Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

The Government's opted against a significant energy shake-up -- rejecting calls to re-nationalise or split up the big gentailers.   Instead, it'll offer the Crown-controlled companies more capital to invest in generation projects.  It will also establish a Liquified Natural Gas import facility, give the Electricity Authority greater power, and speed up consenting renewable energy projects.  Meridian is supportive of the announcement, calling it bold.  CEO Mike Roan told Kerre Woodham the affordability of electricity is a challenge that’s mitigated by the investments made into new generation.  He says the Government is trying to bolster those investments to bring stability and certainty back to the market.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At last, a triumph of common sense over well-meaning legislation designed to protect every life, everywhere, no matter how much the cost. The “every sperm is sacred” approach to lawmaking has been in place for about eight years, where every life matters, no matter the cost to business, to taxpayers, to everybody else.   The Government announced yesterday that earthquake strengthening legislation will only capture buildings deemed to pose a genuine risk to human life in medium and high seismic zones. The Building and Construction Minister, Chris Penk, said the current new building standard used by engineers was too broad, too inconsistent, and will be scrapped. The rules were brought in under 2017 changes following the Canterbury earthquakes and the subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry.   Penk said the current system is well-intentioned, but had led to an overwhelming financial burden on building owners. He said the price of strengthening buildings often ran from hundreds of thousands of dollars to well into the millions. He said, as a result, these buildings are often left empty and become derelict, making them even more dangerous to bystanders in an earthquake.   Buildings need to be lived in. You have to have people in homes and commercial buildings, otherwise they become derelict very, very quickly. Cities and regions, he says, are losing the businesses, churches, town halls, and classrooms that are essential to their local economies and community spirit. And you'll have seen it everywhere and every town, no matter how big or small. Beautiful buildings that have been left abandoned, for all intents and purposes, because their owners cannot afford to modernise them to the level that has been required under legislation, without any kind of purpose, to what point? It has to be at this level. Why? Because we say so. Is it because it's especially risky? No, these are the rules.   So what they've done now is say, okay, well, let's look at where there is danger, and buildings must be fortified there. Where there is a limited risk —you can never rule out risk altogether, otherwise you might as well stop living— the changes don't have to be made to such an extent. Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands will be made exempt from earthquake rules due to low seismic risk. And that makes sense. Auckland is at risk of a volcanic eruption, not earthquakes. That's not the main risk. It's not to say they won't happen – we're not called the Shaky Isles for nothing. But the risk isn't considered as high as that of a volcanic eruption.   The response to the overhaul has been positive. Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau says the news was a huge win for her city. She said the number of earthquake-prone buildings in Wellington will roughly halve, saving building owners a billion dollars. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown also welcomed the changes. He too points out the risk of an earthquake for Auckland and Northland is less than that of a volcanic eruption. He said we can't expect Aucklanders to be lumped with unnecessary costs, especially now. The previous requirements were expensive and unnecessary. He said it's been a very stressful time, and these changes will be a game changer for example, for apartment owners who will now be spared the cost and financial pain of making upgrades that didn't make sense.   And I get it. After you've had a tragic loss of life, and a loss of life that could have been prevented had proper building standards been followed, had more been done —it's a crisis in the country— the pain is very, very real. You see the numbers of grieving families in a country as small as ours, you don't want that to happen again. But what we've seen is Governments overreact. We saw that with the health and safety legislation as well after Cave Creek. There is always going to be a certain amount of risk in life, but you can't legislate away all of that risk.   There have to be sensible protocols in place, really sensible. Is have to be dotted, Ts crossed. You have to make sure that the job is done properly.   But a massive overreaction to a country's heartfelt pain causes more pain in the long term. Where there is risk, try and mitigate it. Where there are buildings that are deemed to be dangerous, retrofit them, fix them, or tear them down. But in areas of the country where there is minimal risk —still risk, nobody's ruling it out— then you don't have to conform to the most strict legislation.   