymore, even if BTC itself is not regarded by the SEC as a security.

BlackRock Inc. is partnering with Coinbase Global Inc. to make it easier for institutional investors to manage and trade Bitcoin, taking the world’s largest asset manager into a cryptocurrency market hammered by plunging prices and government investigations.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-04/blackrock-teams-up-w…

by Market Interest | 5th Aug 22, 5:22pm 1659676946

Blackrock might be in trouble - they scooped up thousands of single family dwellings in the US, at premium prices, in the last couple of years. Now they're plunging. Can they hold if the dip continues?

by J.C. | 5th Aug 22, 5:44pm 1659678289

If Blackrock goes, the whole of suburbia in the Anglosphere goes with it

by Independent_Observer | 5th Aug 22, 5:50pm 1659678604

Perhaps a section could be added to the bible along the lines of 'for our collective sins there will be droughts, floods, famines and blackrock insolvencies'

by Audaxes | 5th Aug 22, 6:10pm 1659679816

Where does Blackstone fit in with BlackRock woes?

by Fossil Lover | 5th Aug 22, 8:56pm 1659689778

How much money does Jerome Powell have invested in Blackrock and work backwards.

by Fossil Lover | 5th Aug 22, 8:51pm 1659689509

Interesting, wasn't our Prime minister photographed recently leaving Blackrock headquarters in NY. Makes you want to go Mmmn.

by Brock Landers | 6th Aug 22, 7:40am 1659728410

Link?

by Market Interest | 5th Aug 22, 5:19pm 1659676762

In January there were 3 Tesla Model 3s listed for sale on TradeMe. Now there are 120. Second thoughts maybe? The infrastructure required for running an EV as a daily driver not up to scratch?

by Jonny.Foe | 5th Aug 22, 5:26pm 1659677168

Check out the prices. If you bought a nice Tesla (or any quality PHEV) in Auckland when the discount started, you can now sell your car for a profit. I sold mine a couple of weeks ago, paid off a chunk of my mortgage, and then used the ANZ 1% eco loan to buy another PHEV and order some solar panels for the roof.

by Market Interest | 5th Aug 22, 5:30pm 1659677456

Yeah, I can't help but think the Clean Car Rebate is a rather regressive scheme. I didn't realise the banks had an oar in the water as well!

by Rex Pat | 5th Aug 22, 6:16pm 1659680195

It is regressive. Just look at the number of new Teslas in Auckland’s Eastern Suburbs. It was predictable so it must have been the desired outcome.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 6:20pm 1659680427

I think the desired outcome is to reduce CO2 emissions

by mfd | 5th Aug 22, 6:42pm 1659681738

We have a cap and trade system, if we want to reduce emissions we need to lower the cap. This rebate system is just moving around where the emissions will occur.

Sadly 'we will take a million tonnes off the cap and let people figure out the best way to do it' isn't headline friendly.

by Fossil Lover | 5th Aug 22, 9:08pm 1659690535

No the desired outcome is to reduce peoples freedoms. CO2 emissions are good for our society, gives us cleaner energy, better standard of living, warmer homes, faster and more efficient transportation, hell the list is endless, I can even get a Big Mac delivered to my front door, CO2 emissions rule.

by WellingtonInvestor | 5th Aug 22, 6:14pm 1659680070

Who would buy one second hand, when you could do better by buying new. Guessing quite a lot of people what the new SUV version anyway.

by Rex Pat | 5th Aug 22, 6:19pm 1659680350

New is circa $70,000 with a wait. Second hand is $60,000 to $65,000 for a near new car with no wait.

by WellingtonInvestor | 5th Aug 22, 6:30pm 1659681020

Guessing wanting it now is the difference. Personally I could wait, and would get the model Y over the 3 anyway, as the model Y has a better driving height and more space. I dislike driving low cars.

by Audaxes | 5th Aug 22, 7:06pm 1659683198

I pulled that stunt back in the eighties with four new cars over a period of four years with one London Mercedes Benz dealer. In the end I went Japanese due to Benz reliability issues. Still stuck with Subarus today.

This guy, a friend of a client, introduced me to the dealership after I bought a new ex factory Mercedes-Benz 190e 2.3-16 from him.

by Fossil Lover | 5th Aug 22, 8:47pm 1659689248

No fossil fuel consumption there ah. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

by The Person | 5th Aug 22, 10:30pm 1659695428

I'd be careful buying a second hand Telsa, they rank very poorly for reliability. Owners are very satisfied, but report poor reliability. A strange combo that affects many luxury car brands.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jd-power-dependability-survey-places-154…

slight improvement in 2022

Tesla scored 226 on the assessment, which would still put the automaker in the bottom six positions on the list

https://www.teslarati.com/teslas-build-quality-sees-slight-improvement-…

by Rex Pat | 5th Aug 22, 6:08pm 1659679730

Not at all. The Model 3s are for sale because the owners are changing to the Y. I have done that and sold for a profit albeit the Y is more expensive. There are close to 1,100 Model 3 and Y being delivered over the next two weeks. That will make close to 6,000 Model 3 and Y sold in the last two years. Shanghai can produce 2,000 model Y per day. It is the EV RAV4 of this decade.

