Mike's Minute: Fast-track needs to get back to infrastructure, not housing

The prediction we made some weeks back over fast-track housing is starting to come true.

Fast-track in and of itself is working. The Tauranga Port has the green light after literally years of regulatory BS that had it tied up in court, going nowhere.

If you put RMA v fast-track, then fast-track wins hands down and our country will be better for it.

Mike's Minute: The housing developments and fast-track conundrum

We can end the week by adding another example of angst and anger to the fast-track pile.

We have talked about Delmore and their 1200 houses north of Auckland, as well as Pegasus and their 1000 homes north of Christchurch.

The fast-track application was lodged this week, and now we have Ridgeburn in Arrowtown; 1200 more houses and this week, a hall full of ropeable locals.

Vance Ginn: The Poverty of the UN’s Degrowth Agenda

The latest attack on economic growth comes wrapped in moral language. Its advocates promise less poverty, greater equality, and a safer climate. Their policies would deliver less production, less investment, and fewer opportunities. That is managed decline, not prosperity.

The UN-backed Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth proposes 80 policies meant to reduce society’s dependence on growth. A separate Global Justice Report, led by Thomas Piketty and researchers at the World Inequality Lab, puts numbers behind this vision.

Steven Gaskell: Colonialism Apparently Invented Mortgages

According to the latest fashionable academic theory coming out of the University of Auckland, Māori housing struggles today can largely be traced back to colonialism introducing private property, debt and home ownership systems that supposedly “reshaped Māori life”. In other words, the modern housing market is now apparently responsible not only for interest rates and rent increases, but also for rewriting centuries of history into a permanent grievance narrative where every social problem somehow traces back to Captain Cook personally inventing mortgages.

Matua Kahurangi: A brand new home for unemployed immigrants while Kiwis rot on the waiting list

Over the weekend, AppleBear on X shared an RNZ story meant to showcase compassion in action. Instead, it ended up highlighting exactly why so many New Zealanders see the system as completely broken.

The article tells the story of the Tuiletufuga family, who “moved here from Samoa a year ago”, struggled to find housing, and for a period “lived in a van” before entering transitional accommodation. Now, after working with the Salvation Army, they have moved into a “new four-bedroom home” in Flat Bush, settling in just three weeks ago.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Chris Bishop's housing u-turn is basic common sense

Well, finally Chris Bishop has done the right thing and made the u-turn on the two million new houses he had planned for Auckland.

It’s not altogether a surprise that he did this and announced it this afternoon, because it’s been rumoured for months - for the obvious reason that it’s election year.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: From blueprints to building

After many difficult years, 2025 felt different. It was not easier. The economy remained stagnant and the reform agenda demanded hard choices. But attitudes shifted. New Zealand stopped merely diagnosing its problems and started taking practical steps to solve them.

Dr Don Brash: At the end of year two, how are they doing?

With less than a year to go to the next general election, polls suggest that the current Government could well lose to a Labour-led coalition, despite the mess which the last Labour Government left just two years ago. Is that negativity warranted?

There are all kinds of criteria one might use to assess the Government but in recent years I have consistently used just five.

Bob Edlin: Govt favours farming over forestry....

Govt favours farming over forestry – but is it giving a greater priority to growing cities than growing crops?

Just a few days ago, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay was braying about the introduction “of long awaited legislation that will put a stop to large-scale farm-to-forestry conversions”.

This would deliver on a key election promise to protect the future of New Zealand food production.

Tony Vaughn: Racial Romanticism Is Not Policy - The Cost of Coddling a Myth

David Seymour committed the cardinal sin of contemporary politics - he told the truth! Race-based funding is racist. A statement so obviously true that it ought to be stitched onto the curtains of the Beehive and should be self-evident to anyone with an IQ above room temperature. Yet, predictably, Tama Potaka emerged, starch-shirted and squinting in moral indignation, to denounce Seymour's comments as “unhelpful.” No, Mr Potaka. What is truly unhelpful is the systematic diversion of public funds into a racial fantasy built on grievance economics and revisionist nostalgia.

Mike's Minute: We are housing snobs

A housing development for you.

A housing development that once again shows how reality beats theory.

Housing is a New Zealand obsession. We love housing and we long to own housing.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 28/1/25

Simeon Brown steps out as Minister of Health

Your PoO monitors of ministerial doings have noted that, since we last reported, Simeon Brown has stepped out to deliver his first media statement as Minister of Health.

The PM and his refreshed Cabinet team have been …

Michael Reddell: Where were the central agencies?

Back in early October I wrote a post “Public policy just keeps on worsening”, on the then newly-announced Residential Development Underwrite scheme, under which the government will provide free downside price/liquidity insurance to big residential property developers, for a period that was said not to be forever but with no specific time limit, and instead with confident assurances from the minister (Bishop) that the government (Cabinet) would judge when to turn this subsidy off and on. It seemed like a classic example of bad policy, playing favourites at the big end of town, offering subsidies with no rigorous analysis of any sort of market failure, handing unconstrained discretion to ministers, and so on.

John Porter: Why rob a bank when you can plunder the Treasury!

On October 8th, Associate Minister of Housing and Hamilton West MP Tama Potaka announced a multi-million dollar housing project with Waikato-Tainui. Potaka proudly advised the Government would invest $35 million in the project. 

“The Hopuhopu Housing Development will help deliver better social and community outcomes for whānau who will live, work, and build cultural identity there,” Potaka said. 

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 8/10/24

Reti is among ministers who are spending our money (but his injection for Palmerston North hospital is well below $3bn)

The Government has been in bad odour, down south, after Health Minister Shane Reti and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop announced advice is being sought on two options “for delivering the New Dunedin Hospital project within its existing funding appropriation to ensure the people of Dunedin get the modern, fit-for-purpose medical facilities they need”.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 12/8/24

You may have heard of “congestion charging” but buckle up and brace for “time of use” schemes

The Government has announced it will soon introduce legislation allowing councils to charge drivers for using roads at certain times or locations, depending on how busy the road is.

That’s the way the news was reported by OneNews under the headline…

Brian Easton: Flooding Housing Policy

The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.

Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the announced strategy is going to quickly resolve New Zealand’s housing problems.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 4/7/24

And when food-producing land makes way for housing, don’t fret – there’s plenty of kina to be harvested

More regulations are being shredded or rewritten as the government steps up development and eases back on environmental concerns.

Paving the way for more houses is likely to be the big headline-grabber among the latest announcements.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 18/6/24

Good news for grannies and kiddies – but see what Woods didn’t mention when enthusing about $5.4m aero space boost

Today’s news from our ministerial masterminds is not likely to be the stuff of great controversy

The Department of Internal Affairs is upgrading the Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System, which blocks access to websites known to host child sexual abuse material.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 11/6/24

How the govt is balancing NZ’s delicate foreign relationships – by posting news of a Japan visit but not a China visit

News of the PM’s plans to visit Japan are recorded on the government’s official website today. News of the Chinese Premier’s plans to visit New Zealand this week are not.

Point of Order shall leave it to foreign affairs pundits to explain why this has happened.