Here's our summary of key events overnight that affect New Zealand.
British/Russian relations have hit their lowest point since the Cold War. Britain is expelling 23 Russian diplomats in the wake of Russia denying involvement in a chemical attack on a former Russian spy in southern England earlier this month.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has also mentioned possibly freezing Russian state assets that pose a security threat, new laws to counter hostile state activity and a downgrade of Britain’s attendance at the soccer World Cup in Russia. Russia has described the steps as “unacceptable, unjustified and short-sighted”.
Australia is considering ways to help South African farmers. South Africa's ruling ANC party last month announced plans to change the constitution to enable it to seize land from white farmers without compensating them. The move has prompted Australia to explore whether the farmers can be accepted into the country through refugee, humanitarian or in-country persecution visa categories. Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton believes the farmers deserve "special attention" and need help from a "civilised country" like Australia.
A net 4,946 South Africans migrated to New Zealand in the year to January - a 9.1% increase from the previous year. This group made up 7% of the 70,147 net gain New Zealand experienced in the year.
US retail sales fell for a third straight month in February, as people cut back on buying cars and other big-ticket items. Slipping 0.1%, it was the first time since April 2012 that sales dropped for three months in a row. The decline is surprising as consumer confidence is at a 17-year high in the wake of US tax reforms. The move has prompted analysts to downgrade their first-quarter economic growth forecasts.
The European Central Bank says its monetary policy will remain prudent despite it being more confident inflation's picking up. President Mario Draghi says, “We still need to see further evidence that inflation dynamics are moving in the right direction. So monetary policy will remain patient, persistent and prudent.”
All eyes are on New Zealand's fourth quarter GDP figures, to be released later this morning. ANZ economists expect GDP to have grown 0.7% quarter-on-quarter - the data predicted to paint a "reasonable picture" of the economy. With global forces strong, ANZ economists don't expect the figures to have a major impact on the currency markets.
In New York, the UST 10 yr yield has fallen 5bps to 2.81%.
The gold price is up to US$1,323/oz.
The US benchmark oil price is pretty much unchanged at just under US$61/bbl. The Brent benchmark is just under US$65/bbl.
The NZD hasn't moved much overnight. It remains strong at 73.3 USc, 93 AUc and 59.2 euro cents. The TWI-5 is down an notch to 74.1.
The price of bitcoin has fallen to a one-month low. It's down nearly US$900 to US$8,294.
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46 Comments
Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton believes the farmers deserve "special attention" and need help from a "civilised country" like Australia.
Good on Australia..
Will be interesting to see if NZ also explores allowing South african farmers in.
Not sure if we helped Zimbabwean farmers , by allowing them to settle here..??
Rubbish.
We should be trying to get as many displaced white South Africans as is possible to fill our imaginary/arbitrary net migration quota.
Just think, if unfettered immigration is the modus operandi, would you rather:
A - relatively poor, unproductive ethnic chefs and retail managers from the developing Asian countries with starkly different cultural backgrounds and little interest in cultural assimilation. or...
B - typically highly educated and hard working South Africans who aren't forced economic migrants.
I know what I would choose.
It seems Australia is pretty clued up about what type of migrant it wants, too.
Highly-educated Asians prefer Canada, UK and US where the majority of skill shortages are in the high value industries. We are left to scrape the bottom of the barrel because that is the skill requirement here in NZ. The most hotly contested jobs in our country are those paying minimum wage.
Why would they choose to come to NZ where most of the job growth is typically in the unskilled and semi-skilled market? Would our own accountants and engineers leave the country for greener pastures if this weren't the case? Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/93914307/construction-and-h…
We have an enormous skill shortage in high value industries.
However, we can't compete in terms of living standards to fill these positions.
My point, get the South Africans while they are still available.
We don't neccessarily have a pressing demand for unskilled labor in NZ a la the ethnic chef and retail manager rort.
What we have is an enormous supply of low skill economic migrants.
Would you rather have a community of people that burn animals?
https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/knives-out-for-khayelitsha-woman-w…
White Australia Policy is back
Wait a while and there will be a groundswell of resentment towards this move by Australia - it will be seen as a return to the days of the "White Australia Policy"
"seems Australia is pretty clued up about what type of migrant it wants"
Dreamtime
You are talking about "white" South African farmers - what are they going to do? Farming?