by WellingtonInvestor | 5th Aug 22, 6:29pm 1659680940

But is it going to be as reliable as a Toyota RAV4, and last as long as one? My parents have a 2007 RAV4 from new, and it has never had any problems and is still in pretty good shape. This was after several European cars which had all sorts of problems and expensive fixes required after just 5 years. I would hope to get at least 10 years life out of an EV without any major costs, and no major degradation of the battery.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 6:39pm 1659681582

At the high end no one cares about reliability. It’s why European cars sell for high prices despite being utter junk. If you are going to upgrade again in 3 years it doesn’t matter, and the more you pay the richer you feel.

by The Person | 5th Aug 22, 10:51pm 1659696698

You know in Europe, europen cars are just 'cars', their reliability is up there with the East Asians and often class leading. Sure they make luxury cars, but no one pays a high price for a Dacia Sandero (most reliable car in Europe)

https://www.whatcar.com/news/2021-what-car-reliability-survey-executive…

by Carlos67 | 5th Aug 22, 7:50pm 1659685807

EV's so boring and quiet that drivers are falling asleep at the wheel ? Yawn lets sell it.

by Baywatch | 5th Aug 22, 8:43pm 1659689012

No, trading up to the Model Y more likely. If you cannot plug in a EV anymore then good luck with turning on your laptop or making some toast?

by Squishy | 5th Aug 22, 7:17pm 1659683849

I wonder if the sales tax in fossil fuel vehicles will slow people trading up to more efficient, less polluting vehicles? It would be interesting to see if, on aggregate the benefits of EVs are offset by an older fleet.

by gnx | 5th Aug 22, 7:34pm 1659684884

Luxon is getting slaughtered on LinkedIn.

His own posts too….just not very supportive comments.It’s like a mob growing in confidence and demanding what the plan is. Quite fascinating how these platforms can be a curse.

One does have to wonder if his own team is out to get him.Probably not his close circle but I could well imagine a few disgruntled twenty somethings on the /digital PR side dropping him in it.

by JimboJones | 5th Aug 22, 8:17pm 1659687443

Is it because they are no longer promising tax cuts?

by HouseMouse | 5th Aug 22, 8:20pm 1659687623

I always said he's mediocre at best. So too Nicola Willis.

by Officebound | 5th Aug 22, 8:44pm 1659689049

Check out the National Party Policy page here

New Zealand National Party

Really surprised one of their key priorities for NZ is fixing MIQ!

by Fossil Lover | 5th Aug 22, 9:25pm 1659691516

MIQ, internment camp in disguise. Only difference was returnees got to pay, at least in America during WW2, Uncle Sam picked up the bill.

by The Person | 5th Aug 22, 10:23pm 1659694985

Nothing loads on their website, all the links and categories just take you to a login page. Amateur hour @ the National Party IT desk.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Aug 22, 8:38am 1659731897

I didnt find MIQ mentioned there .... but plenty of guidance on tax bracket rejigging , police & gangs , that sort of thing . ..

. .. they're hardly likely to release detailed policy so far out from the next election ... given that it's an opportunity for the government to pinch it for themselves ...

by the Joneses | 6th Aug 22, 12:26pm 1659745580

Lol, and politics ain't all about implementing policies to make NZ better is it? (in reference to implementing the oppositions policies)

by WellingtonInvestor | 6th Aug 22, 12:25am 1659702303

The problem is that they aren't announcing any real policies. And they are attacking people getting the dole, which is an easy and lazy target. Tax cuts are also a lazy policy. Even labour have previously announced tax cuts as a policy, when Helen Clark was leader.

hey aren't actually announcing anything to fix things like the cost of living crisis, and that kiwis are overpaying for goods due to a lack of competition. TBH they are somewhat irrelevant. I would normally vote National, but they are like an unflavored instant pudding with no real ideas. Blah.

by OldSkoolEconomics | 6th Aug 22, 6:35am 1659724508

Its a huge issue. One gets the impression 7-houses-luxon and 4-houses-willis are there just to pump house prices and push tax cuts for the already seriously wealthy.

Nz desparately needs a party with some serious policies that are brave and go against the vested interests of the elite 1%.

- CGT (not some watered down flavour of it) and a public policy to make housing affordable

- proper climate change plan including fqrming

- alternate investment opportunities to houses.

- taxes for corporations and wealthy and pump the money back into making country livable (those that dont like it can leave.. they do no good anyway).

- rapid shift in export markets away from china (look at the news.. we either act now and shift gradually or we will be banned from selling to them by the usa in one go.. see what happened to germany who relied on russia for gas).

- a proper infrastructure tourism and immigration policy that accounts for climate change and plan.

- a decent multi cultural harmonisation plan that fairly integrates the needs of all people (chinese, maori, euro, asian, eastern european etc) into a single central efficient system. Allocation of the systems resources ot set up of niche tqrgetted departments wherever needed for impact.

I am older, a traditional national voter.. but see the greed of the 1% as starting to make our country unlivable (health, crime, education, climate, opportunity.. who wants money and a crap planet).

We need a serious opposition. I dont want to vote labour but the Nats are looking way worse than the current lot (which is hard)

by Tee | 6th Aug 22, 5:39am 1659721151

"They have committed to not close any regional branches until the end of 2023."

The older generation need to talk to the tellers, more than young and tech savvy. The old with cognitive disabilities could be the preferred prey of predatory scammers. Remote access to their computers is devastating, savings of a lifetime just gone.