A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; big new gas discovery, tough economic choices, new support for uni students, record high immigration, NZD rising, & more

.yeah okay Roger, but what do we do with the carbon ...or amidst the excitement of the virus have you forgotten about the real curve that needs flattening?

I think we would be better suited to doing that with electricity. A ducted heat pump costs about $6k to install, much cheaper than getting gas to every property. And the heat pump will be mostly emissions free.

Yes, we want warm, dry houses. We do that by raising their insulation standards, not by blasting hot air into them to seep out through the cracks.

Yes indeed, I remember as a child getting central heating installed. Every year the man from the gas board came to check that the boiler and the gas fire were working correctly. One hell of a shock when we came to NZ and there was no heating at all. Funny moment though in a high end store in Newmarket a few years ago when we were admiring a tall radiator on display.... the young 20 something assistant went onto explain that central heating was a new concept! Maybe here in New Zealand I replied but in the UK we have had it since the 1970’s..... she seemed genuinely surprised!

Start with architects and builders and monopolies in building materials first..

No, upgrade house quality and insulate property first. It's criminal how poor our housing stock is.

My current house was originally built in the 50's and was cold and was the epitome of cold and draughty when we purchased it. Almost immediately after buying it my wife and I began retrofitted insulation in roof, walls and underfloor and doing some serious draught-stopping. The first winter we lived here (before the renovations) our kitchen would get down to 8C overnight in winter. Since our modifications, I've never seen it lower than 16C (with no supplementary heating). In winter we passively heat with sun on clear days with no heating in the evenings or overnight (in the South Island).

It's really not rocket science. The amount of houses that people do 'cosmetic' work but fail to improve the thermal performance of the house appalls me. Three owners prior to use did nothing about these massive issues. The other thing is most people have no clue how to use curtains effectively, they need to touch the floor to prevent a convection loop from forming and to seal an air pocket. When I drive at night in winter I'm shocked to see so much bare glass or poorly fitted curtains, these people are just hemorrhaging heat from their homes.

Start with low-hanging fruit.

Roger, we dont have warm, dry houses because NZ has a collective psychosis that the country is located on the equator.

2020 and the current standard for heating is a heat pump in the living room. This is the equivalent of a single coal fire.

Until the penny drops that central heating is essential we will forever live in cold homes albeit modern insulation may make them slighty warmer than those built in the 80s and 90s.

Unless you are a Kiwi expat and returning for the dole or a cashed up Kiwi expat returning home to be safe.

Agreed anyone thinking 600000 Kiwis will flock back like sheep are dreaming we will only get people who have no jobs/money coming back otherwise most will stay put with a house and a job where they are now.

I doubt it. The incentive to be in NZ has just got much stronger. No job in NZ is much better than no job in 3rd world countries especially if you have children needing educating or health conditions needing treatment.
I'd be happy if INZ offers resdency to all the nurses in our care homes who are currently on work visas.

The silver lining in a very dark cloud.

Burger King was a large user and abuser of imported labour for the last few years so interesting to see them fall over while trying to use the cheapest possible labour they could find ????.

Lets replace those low-paid immigrants with some of the top flight down-right brilliant experienced engineers and scientists laid of by many collapsing businesses world wide - for example some of those Indian PhDs made redundant by airlines and who never have considered NZ will now give us a chance. Its criminal that the best of India has gone to California while we got the pleasant middle-class middle-ability workers you find in petrol stations and my local New World checkout. Low paid workers from wherever took Kiwi jobs and various governments allowed it because they couldn't care less.

tesla jumped a huge amount over the last week and reports are coming out that they will only make 1/2 the amount of cars as last quarter, sometimes people are looking for good news that is not there

by Becnz: Burger King had already well and truly lost the plot; who do you know who's bought a burger from them in the last decade? I suspect its suppliers have known for ages that the writing was on the wall.
The share markets will always bounce back if you look at historical statistics.

I actually like his idea. As someone with financial education and qualification background, i have been thought again and again that shareholders of an entity are entitled to their profit because they are totally unprotected for risks. At the same time, as a human being, consumer etc, i hate to see companies providing goods and services fold and people lose their jobs.
Nationalising these entities will achieve both objectives. A) allow all equity to wipe out as it should B) deal with creditors for a fair price of a debt that would never be recovered C) continue to operate the entity until it can operate on its own feet again and then sell it back as a profit (for all taxpayers to share).
As for banks, I think the government must at least force them for extra taxes on their future profits, impost a very heavy tax on high incomes of its people (lets say 60% at more than $500k a year and 90% at more than $1m)

" the acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make laws."
Kind of what I meant by Nationalisation.

I wonder about the companies, and there is a NZ version, that specialise in dressing up IP and increase the paper value of companies. These valuers are surely toast?

AI will sort it out...where are all those robots? Who turned them into ventilators - pure genius!

Nah they have all bought into the high immigration / high house price ponzi.
Or they are lefties who think it's *racist* to question very high levels of immigration.
Anyway it's all rear view mirror stuff, immigration will be dead for a long time.
The virus has done what our useless, lying politicians couldn't do

Are the numbers affected by returning kiwi? Otherwise yes damn straight.

Just a standard Ozzy attitude.

And the world...

I formed my opinion of the take-down of publicly-owned infrastructure, by self-serving privateers, a long time ago.

As I watched the commercial-governance model being applied to health, and partially-applied (school BOT's) to education. The problem is with the myopic focus of 'business' - the aim is efficiency, which is the opposite of resilience. Add to that the push from private medicine (represented by Woodhouse) to oust public by making it wither and die.

Then you say compare?

Well, when every three years folk screech "TAX CUTS!" over everything else, it's unsurprising that we now discover the downside to that. There's a long way to make up.

Has everyone forgotten South Canterbury... lost to Country about $1.5B. Then all those other non bank lenders that went down the tubes..... let them all go down and let the businesses come to the "normal" banks.

They've also already made lots of staff redundant. But redundancy has been a constant cloud looming for NZME staff, this was just the last straw. They have long been a dead man walking.

How is media works still around?

End of last year they were bleating they might not see in 2020. Now they seem to be all happy.

Have I missed something?

I'd say the Maui dolphin will cause enough of a roadblock

Rediculous decision. but wait, it's the US fault though isn't it! (Sarcastic grin).