Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There were none today, except to note that both ANZ and ASB have let their cash incentives expire. BNZ and Westpac still have them "for a limited time" but only to be able to match their rivals. We will see which way they go fairly soon, I would think. But also note that Kiwibank still has their offers, and TSB Bank improved its cash incentive offer late last week. We are watching for blinking ...
TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
FinanceDirect have reduced their term deposit rates for terms 1 - 3 years, reduced their 49 month special, but have raised their offer for 5 years. This 5 year rate went up to 8.10% from 7.75%.
FINANCE NOW SPREADS WINGS
SBS Bank's FinanceNow division is getting aggressive in the asset lending space. We have heard they have poached two lending managers each from Heartland and UDC. Asset lending is a very buoyant sector right now and so there should be room for another aggressive lender. Finance Now are targeting the booming motor vehicle market for their expansion.
BEST SINCE 1973
Stats NZ today surprised everyone with their report that our terms of trade have reached a 41 year high. But no-one believes it can be sustained, with a chorus of commentators saying its all downhill from here. Export prices fell, but import prices fell even more. Westpac said "the long-term picture for New Zealand’s exports remains intact, and by the end of the year we expect commodity prices to be staging a recovery."
A MORE MODERATE PACE
Treasury's latest review of our economy was out today, and in true pre-election style, was short on anything contentious. But they did say the pace of economic growth is still expected to be above trend and inflationary pressures are likely to gradually build given that spare capacity has been exhausted. Growth will continue to be supported by the Canterbury rebuild and elevated domestic demand as the net inflow of external migrants remains high. They also expect dairy prices to pick up later in the year.
$100 MLN COMMUTER RAIL FOR CHRISTCHURCH
The Labour Party is promising commuter rail links between Rangiora and Rolleston to "unclog Christchurch". Not sure how many people actually need to go between these two centres however. I doubt Christchurch has the density to make that anything but a subsidy sinkhole.
MINING HOLDING AUSTRALIA BACK
Aussie company profits were weaker than expected in the June quarter and stocks grew more than expected. That inventory rise will probably help their Q2 GDP result, but after that todays data still suggests a softening of underlying domestic demand. Mining is driving both changes.
MORE NORMAL
BNZ's online sales tracking shows that growth of online retail is trending down and is reverting to levels seen for retail sales generally. The same report shows that the strong NZD hides the the continuing progress of overseas online retail in this market.
WHOLESALE RATES
Swap rates rose today, about +2 bps across the while curve. The 90 day bank bill rate fell however and is back to 3.70%.
OUR CURRENCY
Check our real-time charts here. The NZ dollar reacted to the terms of trade data by rising modestly and is now at 83.7 USc, now at 89.6 AUc and the TWI is at 79.0.
You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.
70 Comments
Rangiora to Rolleston covers the north, central and west of Christchurch. I wouldn't be so quick to write it off, are you sure there are so few people in the north or west of CHC that need to travel to the centre, and would like to avoid driving?
One assumes any such service would travel down the line beside morehouse ave to bring most of the CBD within it's catchment.
Many were quick to write off Aucklands Britomart Station, John Banks famously rallying against a white elephant "temple at the bottom of queen street". Yet it exceeded it's 10 year patronage projections after only 2 years.
Actually, Britomart is also a subsidy sinkhole - a very large one. The bigger the patronage, the larger the sinkhole. Although I do have to say the area above and around the station has been well renovated. Kudos for a remarkable job there.
I am Christchurch born & bred so know it reasonably well. Also visit family there regularly.
You can't call it "investing" when you never expect any return. Christchurch seems to me to be sprawling fast in all directions. Spending serious cash on 19th century travel modes is just silly. Too much 'mother england' in our policy makers. England's loses a fortune and they do have density. Our losses would go off the planet.
What we need to do - and Chc is ideal for it - is get ready for driverless cars in a smart network. They will be here before we know it - almost certainly before any rail plans are in place.
Best not to waste money now that could be used in a forward looking transit alternative, one that gets people to where they need to go. Trains will only take you to places bureaucrats think you need to go.
