VIDEO: John Key - Video Journal #10

3 Comments
08 June 2007
VIDEO: John Key - Video Journal #10

07 June. This edition of John's video journal was filmed in Hokitika during a two day visit to the West Coast of the South Island. John talks about the regional economy, which is underpinned by tourism, mining and agriculture. Among the big issues facing residents: housing affordability and health care.

Posted by admin in Video Trackback: (1)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

NEWSLETTER: KeyNotes No 12
The soaring Kiwi On June 7, just three weeks after the Budget, the Reserve Bank raised interest rates for the third time in a row. And for the third time in a row it said that growing government spending is fuelling inflation. Thanks to the Budget and Lab

Weblog: John Key
Tracked: Jun 15, 17:50

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

#1 - Andrew Mercer 2007-06-16 17:04 - (Reply)

Thanks for mentioning the issue of housing affordability. I'm not an economist, but it seems that government policy has been instrumental in creating this issue. High personal tax rates, and the government removal of just about all other investment incentives appears to have left housing as the most viable investment for any ordinary kiwi who can afford it. Every accountant I have seen over the last few years has recommended buying houses - after all, the interest and expenses were tax-deductable, and their was good capital gains. The problem is that everyone (who could) did it - driving house prices through the roof and, in turn, and making things much tougher for first-time buyers with limited means. Rather than blaming ordinary kiwis for their housing fetish, the Finance Minister should be taking some of the responsibility for having structured things so. If he'd made it worthwhile for those with means to invest in something more productive then we probably wouldn't have the crisis that we do now. In fact, he has done a huge disservice to his so-called Socialist principles - instead making it much harder for young kiwis of limited means to get a solid start in life. My guess is that we'll be hearing much more of the housing affordability crisis closer to the election, especially as interest rates also continue to climb.

#2 - kate sanford 2007-06-18 19:26 - (Reply)

As a response to the current suggestion that the goverment is considering controls on immigration to cool the housing market - I thought we were having problems getting skilled workers, and that previously it was skilled workers we wanted. Now we no longer need them? Is that it? Or what? Surely, if unskilled and relatively poor [in material worth terms] immigrants are concentrated upon, or none, then that is more likely to influence a downward drift to the lowest common denominator of skills & economic worth in our population.

#2.1 - Andrew 2007-06-19 09:55 - (Reply)

Kate, I think the problem is that we imported lots of people who have high academic qualifications, but no [..] english. NZ employers just don't want to be bothered with an employee who is a communication-strain, if it's for a highly responsible position where they need to fluently interact with others. The end result being we're left with an over-supply of, effectively, low-skill workers and not enough infrastructive (yet developed) to take care of them. Personally, I think we should temporarily hold back on immigration to help our housing supply to catch up (quickly!), except for employable english-competent migrants who have skills that we're seriously short of.

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry
Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.