Bob Edlin: Megan’s handouts for heaters - or not

The Point of Order Trough Monitor typically alerts us to government spending decisions.

The merits of each grant, investment, loan and what-have-you which the monitor identifies are a matter of opinion. Recipients are apt to be keen to express their gratitude. Taxpayers often have cause to complain the money is being misspent.

But the monitor can also spot a handout which doesn’t measure up to what was promised. Somebody somewhere has been short-changed.

Frank Newman: Meth myth

There is no risk to human health from third hand exposure to houses where methamphetamine has been consumed. That is the conclusion of a report released last week by the Government's chief scientific advisor, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman.

In speaking to the report he said, "There is absolutely no evidence in the medical literature of anyone being harmed from passive use, at any level. We can't find one case…Mould is more dangerous than meth."

Matt Ridley: Britain's housing crisis is caused by the wrong kind of regulation

Sajid Javid, the Housing (etc) secretary, is right – and brave -- to go on the warpath about Britain’s housing crisis in his new national planning framework, to be launched today. Britain’s housing costs are absurdly high by international standards: eight times average earnings in England, 15 in London. A mortgage deposit that took a few years to earn in the early 1990s can now take somebody decades to earn. Average rents in the UK are almost 50% higher than average rents in Germany, France and crowded Holland.

Britain really is an outlier in this respect. Knightsbridge has overtaken Monaco in rental levels. Wealthy, crowded Switzerland has falling house prices and lower rents than Britain. Over recent decades, most things people buy have become more affordable – food, clothing, communication – and the cost of building a house has come down too. Yet the price you pay for it in Britain, either as a buyer or a tenant, has gone up and up.

Frank Newman: The science fiction of pre-fab' homes

How unsurprising it is to have a new Minister of Housing who says he has the answer to our housing shortage. The solution, he claims, is factory built prefabricated housing.

Minister Phil Twyford told the gathering at the PrefabNZ's annual conference, "This is not some science fiction dream. We can do this, if we have a bit of backbone and pursue the right policies". He continued, "KiwiBuild using mass procurement gives us the opportunity to build at scale, with contract work at volume, and with the certainty of multi-year contracts, which will allow firms to invest in the technology, the production processes, and design, and business models, that will transform your industry."