Wow David, that has to be the most nutritious mouthful of comment I've seen for yonks. Technology impacting transportation is now happening at a rate that makes the transition from foot to horse, horse to steam, steam to internal combustion seem like slow motion. Cities prescient enough to prepare for it will benefit magnificently.
"Trains will only take you places bureacrats think you need to go". And roads do not?
Show me a road that makes a profit. All forms of transport are decided by the state and most are funded throught the state run taxation system. Virtually all forms of transport are subsidised. Passenger boats in Auckland might be the only form of transport not being subsidised.
This passenger rail scheme will be up and running in a year. When will driverless cars come?
Bertaud who is working with Google on driverless cars says one option is that a city has a grid of trains at 10km spacing and the diverless cars do the last 10km.
Atlanta the lowest density city in North America private railways has got into the real estate game because it found that subdivisions around train stations went up 25% in capital value.
David I always thought you were English.
Actually, in NZ roads make fantastic [monopoly] profits. About a third of the revenue collected gets diverted in the General Fund. They are a real money-spinner for the [central] Government. But a bit of a problem for local governments, I agree.
About the only argument trains can make is that they keep some cars off the road - making it more convenient for those who choose to drive.
To find trains convenient, you need a routine - very routine - job, mainly in a city center. The trouble is, those sorts of jobs have a very suspect future. They are going to be automated away. Jobs that have a future are far from routine, far more creative, and require mobility that fixed rail will never satisfy. Rail is for people with yesterday's jobs (or those who did an English OE and 'loved it'). Its just you can't do an english OE in New Zealand. Believe it or not, jobs, work and the future are all different here. We need to focus on our issues, not import others 'solutions'.
A lot of public infrastructure budgets aim to break even so, technically, they don't generate income (which we know as "profit"). But until there are riots because petrol tax and RUC's are unaffordable you can assume NZ roads pay their way. And in the case of state highways and half of rural roads the money comes from the end users with basically no cross-subsidisation.
". But until there are riots because petrol tax and RUC's are unaffordable you can assume NZ roads pay their way."
Non-sequitor.
- - -
Those infrastructure projects are often back-end/reverse funded.
That results in a lot of hidden costs which get passed on elsewhere.
Mainly in the area of asset ownership and staff longevity costs, where if it was a business those factors would have to be weighed up against the revenue tranches.
So while _some_ roads, eg those in Auckland and Welly or arterial South Island might be profitable, many are not. The reseal of the one in the middle of my farm (about 3km long, 5 cars a day) certainly is not - and when the Alternative routes between Wairarapa and Manawatu suffered heavy damage because the Gorge repairs there was serious levels of bickering and finger-pointing between the agencies who were prepared to suffer the cost of upgrade or repair.
Can't say that I follow anything you are saying here but let me repeat what I often say on this site: NZ public entities for the last 25-odd years have had to practice accrual accounting, comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Practices and, in more recent years, International Financial Reporting Standards.
It is very difficult for them to hide subsidies. Occasionally there will be off-balance sheet liabilities and, of course, there is no accounting for the costs of externalities. Even so just about everything is hidden there in plain sight.
If you read Vote Transport it separates out the National Land Transport Programme and describes exactly how it is funded.
Was your road sealed or the existing seal repaired? The costs of providing rural roads are subsidised to the tune of about 50% by central government. There is a manual about 600 pages thick that prescribes what NZTA will subsidise and what they won't and how to calculate the benefit-cost ratio. The bickering arises in special situations like this when the local councuil would argue that it is not the district's fault that there is increased traffic on a local road and the government should stump up to pay for the increased maintenance etc.
Roads of National Significance are funded from the central government general spending pot. So not funded by petrol taxes or RUC (DC when did taxes start being called '[monopoly] profits'). Billions of dollars are being spent. There is no formal check of cost benefit analysis by the NZTA.