If you take all risk out of life, then you're not really living. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While it looks to be a solid plan at first glance, there’s at least one major flaw in Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan for Gaza.  If agreed to by Hamas, the war would end immediately, with Israeli troops withdrawing and Hamas releasing all hostages.  No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and Israel won't occupy or annex the territory.  The US President would lead a new transitional government, made up of Palestinians and experts like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.  But International Geopolitical Analyst Geoffrey Miller told Kerre Woodham that along with the fact that only Israel has been involved in the negotiation of this deal, there is no timeline outlined.  He says the deal mentions providing a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, but there’s no timeline as to how it would be achieved, so it makes you wonder if it’s been added in to make it sound good.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A significant slash to the number of quake-prone buildings.  The Government's introducing an Amendment Bill to scrap and replace the New Building Standard – estimated to save building owners more than eight billion dollars.  It'll see Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands removed from the regime.  Mt Hobson Group Director Hamish Firth told Kerre Woodham the review has come up with a system that is better balanced, more nuanced, and more proportionate to the risk.  He says the kneejerk reaction in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake was perhaps right for the time, but it’s probably taken too long to do a review and ensure the system is working.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The state of Palestine is recognised as a sovereign nation by 157 UN member states, and that represents 81% of members. New Zealand is not one of them. Not yet. Like Singapore, like Japan, Germany, South Korea, most Pacific states. New Zealand says, oh, sure, we support recognition, just not yet. Winston Peters, in his speech to the UN over the weekend, said Palestine did not meet the traditional benchmarks for state recognition. But as the Herald's Audrey Young points out in her column, Palestine is a unique and complex situation, not a post-colonial independence state where it's easier to apply the markers of statehood. I don't even know where to begin on this because so much damage has been done by so many people over so many years. Starting with the British who kicked off the whole mess more than 100 years ago with the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, 77 years after the creation of Israel and the British mandate of Palestine. And you've got to look to the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who have propped up Hamas, to try and prevent President Mahmoud Abbas or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority's West Bank government from achieving its goal of a Palestinian state. As the Israeli Times put it, thanks to Netanyahu, in the bid to hobble Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to a legitimate organisation with which Israel held indirect negotiations, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.  Winston Peters in his speech said recognising Palestine just gave Hamas more metaphorical ammunition in the propaganda war without actually improving the lot of the poor benighted souls who live there. With a war raging, Hamas still in place, and no clarity on next steps, we do not think that time is now. Recognising Palestine now will likely prove counterproductive. That is, Hamas resisting negotiation in the belief that it is winning the global propaganda war. Well, it kind of is, when you've got 81% of the UN recognising Palestine as a state, when you have image after image of those children starving in the arms of their mothers. It kind of is. And although we might think no one cares about what we do as a nation, Israel will use this. It needs to take what it can get in terms of international support. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians across Gaza. On the 7th of October 2023, of course, Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people, taking 251 hostages, and there are 47 Israeli hostages still held in the most appalling, you can't even imagine what kind of conditions they're being held in captivity. Hamas justified the attack knowing full well what would happen, knowing exactly what was going to happen. They justified the attack because of what it sees as decades of Israeli oppression, the killing of Palestinians, and the years-long blockade of the Gaza Strip. Of course, you've also got Egypt who's complicit in that. They also said their attack on Israelis had put the plight of the Palestinians on the world's political agenda.  It was necessary, they said, to raise an alarm in the world, to tell them that here, there is a people who have a cause and have demands that must be met. So they launched an all-out attack on Israelis at a music festival to raise the alarm to the world. They felt that the ends justified the means. That by killing these people, knowing full well the wrath and the fire and the brimstone that would come down upon the Palestinian state, to raise alarm and attention.  Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour says he's proud of the fact that New Zealand hasn't the hasn't followed the mob. I mean, why say anything? It seems extraordinary that the best chance of attaining peace in that desperate strip of land that has the same population of New Zealand living in a total land area of 6,000 square kilometres, we are 268,000 square kilometres, to give you some kind of context - 5 million of them jammed into 6,000 square kilometres, we've got 268,000 square kilometres - but it seems extraordinary that the best chance of attaining peace now rests on the shoulders of Donald Trump. The Trump administration has proposed a 21-point Gaza peace plan that calls for all hostages held by Hamas to be released within 48 hours of an agreement and sets out a road map for Gaza once the war ends, looking at a two-state solution. US President Donald Trump has voiced optimism about resolving the conflict, saying on Friday they are very close to the deal, speaking out at the Ryder Cup as well, saying that he hoped for a solution and you can only hope and pray that in this, Donald Trump is right.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Good news for renters as prices are on the decline.  At least a third of those taking out new tenancies this year are paying less in rent than the prior tenants, according to Ministry of Housing and Urban Development data.  TradeMe Property has also seen rents fall, with supply outstripping demand. They say the market is offering more options and less competition.   New Zealand Property Investors Federation President Peter Ambrose told Kerre Woodham the reason behind increased supply is twofold.  He says there’s been a fair bit of new construction coming onto the market, and at the same time, people are increasingly leaving major cities and the country itself.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're a renter, it's jolly good news. At least a third of people taking out new tenancies this year are paying less rent than the tenants who lived there before them.   According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, for new tenancies since January 1, 30% were paying weekly rent lower than the initial weekly rent for the previous tenancy at that address. The data used a 500-day limit between the start of the last tenancy and the start of the newest tenancy, which gave a sample of around 33,000 homes, so, you know, a fairly sizable sample.   Trade Me Property has also seen rents fall as supply outstrips demand. According to Trade Me Property, after a period of record highs in 2024, we're now seeing a market that offers more options and less competition, which is driving prices down in most regions.   Nationally, rental listings on Trade Me Property were up 13% year on year in July, while demand fell 19%. Wellington recorded the largest drop. The median weekly rent there fell $50 or 7.7% to $600 compared with July of 2024. Wellington also saw a 27% rise in rental stock and a 6% fall in demand. Auckland's median weekly rent dropped $20 to $660 in July. And most other regions also saw rents go down, except for Southland, Nelson-Tasman and Taranaki. Southland hit a record high of $500 a week – what's happening in Southland? Taranaki climbed 3.3% to $620, so you'd be paying more for rent than you would be if you were renting in Wellington.    So what does all that mean for landlords? Yesterday, I read an email from Bob, which in part said the tax cuts should never have happened except for the most needy. And I received a text in response saying, well, remind Bob, Kerre, that are rents not the lowest they've been for years? Is that not a direct result of the tax clawback for landlords? Well, I don't know, is it? Is it the fact that landlords can now get the rebate and claim for expenses? Does that mean that is being passed on to tenants, or is it simply that supply is outstripping demand, and when supply outstrips demand, prices fall, which is a fundamental principle of the law of supply and demand. Is that what it is?   There are more places to rent available, new builds, perhaps people holding on to their homes but renting them out while they either go overseas or go into a retirement village or whatever it is they've decided to do, holding on to the homes and renting them out while they wait for the property market to recover. I don't know.    The texter says it's because of the tax clawbacks for landlords and that's why we've seen the drop in rent. I'd love to know from landlords if that is in fact the case. And I'd love to hear from renters. Are you able now to do some horse trading over the rent? Instead of taking a number and going to the back of a very, very long line, waiting to get into see an overpriced piece of mouldy tat, are you now being able to be a bit more selective? And if you're in a place you like, are you able to negotiate for a better rent? Now, when your lease comes up, you say, yes, I'd like to stay here, but given the state of the property market, could I pay a bit a little bit less?   