Utopia, you are standing in it!

National has introduced a terrible housing policy that can only be a reaction of the struggling Chris Luxon to pressure from Nimbies. It means that an Auckland housing unit will have a land cost over $500k more per unit than the MDRS rules. See below for an example

Peter Cresswell has an on point critique here. A Green Party MP shepherded the rules through select committee.

SO WITH HOUSING ONCE again a political football, we await an election to sort out which fuckwits where get to tell us where and how we’re allowed to build, planning rules in and around our city are once again completely up in the air — as they were while we awaited certainty around the MRDS. And without that certainty, it’s impossible for developers and builders to make real plans, uncertain as they are as to how council’s planners might be allowed to curtail…

The Treasury released its budget economic forecasts. What do they say about the economy over the next four months?

• Brian Easton writes –  

Let me begin me with an irritation. One post-budget headline was ‘Treasury optimistic over recession risk in Budget 2023‘. Treasury being optimistic is almost an oxymoron. They fire down the centre.

It is true that Treasury has lifted its forecast of economic activity (GDP) a little since its December 2022 exercise, reflecting stronger migration and tourism and the rebuild from the cyclones. Even so, it expects GDP per capita to fall fractionally between the June 2023 and June 2024 years. The next year is going to be tough, with some quickening of economic activity in the middle of 2024.

Moreover, while Treasury does not forecast the fans showing the degree of uncertainty in the forecasts, it provides guidance about its assessment of upside and downside…

Credit: Scottish Power
Plenty of talk but not very much action, it seems. The author notes that ‘the small size of hydrogen molecules poses safety and greenhouse gas-related risks that must be mitigated’, while most current gas grids can’t cope with more than 20% hydrogen content anyway. Affordability looks at least questionable. Such issues will require years of effort and expense to even attempt to get to grips with.
– – –
The global discourse on addressing climate change, energy transition, and investments is currently dominated by the topic of green hydrogen, says Dr. Cyril Widdershoven @ OilPrice.com.

The media frenzy surrounding the expanding array of projects, subsidy schemes, and international strategies is fueled by the influence of Washington’s IRA plans and the EU’s energy strategic projects.

It appears as if the choice for a post-hydrocarbon world has already been made, with green hydrogen or its derivative, green ammonia…

Labour party’s Congress is underway in Wellington. The country’s worst ever minister for ‘Social Development’ (a ministry which does not involve developing society at all) has unveiled their first policy to campaign on:

Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni said a re-elected Labour government, led by Hipkins, would not raise the pension age from 65.

“New Zealand has one of the simplest superannuation schemes in the world. It is universal and generous,” Sepuloni said.

Labour would also continue making contributions to the NZ Super Fund and dishing out the winter energy payment.

That’s right. Despite soaring debt, an aging population and one of the most generous superannuation schemes in the world, Labour are committed to keeping it exactly as is.

Treasury had warned the cost of the ageing population was on an “unsustainable” track but Sepuloni stressed not changing the age was affordable “as long as we keep paying into…