My guess is that cost benefit ratio for spending $100 million on Christchurch's northern corridor rail corridor easily exceeds most of the RoNS simply because the current road corridor has reached its design capacity and is due an upgrade while that cannot be said about some of the other RoNS.
Whether there would be another project that would give a better cost benefit ratio such as a second bridge is a moot point. Nobody else has put that on the table...... Another missed opportunity for National.
Seriously mate. you're talking/thinking like an apologist.
What does it take to make a road way? A minimalistic roadway. Once built to provide a service, not to fulfil regulatory standards.
If you had to build a road tomorrow from your own pocket, where would you start, who would you hire, where do you get your money back?
so what kind of "subsidies".... well lets start with the research and publication costs for a "600 page manual" as a starter. That represents many highly paid workhours.
As for cost-benefit - if you front load the cost onto those who want the service, that analysis gets solved very quickly. they want the service that much, when the funding is in the account marked "Our Road We Want It Now" then build it. Hold the personnel building it to their quote, and you'll find the issue of overruns tends to disappear quickly too.
It's about problem ownership, which is what public ownership removes and creates all this tossing about.
- - -
As a side anecdote, one of my local councils wanted to upgrade a small local aviary to a flash $3mill jobbie. I actually think they were really just trying to torpedo it... but we said to them "put donation boxes out" those who want the flash aviary can have it when the donations are higher enough... councils reply - but no-one wants to donate and many of those using the aviary can't afford to donate.... which "problem ownership" solutionwise points to who was subsidising what, and just how much "in demand" the flash solution really was...
With all due respect the only infrastructure left is the rail corridor and some rusty old rails. The Rangiora station is a cafe and there is nothing between there and Addington. By the time you have put in
- platforms
- shelters
- the vast amount of stuff to protect pedestrians from trains
- the parking areas
- the connections with buses to take people to where they actually want to go
- a ticketing system that allows transfers between trains and buses
- signage
- murals of "the people" loving public transport
- and God knows what else
the budgeted $100m will be small change compared to the final cost.
Whats teh distance?
For light rail, budget $4500 per meter, so $4.5million per km on an existing track, so a 22km run.
If its a new track, $10~20m (single or double track) per km seems not un-reasonable.
So 100million goes virtually no where.
If you use trolley busses on the other hand you just need the overhead electrification part and new rolling stock, way cheaper, buses stop at the same stopping points.
Just how that's paid for is open to a lot of questions.
regards
David, what is this "General Fund"?
Labour changed the law back in 2008 so that fuel taxes/RUCs are hypothecated / ring fenced and not used for general government spending.
With the current road building binge, petrol taxes are not enough, hence we are seeing petrols taxes going up 10c/litre, and additional road building projects being funded out of general taxation instead of the NLTF. As the spending on road building and maintenance is greater than the income from fuel taxes and RUCs, clearly, roads are making a 'loss'.
You shouldnt be rebuilding it.
This is perfect opportunity to rebirth Chch as the worlds most modern city, starting planning from roots up. For once there is already thriving population, industry, retail and economy in the area. Nature took the opportunity to do what developers can only dream of - bash down the whole CBD and create a chance to build anew. to project and plan future growth, to include technology and population growth, to not be beholden to "organic" growth of history based on horses and carts.
sorry David but that isn't correct in the real world. Although I'm sure it is accurate enough "in theory".
How do _roads_ make any revenue?
No one is paying directly for them.
Therefore it is not the road making the revenue, it's the system behind the road that revenue - a system which could problem be impliment sans actual road.
One of the many things which makes true infrastructure harder to measure. Just how much "profit" arises from roads in social commerce and access? Previous governments deliberately downgraded the rail system in NZ so road would be more used (easier to revenue collect if more people use people and pay duty for imported vehicles&parts).
But if we didn't have roads, and considering the internet and fall in social groups, what are the social consequences of less roading? Are there viable alternatives?
As Kunstler says we have constructed surburbia and indeed our cities to suit copious use of cheap fossil fuels, that era is ending.
Lots of jobs have a very dubious future and if you cant get across town in your personal transport to the job from your dormitory a long way away? or if its not economical? no job, no goods produced.
