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…

Federated Farmers is working with the Taxpayers’ Union with a roadshow opposing the government’s replacement to the RMA:

“We all want to see reform of the RMA, but it needs to be done right to address the issues of cost and complexity that farmers face every time they want to do something productive with their land,” says Federated Farmers RMA Reform spokesperson Mark Hooper.

“The current legislation just ties farmers up in red tape, slows us down, and heaps on unnecessary costs – but the Government’s proposed reforms will only make that worse. It’s an absolute nightmare for farmers.

Federated Farmers strongly opposes the current reforms because they will shift land use planning away from democratically elected councils towards ‘Regional Planning Committees’, which will be at arm’s length from their local community,” Hooper said.

“We also have real concerns that the reforms will introduce new, vague and undefined concepts…

James E. Hanley provides a roundup of failed Green expensive ventures in his Real Clear Policy article Green Projects Hit Iron Wall.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Developers looking to build thousands of wind turbines off the Mid-Atlantic and New England coast are coming up against a force even more relentless than the Atlantic winds: the Iron Law of Megaprojects, offering a warning of the trouble ahead for green-energy projects.

The Iron Law, coined by Oxford Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, says that “megaprojects” — which cost billions of dollars, take years to complete, and are socially transformative — reliably come in over budget, over time, over and over.

From Boston’s Big Dig to California’s high-speed rail to
New York’s 12 years-overdue and 300% over-budget East Side Access rail project,
big boondoggles routinely demonstrate the validity of the rule.

Offshore wind projects are not immune to the…

I pinched this guest opinion piece from over at the BFD where it appeared yesterday.

The Author Corina Shields appears to be a mid to late twenties lady with two children. There is a photo which I have not brought across to this post that indicates she is in a stable relationship.

Lets have a look and see what she said.

It would be foolish of me to write this without acknowledging the fact that this subject is one that has the potential to upset some Maori and, hopefully, the government and their friends. But nonetheless, it is one I feel strongly about, so if it means dealing with people’s ill-perceived notions of who I am as a person so be it. All I ask is that people at least read what I have to say before forming a judgement about me.

To get to the point, I need to…