If National wins ...

[Daytr]

MVT I thought you were a 'professional economist' as you put it. Despite lower dairy? What lower dairy? I'll give you a hint its a trick question that anyone should know in regards the impact of lower dairy prices on the NZ economy.
Australia is one of our biggest tourism markets it will be interesting with parity if that remains so.
Also NZers will favor spending their strong NZDs overseas rather than on domestic tourism.

BP, I don't think comparing Auckland to London or Singapore are reasonable examples, Sydney perhaps is better & they have the same issues there as Auckland. These are alternative ideas on reigning in Auckland property prices & it would have some effect, economics always will. However even if it doesn't have quite the desired impact at least government revenue would be generated to fund the required infrastructure & funded by those who are adding to the pressure on the existing infrastructure.

[westerly]

Yes - I agree in principle. You could use immigration to further the economy ... and still be fair to the immigrants, but this would require long term planning and more wisdom than all our politicians combined can muster.

The way it actually is used is:

When times are bad than we look for people to bring money and skills into the country - we are happy to import brains and funds (Kim Dotcom would be an example for the latter)

Ah yes - and than times improve and we find out that these additional people we first invited need a place to live, a school for their children to go to, maybe from time to time access to health services and maybe even some space on the road to drive. This is obviously not acceptable as long as there are still native long term beneficiaries around who don't live (for whatever reason) in a nice house. And that is when we take the Winston Peters of this world off the chain, allow them to hold xenophobic speeches and support xenophobic policies.

I don't know - is it just me who feels that this opens some of the ugliest aspects onto our society (and I don't talk about the foreigners) and into the minds of some of our politicians?

But times are not bad and we allow the wealthy to buy there way in.
As a xenophobe and racist I have no real objection to families who will be of benefit to the country immigrating to NZ. I do object to the wealthy buying bolt holes in NZ they can escape to for rest and relaxation. Winston talks sense from the viewpoint of the average person. When multiple high country stations are bought by individuals from overseas, when multiple farms are bought by corporations from overseas, locals are priced out.
A few years back when the exodus to Australia was in progress which must have freed up large numbers of houses,prices were rising way ahead of inflation. (incidentally your graph on the housing 1ndex conveniently stopped in 2009. It is now 2015) But prices continued to rise.
Immigration is the main contributor to house price increases. Locals are being priced out
As for people living in multi story appartments. For real with children?
Something must be wrong when a professioal economist like the Major is happy for our economy to rely on population growth and a major earhquake to succeed

westerly

[elZorro]

Now John Key is saying that a budget surplus target is "artificial", and that the public won't worry about it being $200mill or so either way. So suddenly this metric that was so important to them last year, is not important at all in 2015.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11432084

Well either it is important, or it's not, which one do we believe? Andrew Little with a cold and muffled sound was on TV1 about it this morning, saying they'd had seven years to get it right. He also mentioned Labour's plank of getting businesses up and running for new and better paid jobs, so I liked that.

I think it's time that National had a good look at their tax income, and start plugging the gaps from the top income brackets. They pruned the tax take up there by too much, now they have trouble getting enough in from middle and lower NZ. That would be a quick fix for their issue, should they want to resolve it. Of course they could have helped grow the economy in the meantime, but that seems to be beyond them.

[iceman]

Westerly it is very common for people in other countries to live in apartments in multi story buildings, with or without children. My son lives in Scandinavia with his wife and 2 young sons in an apartment block with 20 apartments in it. Most in that city live in much larger buildings. They live a good and happy life there. Kiwi attitudes in this regard need to change but there is far too much NIMBY attitude here so I don't hold out much hope for the near future. But it will happen. Noone, whether politicians or developers are or will doing anything serious about this until attitudes change !

Immigration is the main contributor to house price increases. Locals are being priced out
As for people living in multi story appartments. For real with children?
Something must be wrong when a professioal economist like the Major is happy for our economy to rely on population growth and a major earhquake to succeed

westerly

[Daytr]

Iceman, agree it is more common overseas, but that's because they control their urban sprawl, something we are not doing in NZ. Look at Sydney or Melbourne, same issue, but at least they have plenty of room to spread even if its not a good thing. I see the North Island a bit like England in geography. Have you ever driven from London north at night? All you see is lights as one town after another merges into another. Auckland, Hamilton & Tauranga in particular need planning to prevent spread & the constant division of productive land. Where/when does it stop otherwise ? Concentration of apartments & entertainment etch makes for a vibrant hub. Melbourne & Wellington have done this well. Being able to walk from bars & restaurants to sporting facilities & entertainment centers with public transport radiating out from the hub makes a lot of sense both socially but economically.

[iceman]

I agree with you on that daytr. That is the issue. But it is a failure of Local Government rather than Central Government as seems to be suggested on this thread. The exception being Central Government's responsibility to urgently reduce silly restrictions on developments such as is done with the RMA !

Iceman, agree it is more common overseas, but that's because they control their urban sprawl, something we are not doing in NZ. Look at Sydney or Melbourne, same issue, but at least they have plenty of room to spread even if its not a good thing. I see the North Island a bit like England in geography. Have you ever driven from London north at night? All you see is lights as one town after another merges into another. Auckland, Hamilton & Tauranga in particular need planning to prevent spread & the constant division of productive land. Where/when does it stop otherwise ? Concentration of apartments & entertainment etch makes for a vibrant hub. Melbourne & Wellington have done this well. Being able to walk from bars & restaurants to sporting facilities & entertainment centers with public transport radiating out from the hub makes a lot of sense both socially but economically.

[artemis]

Major I watched one news tonight. I see Michael Woodhouse intends to abolish zero hour contracts, what is your opinion??

IMO the good workers will continue to get as much work as they want and the less desirable workers will be replaced by new hires and get no work.

[Daytr]

Well lets put those less desirable workers on the dole then as that's where they will be heading. Remember this is hardly desirable work & its easy for us in ivory towers to judge others doing either laborious or hard work on minimum wage. I find if you offer a carrot rather than a stick you will get a better result overall. Zero hour contracts show just how out of touch National in & its likely to result in another policy back flip.

Iceman, its both not just central government or local government, is both & there is no way of getting around that. However its the role of Central government to lead & set the overall agenda & structure nationally for local or super councils to follow.

[Sgt Pepper]

IMO the good workers will continue to get as much work as they want and the less desirable workers will be replaced by new hires and get no work.

Artemis
Just curious. Have you ever worked in an entry level/low paid job. I am not talking about a school holiday/University break job but one in which you worked to pay your rent/ mortgage and take care of family etc. If so when was this? Were you covered by a Union agreement?

[Daytr]

MVT, if the economy is in such great shape, why does National continue to borrow & not generate a surplus. We have had good times for the last 4 years or so, mainly on the back of China. However National have chosen to expand debt at an alarming rate. We are now about to take a tax hit on the back of the dairy price that will start feeding through. The high NZD is also going to hurt other export related industries & employers. If we don't pay down debt in the good times or even keep it level, how do we expect to manage in the bad times?