I'd suggest many routine jobs have already been automated away, over the last 3 or 4 decades is it going to accelerate? Hmm well who these days needs bank tellers when you can use your smart phone instantly? So sure there will changes, the Q is what are they going to be.
"far more creative" no I suspect as to be creative we need to specialise more and hence be more complex as a society and hence need more energy. Fly in ointment, there wont be the energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0R09YzyuCI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBrYLJV9_N8
These dont point to creative but to lots of spare labour.
"require mobility that fixed rail will never satisfy" its not optional, there wont be the choice.
"We need to focus on our issues, not import others 'solutions'." indeed the Q is what are our issues, do we even see them yet?
Your assumption here DC is BAU, ie always growing. What if your wrong? and you are I think.
What did NZ look like 100 years ago? I suspect there is more of an answer there for tomorrow than yesterday for tomorrow.
regards
my partners smartphone cant run some apps.... luckily she just popped into the branch that day for her financial needs. If she could run the _current_version_ of the mapping app, then she wouldn't have needed a map.
You climb on that technology escalator then you're all going to have a _really_ hard time getting off again....
I'm with David on this one. Brendon and I both live in Nth Canterbury and have ended up with opposite views on the desirability of re-activating passenger rail around CHC.
As a for instance, dtcarter, CHC doesn't have a CBD anymore - it's just acres and acres of flat nothing. The former occupiers have spread far and wide and there is no guarantee they will ever return. Sure there are some big employers like CPIT, CDHB and CCC still left but its not enough.
Anyway it has been years since the train station was in Moorhouse Ave; it moved out to Addington 20 years ago. The old train station is just rubble now.
If all we are talking is congestion then the Belfast Bypass (NZTA) and the Northern Corridor (CCC) would make a world of difference. I had predicted Brownlee would have announced by now that he had miraculously found the dosh to fast-track those projects but noooo...Apparently he has something else on his mind at the moment.
Me too, David and Kumbel. The Old CBD (presently mainly tumbleweeds and carparks plus of course Bally's) will be mainly filled with Gubmint drones, lawyers, accountants and the services needed to keep this lot amused.
The new CBD is a wide arc (I've characterised it here) and is doing just fine.
Agree totally with DC that developments discernible now (EV's, release of Tiwai electrons from boiling up aluminum, Kandi car stackers, and electric bicycles) will combine the best of existing infrastructure, sustainable fuels and driver preferences.
And I'm a train-spotty type if let loose.......but they are sooo 19th century: consider the tare weight alone....
But a brilliant bribe from Labour, hey? And it's only a hundred million (excluding interest, running costs, and whatever the Labudgeteers forgot) - for the first tranche, to serve (Aurecon rapid assessment report market estimate) 2000 commuters.
Why, that's - um - er - only $50K per commuter. Heck that wouldn't even buy them each a Nissan Leaf..
Oh, wait......
Interestingly Christchurch's main station might turn out to be Riccarton not Addington or Moorhouse or the intended CBD station.
Riccarton being a huge employer with many of the specialist shops that used to be in the old CBD have migrated there. Will they ever move back?
My dad says the south side of the Octagon used to be Dunedin's centre then over the years it migrated north to be closer to the university.
I have a deep suspicion about claims some great new technology is just around the corner to save our commuting woes. It seems I have been hearing that sort of thing for three decades. I will believe it when I see it.
P.S My favoured solution for easing congestion around Christchurch is to put a second bridge over the Waimak and have a new SH1 diversion. But no one is offering that. The National party have completely neglected Canterbury. Given that I am not going to criticise what Labour is offering.
Nice thing is the EV's, Kandi car hire, Tiwai/Manapouri is that every piece of the puzzle is there. now, rattling around the box like a 1000-bitz jigsaw, just as yet unconnected.......
And don't get me started on Big Data, mobile apps (Uber, anyone?) - all of them small, furry mammals feasting on dinosaur eggs....
No new technology. Just old thinking.
