Briefly in the news in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, March 26:
Reserve Bank Chief Economist Paul Conway yesterday pointed in a speech to the bipartisan failure in productivity and competition reforms over the last two decades that is translating into stagnating incomes and cost of living pain.
MBIE reported yesterday in-country diesel stocks had fallen to 18.1 days, but pointed to a further 28.3 days of diesel supply in tankers on their way.
Fuel-tracking website NZ-Fuel.netifly.app yesterday reported a further four new tanker departures from Singapore & South Korea with nine days of fuel on board.
Winston Peters yesterday forced Shane Jones to abandon a plan to allow commercial fishing boats — but not recreational fishers — to keep undersized fish after a backlash from fishing voters. There’s over a million of them.
Wellington’s $200/month water bill shock is reverberating around the country and emphasizing the problems with Local Water Done Well. It also highlights the extra cost of water infrastructure borrowing because it’s being forced off the Crown’s balance sheet.
The water charges also raise the issue of whether some of the recent inflation is caused by Government decisions, by both Labour and National Governments, to avoid funding water infrastructure directly via borrowing from Crown and council balance sheets.
That structural surge in consumer price inflation in the form of user charges would be problematic for the Reserve Bank, which is supposed to ignore capital cost changes, that it itself worsens by hiking the OCR. Paying subscribers can see more below the paywall fold & hear more in the podcast above.