I also wonder whether when times got tough, the part-time landlords, the ones that been felt the pressure to get onto the property ladder and save for your retirement, thanks to all the ads we played, buying up investment properties. It wasn't really your bag, it wasn't really your thing, you just thought you had to do it, otherwise you'd be missing out. Is that another reason that the part-time landlords got out of the business, leaving only the professional landlords there now? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand Inc. is in trouble and it's on us —you and me— to fix it. Not politicians, not economists, not even our blessed farmers who've got us out of trouble time and time again – it is on us, New Zealand voters.  It doesn't matter whether we vote left or right, red, blue, green, yellow, or black. We all have to give our political parties the cojones they need to enact the policies that will save this country. Treasury's been warning us for years now, decades. Current government policies —whichever government has been in— are not sustainable.  Treasury's 2025 long-term fiscal statement says population ageing is going to put unbearable pressure on New Zealand's long-term fiscal position. You know this. If you know anything about news, if you know anything about New Zealand politics, if you know anything about New Zealand society, you know this to be true.  ANZ senior economist Miles Workman says Treasury's report should be on the reading list of every New Zealander. Because, he says, I don't think politicians are going to be able to make the changes that are needed here until the voting public is behind those changes. And he's right.  In short, fiscal pressures will accelerate in coming decades with costs of superannuation and healthcare expected to rise significantly as the population ages. There is no one solution. In 1965, there were seven working-age New Zealanders for every person over 65. So that was seven working New Zealanders paying taxes for every person over 65, and for the most part, in 1965, those people on the Super weren't working. Today, we have four working-age New Zealanders to one person over 65. In 40 years, which is not a very long time, it'll be just two working New Zealanders to every person over 65. Successive governments have known this. Voters have known this.  But political parties need the support of voters to make the changes that are needed, as Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen told Ryan Bridge last night.  “The worry a little bit is that we've had these warnings before. We had something very similar from the Treasury four years ago in 2021. And realistically, I think what the Treasury is continuing to highlight is that there's, there's a lot of big challenges in front of us. We don't have to solve them all tomorrow, but we really do have to start sometime soon to get us out of what looks like a very unsustainable pathway going forward. But, and here's the biggest kicker for me, you can't do any one thing and it will magically solve our sort of fiscal challenges. There's a lot that's going to have to happen that will be unpalatable to politicians across the political spectrum, but by goodness, we've got to start soon.”  It's only going to be “unpalatable” if political parties expect voters to act out of self-interest. And that's what I mean, it's on us to affect the changes.  I was talking earlier this week about the need for political parties to have a bipartisan approach to important issues like infrastructure and health and education curriculum. It's absolutely imperative. They can tinker around the edges, but it is incumbent upon them to have an infrastructure plan to stop the waste of money. And it's incumbent upon us to take a grown-up approach and look at the good of the country as a whole, not our immediate needs.  If you've got your Super, calm the farm – your gin money's quite safe. Nobody's taking it off you now. But those of us in the 45 to 60-year age group need to realise that we're the ones that need to affect the changes needed to keep the country alive by allowing politicians to introduce policies that if they tried to introduce them previously would have sent them to political oblivion.  There are options: raising the age of Super eligibility, broadening the tax base, (euphemism for fiscal drag and wealth taxes), index linking super payments to inflation rather than wages, means testing – these are all options.  And another option is that New Zealand grows its wealth, that we become wealthier so we can afford it all. That's not looking likely. Treasury notes in the report that recent productivity trends have diverged from past projections, which means productivity growth over the past two decades has been weaker than predicted, averaging just 0.7% per year, and they expect that to last.  So, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.  I would like to think if we make the changes necessary, the Super will be there for those who need it. I would like to think that if we make the changes necessary, young people starting off in life, starting off with their families, will not be crippled by the burden of looking after people who were too lazy and self-interested to vote for the changes needed to spread the burden.  It's on us. We can't just look to the politicians – what are they going to do? They are only going to come out with policies that they think will appeal to us. Are we that childlike that we just want the sweets before we'll vote a political party in? We have to be grown-ups. We have to grasp the nettle and say this is tough and this is going to be ugly, but we're going to do our bit to ensure that New Zealand is a better society for future generations. That's the way it used to be, and we've dropped the ball.  