By Leith van Onselen Auckland and Sydney have much in common. Both are the largest cities in their respective nations. Both are harbour cities. Both have ridiculously expensive housing, with median dwelling values that hover near the $1 million mark. And both are the international gateways to New Zealand and Australia, and thereby attract the
By Leith van Onselen At a press conference yesterday, RBNZ Governor, Adrian Orr, publicly lashed the New Zealand Bankers’ Association (NZBA) for claiming that taxpayers should bail the sector out in the event of a crisis, and has used these comments as justification for the RBNZ’s capital reforms. From Interest.co.nz: Orr was answering a question about
By Leith van Onselen New Zealand’s Labour-led coalition government will tomorrow release the world’s first ‘wellbeing budget’, which will measure its success against how it does socially, culturally and environmentally, rather than relying on GDP – a rather useless measure that most economists and policy makers focus on. From SBS News: “Nobody wants to live
By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has released its latest Financial Stability Report (FSR), which explained why banks need to hold more capital: Domestically, debt levels are high in the household and dairy sectors, leaving borrowers and lenders exposed to unanticipated events. Similar challenges exist globally, given current high public
Via the AFR today: New Zealand pub owner Chris Dickson worries his staff is overworked. He expected employment visas for two new overseas workers to be approved weeks ago, but the paperwork was delayed with no clear reason given. …”We are struggling to find people,” Dickson said. “It’s an epidemic.” …A plunge in net immigration
By Leith van Onselen After Labor’s shock federal election defeat, it’s fair to say that negative gearing reform is all but dead and buried in Australia. The same can’t be said for New Zealand, where the policy is nearing implementation. At the end of 2018, the Treasury and Inland Revenue released a Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS)
By Leith van Onselen The REINZ has released its house price data for April, which revealed a 1.9% seasonally adjusted rise in the national median house price, with prices up just 6.3% year-on-year: Outside of Auckland, seasonally adjusted house prices rose by 1.4% in April, with prices up 7.5% year-on-year. Looking at the major cities,
By Leith van Onselen In the September 2017 general election, the New Zealand Labour Party launched a plan to reduce immigration by around a third in a bid to relieve chronic housing and infrastructure pressures (especially around Auckland): …in recent years our population has been growing rapidly as record numbers of migrants arrive here. This
By Leith van Onselen In the wake of recreational cannabis becoming legal in Canada last year, as well as nine states across the United States legalising cannabis, New Zealand will hold a referendum on legalisation during the next general election in 2020. From SBS News: The referendum will a simple Yes/No question on the basis
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has released new data on non-resident purchases of New Zealand homes, which reveals that demand has collapsed: Home transfers to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa fell over 80 percent in the March 2019 quarter compared with the same quarter a year ago, Stats
By Leith van Onselen New Zealand will remain one of the few developed nations in the world not to have a capital gains tax (CGT), after the Labour-led Government yesterday ruled-out implementing such a measure. From Interest.co.nz: The Government will not introduce a Capital Gains Tax having failed to reach a consensus, with coalition partner
By Leith van Onselen In the September 2017 general election, the New Zealand Labour Party launched a plan to reduce immigration by around a third in a bid to relieve chronic housing and infrastructure pressures (especially around Auckland): …in recent years our population has been growing rapidly as record numbers of migrants arrive here. This
New Zealand may not have had a royal commission but it knows what it is doing when it comes to reckless Aussie banks. Via the excellent Jonathon Mott at UBS: Reserve Bank of New Zealand capital requirements larger than prior estimates Recent speeches and publications by the RBNZ suggest it remains fully committed to its Bank
By Leith van Onselen In the lead-up to, and directly following, the September 2017 New Zealand general election, I heavily praised Labour’s housing spokesman, Phil Twyford, for promising to address both supply and demand distortions via negative gearing reform, banning foreign buyers of existing homes, tighter capital gains taxes, removal of urban growth boundaries, plus
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has released national accounts figures for the December quarter of 2018, with Gross domestic product (GDP) rising by 0.6% over the quarter to be up 2.3% year-on-year. GDP per capita rose by 0.1% over the December quarter and rose by 0.9% year-on-year – the ” lowest annual GDP