So you think the current grid can handle recharging everyones car overnight? How about all the street distribution lines? How about all the batteries for all these EVs, they are here already? And all the rare earth elements needed in the motors and batteries? They are all mined and stocked pilled and there's plenty to go around?
As a general rule ie assuming no outdated systems,
a) Yes the grid easily, for the house a car will be charging no worse than a cooker, 40amps, probably more like a 20amp circuit. Not many households running a cooker at 2am...
b) yes street lines will be fine. The cooker going at 5~6pm is the biggest load, plus winter heating of the house...
c) Batteries will be an issue, they are clean room tech and cost 1/2 the car and last 10~15years. Recent developements however look to be 4 times more effective, so twice the range and hlaf the weight/cost inside 5 years
d) Rare earths, yes OK I think, however the lithium for the batteries not I suspect.
e) The costs of EVS wehn made in the quantity of conventional cars will take a mind boggling amount of investment and I sspect many ppl wont be able to buy.
regards
The problem is we have built our society around the assumption that fossil fuel was and would remain cheap and plentiful. Internal combustion engined cars would be affordable and long lived , fuel has not and EVs are not / will not be either.
In my case I positioned myself so I have public transport options, for many they are going to find that rather difficult as there isnt any.
BTW, what happens when due to the costs to produce your private goods climbs to the point that ppl cannot afford to buy them? you wont need a Ute/SUV much either.
It is going to be interesting. There are so many variables and iterations going on I defy anyone to say with confidence just how the future will work out except the world will be simpler and smaller. Somethings are for sure IMHO, economies will be smaller and ppl will be financially a lot poorer and I suspect it will be bloody in some corners of the world, the likes of the bread riots in Egypt and Syria point to that.
regards
"The problem is we have built our society around the assumption that fossil fuel was and would remain cheap and plentiful. Internal combustion engined cars would be affordable and long lived ,"
Your statement is incorrect, this is likely to lead you to false assumptions and conclusions.
The society was built around the ideas that population is sparse, manpower is cheap, and most things will need to be done by individuals.
Several decades of exponental breeding and population is dense, manpower is horrendously expensive, most things are done by teams or contracted out.
the idea of fossil fuels (and other resources) being plentiful was just a byproduct of low population density, and never even considered!
Yes I'm sure Uber would easily solve the congestion at peak times, if it was allowed. How about some political party stump up $100 million to get Uber going. That would be enough for the whole of NZ.
I note that most/all Aussie states are trying to ban Uber with silly logic, just so they can protect the status quot taxi system.
Old thinking indeed.
Kumbels 'share' vs 'individual' description below is the way to think about it. The Northern motorway only has 'peak' congestion which could be easily solved if more people 'shared' ie this would reduce number of cars on the road in total, but more importantly at the 'peak' and thus there would be less or no congestion. The car and road infrastructure is already in place, it just needs to be used more effeciently. Technology is availble with Uber, only needs the legislative help to enable them to use it.
They certainly are.
I don't want to discuss individual technologies but given some of the other comments here I thought I would direct you over to Climate Progress where they suggest EV's may be about to make an economic breakthrough.
While it would be foolish to predict exactly how things will pan out there are some long-term trends that suggest the flavour of how it will be.
Mainly: the personal or individual is supreme.
Think of telephony. First we had to share the telegraph operator, then we were allowed a shared handset , and now each person has their own handset that operates and is accessible anywhere in the world.
And cars. The rate of private motorcar ownership has gone from 1 car to 2.3 people to 1 car to 1.88 people since 1978. That is a 40% increase in the rate of car ownership (doesn't even count all those motorcycles and commercial vehicles). Think like a marketer: the "consumers" have voted in favour of private or individual modes of transport rather than shared modes. Given a reasonable choice that is what they will take every time.
And yet what we see in CHC (remember its just a lab for the rest of the country) is the government hell-bent on re-creating a Victorian city aided and abetted by a council which is Victorian in its outlook. (Councils always give of that whiff of Victorian moral wholesomeness, of going for a brisk walk in stout walking shoes and returning home to settle down with a fascinating book on public sanitation).