Australian governments have been pouring $ billions into welfare plus asssistance grants to farmers to shut-down and get off the land - cant see them funding overseas farmers to come in and repeat the cycle all over again
Really?
A link for that?
Like any country they subsidise the hell out of farming. But any incentive to leave would be based on some productivity gain. Not purely to get rid of farms.
Also. You underestimate the productivity of good farmers.
They carry an excellent work ethic and a huge array of transferable skills.
Plus, this isn't only white farmers that this is going to affect. This is a pretty strong signal to all white South Africans that things are going to be bad for you regardless of your land owning.
Case in point - Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
Try this - Its all there if you care to look - The Federal Government offered farmers $150,000 to walk off their drought-ravaged farms
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-10-23/farmers-reject-offer-to-walk-off-…
I'm dead against high levels of low paid low skilled immigrants especially those with language and cultural difficulties with assimilating our NZ pragmatic 'fair go' culture. However I really don't think you can say they work less hard than say South Africans. At least in North Shore our mainly Asian immigrants fill numerous low paid jobs and they work very hard. Nothing wrong with their work ethic. What is wrong is they both displace Kiwis from those jobs and keep wages really low for equivalent Kiwis.
Please read the whole article, and scroll down to images. Brings it home doesn't it Frazz!!
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/bury-them-alive-wh…
Yes the violence around the world on a daily basis - but I notice when it happens to white people all of a sudden theirs an urgency to help - let them in to NZ ..honest hard workers they are.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/sri-lanka-condemns-anti-muslim-v…
It has been politically incorrect for the international press to criticize the Rainbow Nation; the killing and forcing of white farmers off the land has been smouldering on for years.
The SA Govt is just legalizing it, Kristallnacht anyone?
While the South African Govt has been praising Mugabe to the skies for "land redistribution"
There you go Frazz.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4252150/Woman-killed-husband-le…
The Achilles heel of the electric car industry. "At the beginning of 2017, $32,500 (£26,300) would buy you one tonne of cobalt. Today you’d have to fork out $81,000. Since 2016, cobalt’s price has spiked enormously, and it’s all because of batteries.
...‘Nobody will mine more nickel just to get the cobalt out.’ Ditto for copper.
Second, the cobalt supply chain is dominated by two companies, and a single country: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Canada, Australia, the Philippines and Madagascar also mine cobalt, but the DRC dwarfs them all, heaving out two-thirds of the world’s cobalt in 2017."
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/battery-builders-get-the-cobalt-blu…
.‘Nobody will mine more nickel just to get the cobalt out.’ Ditto for copper.
Of course they will if the price gets high enough relative to the net costs of extracting it. Extraction technology will improve once demand pushes the prices high enough. And demand for copper will go up if lots of EV cars are being made, they use quite a bit of it.
"But the cost of the lithium ion battery will determine how quickly electric cars roll out, because it can be up to half the cost of a purely electric vehicle. Material prices were less important when lithium ion battery costs were $1,000 per kWh around 2010, but as prices near $100 per kWh (they are below $140 today) the basic material costs now make up 70% of the total cost of a lithium ion battery."
When South Africa's ruling ANC party last month announced plans to change the constitution to enable it to seize land from white farmers without compensating them, New Zealand, Australia,United States, United Kingdom, European Union and the rest of the World, should have condemned this reverse apartheid policy by the ANC.
If The ANC proceed with this action , all aid and financial assistance should be stopped, even Air links should be suspended, and if there is violence to White Farmers, South Africa should expelled from the UN.
This send a strong message to the ANC, that this Reverse Racist behavior is not acceptable.
New Zealand should also be offering refugee status to any White South African farmers who are being persecuted by the ANC policy.
There has been violence to white farmers for many years now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_farm_attacks
Often it's just just murders but torture too.
Panama Papers law firm Mossack Fonseca is closing - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-corruption/panama-papers-law-firm-mossack-fonseca-to-shut-down-after-tax-scandal-idUSKCN1GQ34R
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