You know, we can moan and grizzle all we like about the waste of money and the lack of purpose and the dithering around and the incompetence, but ultimately, if we want to affect change, it's on every voter in this country to do so. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A former Finance Minister's discussing the Superannuation age in the wake of an alarming Treasury report.  Treasury's long term fiscal statement notes the importance of responding to challenges with an ageing population.  It suggests the cost of NZ Super could be kept stable by steadily increasing the age of eligibility, requiring it to rise to 72, by 2065.  Steven Joyce told Kerre Woodham Superannuation policy gets more urgent every time it's left alone.  He believes the age should be getting gradually older as we live longer, and says he had a plan to lift it with 20 years notice before doing so.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have to say that the Herald's Mood of the Boardroom survey pretty much sums up my mood too. Yes, there are some excellent and capable ministers doing great work within their portfolios, and let's not forget how rare and wonderful that is, given the past administration. Come in Erica Stanford, Winston Peters, Chris Bishop, Simeon Brown – all good performers, all doing well, all delivering.   But when it comes to the economy, one of the main platforms upon which National campaigned, the performance is less than impressive. CEOs have sent a clear message to Finance Minister Nicola Willis in the survey. She has to hold the pro-growth line, sharpen delivery, and set out a long-term vision that brings investors back on side. The Government's going for growth agenda has five key pillars: developing talent, competitive business settings, global trade and investment, innovation, technology and science, and infrastructure, which form the backbone of Willis's economic strategy.   In the beginning, New Zealand's business leaders gave Willis the benefit of the doubt. In 2024, the CEOs credited her with a strong start. Not anymore. She failed to make the top 10 top performers in the survey. As did Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. He came in for some criticism. Business leaders said he needs to listen more. He's got a mantra that's started to grate, and he knows that. They say he rates very highly when it comes to ensuring his cabinet ministers are focused and delivering. True. He actually rates reasonably well on keeping a coalition together. But the report found Luxon did not score well for building business confidence, his own political performance, and on transforming the economy. So, on those areas, he's got a lot of work to do, as Forsyth Barr managing director Neil Paviour-Smith told Mike Hosking this morning.    “There are reasons to be optimistic, but hoping is not a strategy. And the business community is looking for stronger leadership from the Prime Minister and Finance Minister around some of these core long-term issues and the structural deficits of New Zealand.”  They are mainly concerned, the business leaders, with boosting productivity. They want a step change that includes a boost in skill, innovation, and technology, not tinkering around the edges. They say they need to see a programme for retraining and reorienting the workforce, especially those at the lower end of the wage spectrum. They say that tax and regulatory settings need to be reformed. We need to accelerate research and development and grow high-value sectors. Infrastructure, well we talked about that yesterday. There's a need for delivery of infrastructure, not just more announcements. They want shovel-worthy projects ready as financing costs ease. Immigration and education settings came through strongly. We've lost a lot of highly skilled people out of the construction industry in the last 18 months.  Now with the taps about to turn on, how do we ramp up to ensure there's capacity in the market? They also called for a compelling vision that stretches beyond a three-year election cycle. Again, what we were discussing yesterday. So there's a lot to work on. And Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis would do well to heed the advice, the criticism, and the positive remarks made by the business leaders. All of these things we know, and all of these things we've said.   And while it is true that Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori aren't inspiring confidence amongst business leaders to put it mildly. As a country, we need more, we should want more than the least rubbish of two coalition governments. Waiting for the economic cycle to finish its rotation is not the vision New Zealanders were promised when a centre-right government was elected.   They said there would be growth, there would be productivity, that good times were coming. Yes, it was a mess. They said they had the answer. They promised that. This coalition government, the National Party in particular, has to do better. Not just for the sake of their own political futures, but for the sake of the country. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.