Many young people have lost interest in cars. I think you could easily find lots of young adults who would prefer to sit in a train using free WiFi than wasting time/energy driving themselves.
Also this proposal only requires a switch of 10% of vehicle movements to make it viable. Nobody is arguing that passenger trains will be compulsory or designed for the majority or that Labour would stop other planned road upgrades.
Overall I think Labours plans offers more individual choice not less.
Read my comment carefully. I don't use the terms "public" and "private" anymore. I prefer "shared" and "individual". I don't think the ownership matters so much. Privately owned cars is how we currently get individual transport but as Waymad points out the enablers of alternative means of providing that capability exist today.
Waymad is talking about 'maybes' and 'possible technologies'. But they do not currently exist. They are not offered as a solution. Who knows when they would arrive to help those who are stuck in traffic that is moving slower than 100 year old steam technology.
The thing I like about Interest.co.nz debates is they get down to hard facts, not fantasy. The hard facts are we have a road corridor that has reached congestion point. Every additional vehicle movement that gets added to this corridor causes delays for all existing vehicles.
We have new subdivisions which will house thousands to the north of this corridor being built now.
The solution is we wait for road upgrades -A Belfast motorway diversion and the Redwood to QE2 motorway extension. Neither of these are considered urgent by the current government and will not be completed for at least a decade. Neither of these will completely solve the problem as a complete SH1 Christchurch diversion requiring a new bridge would.
Labours railway solution could be done within a year. A bare bones solution just needs surplus diesel units from Auckland and a few platforms. Labour will still continue with the above planned motorway diversions and extensions.
Mass cars ?... I think they plan to be around longer than 1 or 2 decades ..
.. www.massmotorcars.com .... can't find their trolley busses division ...
100 years ago it took 30 minutes by steam train to get to the centre of Christchurch from Rangiora. Now at peak times it takes an hour plus.
The Waimak road bridge on the main state highway route is built for 3000 vehicles an hour and at peak times 3300 use it.
Removing 10% of vehicle demand (which is all stage 1 passenger rail is aiming for) will give big benefits to the remaining 90% in improved travelling times.
Passenger rail works in Wellington and Auckland. Christchurch is NZ's second biggest city so it should work well there too.
I think the railway is a fantastic idea. The congestion North of Christchurch is a nightmare and it's only going to get worse with all the new houses being built out there. It will offer some protection from the inevitable oil shocks to come in the next 5 - 10 years.
It doesn't make sense. But the alternative is what? More roads, more land for roads, more cars, superhighway design like Singapore or the US? And then, don't forget, all that private transport is going to need oil, and that isn't getting easier or cheaper.
So if there is no other better technology, light rail for central arterial services might be better option - an "above ground" subway system. since underground subway in a place with several earthquakes a day is probably not such a great idea...
Here's a link to Labours rail proposal. Has the staging and proposed stations including one in the central city. The PDF on that link has the real details.
I think the major argument against light rail, is that light rail only supports commuters. Chch still has a very mobile population, with many people coming from outlying areas or more distant suburbs, it is questionable whether the cities interaction with those folks can be adaquately services with a light rail network.... as mentioned before, possible treat the new system as above-ground subway, which means demarcation points for people driving from out of town
Call it the bitter disappointment of a disregarded old crank.
I gave Labour my surefire recipe for electoral success in Christchurch:
- cancel the covered stadium
- kick some insurance company ass
- fast-track the northern roading projects
and they came back with spend more taxpayer money on a project that will cost more than they think and deliver less than they assume.
The Left still gets my vote but Labour are forcing me to shop around.
On your bullet two, Kumbel, what did you think of their policy on that issue;
http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/labour-proposes-earthquake-court-for-chri…
Problem with such inquiries is that they're chasing into modern companies that specialise in one thing : ass-covering. Not sales, not customer service, not even financial strength.
But, like their US counterparts, they have cultivated a culture of legal definition and bureaucratic obedience that generates correct paperwork. Because as long as their documentation is correct then it doesn't matter what they do.
