The Daily Blog Open Mic – Saturday 2nd September 2017

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Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

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14 COMMENTS

  1. SENT TO ALL MSM LAST NIGHT.

    Press release of current National Party Transport Policy for HB/Gisborne regions.
    1st September 2017.

    Last night we watched the first leaders debate on TV One between Jacinda Ardern & Bill English our current PM.

    The debate never actually tackled the thorny issues of transport issues we all face deficits from in our East Coast regions.

    That has provoked the need for our press release to clarify our Community concerns at those current deficiencies we all face in our regions of HB/Gisborne since the National Party have assumed the mantle of governance over our regions and lives.

    When the National Party took over in November 2008 the former Labour lead Government had just bought back the rail system from Toll Rail, an Australian Company and had set aside a track Maintenance Company called Ontrack who were given a $200 Million reserve account to rely on to keep the rail line in service, for the new Kiwirail operator to run their services.

    National’s new Minister of Transport Steven Joyce somehow reorganised the Kiwirail Company and folded the On Track rail line Maintenance Company up and the $200 million somehow disappeared.

    Since 2009 we have witnessed two events of large rail washouts on the rail line between Gisborne and Central HB, first the washout around Otane in Central HB and later the larger washout at Beach Loop near Mahia Northern HB/Gisborne.

    That $200 million was setup for the track maintenance to deal with these washouts, as we have seen many other washouts around NZ rail have been repaired since.

    So we must now ask the National Government: “where is our share of that $200 million to repair the Beach Loop washouts so our rail to Gisborne is finally repaired after being left closed since March 2012?”

    Will this be left for the new Government to find that lost $200 Million that was robbed from our Public Rail Company account?

    We met with the Napier National Party candidate David Elliott six weeks ago about the disastrous “truck Gridlocked roads” causing immense noise, vibrations and air pollution in our local regions especially around the Napier residential areas near the HB Expressway, as we are now confirming that our continuous cameras count over 2400 trucks every day travel on the expressway to the Port of Napier & other areas each day since the rail was cut from the slips.

    We asked for the Minister of Transport Simon Bridges to visit Napier and meet our Community Committee and inspect the issues we face now.

    After three attempts to ask for Simon Bridges to attend a meeting here with his own National Party candidate David Elliott he has declined.

    I expect Mr Bridges knows what a mess he & his Government’s transport policy has now left for us to live with.

    So today when we watched PM Bill English in his first Leaders debate talking about his Government actively going around the country meeting all those business folks, Seafood workers, and truck drivers, to see what issues they had we felt somewhat bemused as every letter request we sent for a meeting was declined.

    How could our Committee try any harder to work directly with the National Party to meet with our Community Committee in Napier as a copy was sent also to PM Bill English just as we had previously sent a massive 105 emails to PM John Key over five years from 2010 to 2015 to come to Napier about the same issues of transport and Mr Key also never answered one of those 105 emails or wanted to meet us.

    So it appears that even our community group has a long history of 16 years working with Government in the past, the National Government do not want to come and discuss transport issues with our community representatives in HB/Gisborne so we need to change this government to get a fair hearing and support for our regions.

    They can’t criticise us for not trying to work with them can they?

    We needed to set the record straight for voters to decide from here.

  2. I think finally CG it has become apparent to NZer’s that National are in fact useless and have none NOTHING of ANY benefit to NZ in the past nine years – only of benefit to themselves. Personally I believe most of them should be behind bars for treason to this country – but thats just my thinking.
    Trains make sense to link and revitalize regions…its a no brainer.