By Leith van Onselen After Statistics New Zealand in January changed the way that it measures net overseas migration (NOM), resulting in large falls in the estimated migrant intake, it has released migration estimates for January 2019, which reveals that NOM is rebounding: According to Statistics NZ: Migrant arrivals were provisionally estimated at 151,600 (±
By Leith van Onselen The REINZ has released its house price data for February, which revealed a 0.8% seasonally adjusted rise in the national median house price, with prices up just 5.5% year-on-year: Outside of Auckland, seasonally adjusted house prices rose by 1.3% in February, with prices up 8.8% year-on-year. Looking at the major cities,
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has released dwelling consent data for the year ended January 2019, which reveals that consents have hit a 44-year high: A total of 33,576 new homes were consented in the year ended January 2019, the highest number of new homes consented in a year since early 1975, Stats
By Leith van Onselen I’ve noted previously how the New Zealand Labour Party’s promise to “build 100,000 affordable homes across the country” is shaping up as an epic failure due to: the government changing the program from “building” to “facilitating” the delivery of 100,000 affordable dwellings, meaning that NZ taxpayers would merely ‘underwrite’ many dwellings that would have been
By Leith van Onselen New Zealand’s Tax Working Group (TWG) – an 11-member group chaired by former Labour Finance Minister Michael Cullen – has delivered its final report, which recommends creating a local government tax on vacant residential land in a bid to stop land banking. From Interest.co.nz: The Tax Working Group (TWG) is recommending a new tax on vacant
By Leith van Onselen The REINZ has released its house price data for January, which revealed a 2.9% seasonally adjusted rise in the national median house price, with prices up just 5.2% year-on-year: Outside of Auckland, seasonally adjusted house prices rose by 2.3% in December, with prices up 9.7% year-on-year. Looking at the major cities,
By Leith van Onselen After Statistics New Zealand last month changed the way that it measures net overseas migration (NOM), resulting in large falls in the estimated migrant intake, it has released migration estimates for the 2018 calendar year, which reveals that NOM fell further to 48,278 people, down from a peak of 62,227 in
By Leith van Onselen The property downturn appears to be spreading into New Zealand, with the latest valuation data from Quotable Value revealing that average residential property values in Auckland were almost 1% lower year-on-year in January, whereas the rate of price growth has also declined sharply across the rest of New Zealand: The latest RBNZ Survey
NZ Stats surprised with rising unemployment this morning versus expected flat: Unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent Underutilisation rate rose to 12.1 percent Employment rate fell to 67.8 percent Filled jobs rose 1.3 percent Average ordinary time hourly earnings rose to $31.63 Wage rates increased 1.9 percent annually. The NZD took a pounding dragging the
By Leith van Onselen I’ve noted previously how the New Zealand Labour Party’s promise to “build 100,000 affordable homes across the country” is shaping up as an epic failure due to: the government changing the program from “building” to “facilitating” the delivery of 100,000 affordable dwellings, meaning that NZ taxpayers would merely ‘underwrite’ many dwellings that would have been
By Leith van Onselen “Look mum, I’ve got a new ruler”. Statistics New Zealand has revised the way that it measures net overseas migration (NOM). Instead of using departure cards that people filled out when leaving the country, Statistics New Zealand now uses an “outcomes-based measure”, which it claims is more efficient and accurate. This
By Leith van Onselen The REINZ has released its house price data for December, which revealed a 2.9% seasonally adjusted fall in the national median house price, with prices up just 1.7% year-on-year: Outside of Auckland, seasonally adjusted house prices fell by 1.1% in December, with prices up 6.5% year-on-year. Looking at the major cities,
By Leith van Onselen Late last year, Interest.co.nz published an alarming report showing how the Auckland region’s undersupply of homes has blown-out by nearly 400% in just four years – from 6944 in 2014 to 34,150 in 2018 – on the back of an insane 134,000 increase in population from net overseas migration: On Friday,
By Leith van Onselen Over the past few years, MB has meticulously catalogued the widespread rorting of Australia’s immigration system that pervades across the entire economy. Well, it appears New Zealand is experiencing the very same systemic rorting, according to a recent detailed report published in Stuff.co.nz: After months of investigating visa frauds at the
By Leith van Onselen Auckland Council’s chief economist, David Norman, has down-played concerns that Auckland’s housing market could follow Sydney’s and Melbourne’s down. From Interest.co.nz: “Suggestions that the Auckland housing market will follow those of the Australian eastern seaboard seem baseless,” he said. “Sydney and Melbourne are in a very different position, having not systematically under-built the