There's a part of me that likes the idea of due process but then again we are now burying people who were still waiting for their insurance companies to stop stalling.
I get stories from a friend who is a quantity surveyor and sits in on these wrangling meetings. You don't want to know what is going on behind the closed doors.
What Christchurch (and, by extension, the rest of the country) needs goes way beyond a polite judicial process.
And we would find ourselves in the ludicrous situation of the Crown paying itself (and the legal profession) to make itself (in the form of EQC and Southern Response) do the job it always promised the public it would do.
Politicians love making big noise about leadership. Here's a great chance for them to do something that requires real leadership. I.e. it's hard, requires great interpersonal skills, requires perserverance, and requires resilience in the face of criticism and pressure. It would require them to be non-partisan at times and to think of others before themselves.
As you may guess I am not too hopeful on the possibilities.
Neither the authorities nor the insurance companies had a strong moral position when the earthquakes struck.
By 2001 it was the official position of the government that a major earthquake was more or less imminent in the South Island. And CCC had already known for some years that if that earthquake affected Christchurch the results would be catastrophic. All of this was public knowledge.
The fact that, when it did happen, the fault turned out to be an unknown one is immaterial as we would have had the same outcome if the Alpine Fault had ruptured near, say, Lewis Pass.
There was little or no policy response from the government or its agencies and virtually none from the local authorities. So it comes as little surprise that the insurance companies - even though they had more at stake - also continued to write the 'peace of mind'/full replacement house insurance policies. In retrospect we fell into a dreamy state of complacency.
So it has been in the mutual interests of the government, EQC and the private insurers not to embarass each other. It was CCC policy to advocate for an advocacy service. That's about as far as anyone went. We have basically let thousands of people, many of whom are very vulnerable, be the price of preserving face.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but... Rather than waste good money on the pretty toys of the CBD I would have preferred the government to have put in a 'Manhattan Project' to get peoples' residential arrangements sorted first. In reality there could not have been a single approach; there would have to have been a mix of:
- doing the red-zoning acquisitions properly and fairly
- advocacy support for insurance claimants
- a mediation or court service for stalled disputes
- a little money just to make intractable problems go away
- proper audit and fraud detection processes
- EQC accountability and transparency
National's policy to bring CERA into the Prime Ministers Department is tacit admission that the whole thing has become a huge mess and needs better oversight and direction than Brownlee has given it to date. (No reflection on Roger Sutton I hasten to add).
Re: "National's policy to bring CERA into the Prime Ministers Department is tacit admission that the whole thing has become a huge mess and needs better oversight....."
I think like "Dirty Politics" the Canterbury earthquakes and rebuild has exposed the complacent view of NZ as having high quality public institutions capable of coping with challenges from the physical and human world as being false.
The Prime Minister -John Key with his status quo mantra is not the man to fix this. I am not hopeful that John Key having direct oversight over the rebuild would help.
Kumbel to add to your list.
The government should have created new residential land and offered a 'land swap' to redzoners as an alternative to a cash buyout.
Once the aftershocks died down the government should have given insurance companies a set time to settle all claims with financial penalties to the customer if they failed to honour the insurance agreements within that timeframe.
To buttress the fact that the susceptibility was well understand, here's a link to the 1991 Soils and Foundations chapter, which has a very good map at P13. That liquefaction estimate was astoundingly accurate (note it excludes the entire coastal strip, perfectly consistent with my own experience there).
As Kumbel notes, a sense of 'We Know Best' pervaded the Councils of the time, and is only now being dismantled.
As for the DPMC aspect, dinnae ferget that the C stands for Cabinet, and that CDEM is already housed under that umbrella. So the breathless conspiracysts should just take a chill pill: having the rump end of CERA housed alongside a sister organisation, is a logical thing to do.
Although perhaps the chill pill needs to be replaced after Sept 20 with summat a leetle stronger, as Gaia alone knows what Cabinet will consist of. Normal Russian as Deputy Finance Minister, anyone???
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