  3. Auckland property market about to implode. BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!!!!

    https://www.interest.co.nz/property/89399/greg-ninness-says-outlook-remains-soft-auckland-housing-market-regardless-who-wins

    Greg Ninness says the outlook remains soft for the Auckland housing market, regardless of who wins the election
    Posted in Property

    August 19, 2017 – 06:02am, Greg Ninness

    By Greg Ninness

    The Auckland housing market is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum.
    Surging migration-fuelled population growth is driving up demand, while construction of new homes remains well below what is required to meet that demand.
    So growth in demand for housing continues to outpace growth in supply, creating a housing shortage that gets bigger by the day.
    By the normal rules of supply and demand that means prices should still be going up, especially as mortgage interest rates remain stubbornly low and may continue to be so for some time.
    But instead the market is heading in the opposite direction, with a dramatic fall in the number of homes being sold and prices falling so much that by some measures they are now below where they were 12 months ago.
    How can this be?
    There are two main factors at work; lack of buying activity from local investors and the drying up of Chinese money.
    Housing prices have risen more quickly than rents in Auckland, which has made rental properties relatively less attractive for investors and many of them, particularly professional investors, have fled the Auckland market for other regions where returns are more attractive.
    That process has been hastened by Loan-to-Valuation Ratio (LVR) restrictions the Reserve Bank imposed on new mortgage lending by banks.
    That took a big chunk of buyers out of the Auckland market, which had a major impact.
    But a more significant impact, both in terms of the strong growth in Auckland house prices over the last few years and the more recent decline, was the river of money flowing out of China.
    There were two drivers of this, people living in China who wanted to invest their money overseas, and people who had moved to New Zealand from China but whose main source of income and/or capital remained in China. Auckland residential property has been an attractive option for both groups.
    If the investor was back in China the purchase would often be made through a local associate, which is why so few overseas buyers of residential property have shown up in the official statistics.
    But whether the buyer was resident in this country or not, the important thing is that the money was coming from China.
    That was an international phenomenon affecting housing markets around the world and this country was no exception.
    It would be hard to overestimate the impact it had on Auckland’s housing market.
    Related Topics
    PropertyAuckland house pricesAuckland housing marketHousing AffordabilityAuckland housing shortageChina
    Last year at the big Auckland auctions where several dozen homes could be auctioned on the same day, it was not uncommon for 80% or more of the homes sold to be purchased with Chinese money.
    But that all started coming to an end late last year when the Chinese government clamped down hard on the amount of money people could send out of the country, and the Australian-owned banks here raised the threshold for providing mortgages to people whose main source of income is from overseas.
    Within a very short space of time the river of money that had been flowing out of China into the Auckland housing market had turned to a trickle, and so far it shows no sign of picking back up.
    With investors and Chinese money both out of the Auckland market at the same time, demand slumped.
    Under normal circumstances that would have created an opportunity for first home buyers to fill the void.
    But by the time that happened, the speculative frenzy of the previous few years had pushed Auckland prices beyond the reach of most first home buyers, including many of the migrants settling in the region.
    Those buyers that were left in the market and able to afford to buy were either the wealthier migrants or people who already owned a home and were looking to make a change, often baby boomers looking to make a lifestyle change.
    And with fewer buyers around, it wasn’t long before new listings started to exceed sales by a significant amount.
    If it was wasn’t for the fact that demand for housing in Auckland exceeds supply by such a large margin there would very likely have been a significant housing market crash.
    Instead we’ve had a market where prices are slowly deflating to the point where new entrants to the market can afford them.
    So could removing LVR restrictions on mortgage lending or a drop in interest rates revive Auckland’s housing market?
    Perhaps a little but probably not a lot.
    They wouldn’t have any effect on the supply of Chinese money or alter the fact that the rental yields on Auckland properties are still lousy.
    And first home buyers aren’t getting much help from rising incomes while real wage growth remains low.
    So affordability remains the issue that’s weighing on the market and depressing prices.
    And regardless of which party wins next month’s election, none of those things look like changing anytime soon.
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    • I suppose we can expect the next financial bail out then? Is this not the market regulation, that the Nats and ACT always believed in, why do Joyce and English try to trick Jacinda and Labour and others into believing, they have the answers, and under NO circumstances must property values crash. Oh my god, shit hitting the fan now.

  4. From water royalties, reopening the Napier-Gisborne line, to revitalising Hawke’s Bay economy – New Zealand First leader Winston Peters covered the big issues on a quick stop in Hawke’s Bay yesterday.
    Over 150 people gathered at Hastings Baptist Church to hear the Northland MP share his vision on the country’s future

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11915610

    These are all common sense policies here from NZF for our HB/Gisborne ‘forgotten’ provinces.

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