What happened Thursday

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; no retail rate changes, FMA finds life insurance agent issues, Coleman goes, jobs demand rises, QLD beats NZL to 5 mln, swaps slip, NZD firms

22nd Mar 18, 3:59pm by David Chaston

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today:

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here either.

LACKING CARE, DILIGENCE, SKILL
The FMA has issued warnings to four registered financial advisers in relation to providing advice on replacement insurance policies, for breaches of the obligation to exercise care, diligence and skill. The warnings were announced in the report the FMA published today into its ongoing review of conflicted conduct and insurance replacement business practices among financial advisers. The FMA’s primary concerns about replacement business practices are the poor outcomes for customers that can be driven by conflicted conduct. Advisers can earn significant upfront commissions – up to 230% of the first year’s premium of a “new” or replacement policy – and other additional incentives such as qualifying for overseas trips.

COLEMAN QUITS FOR PRIVATE SECTOR JOB
Another senior National MP has announced their resignation from politics, with former Health Minister Jonathan Coleman stepping down on Thursday. Coleman is moving into the private sector to lead Acurity Health Group as its chief executive. He has been in Parliament for 13 years, nine of which as a Cabinet Minister. Coleman is the MP for Northcote and his resignation means there will need to be a by-election in the electorate.

HIGHER JOBS DEMAND
Online jobs portal SEEK is reporting an increase in new job ads of +16.2% compared to this time last year, driven largely by mining, agriculture and engineering. February also saw a +2% increase in job ads month on month as businesses begin to ramp up planned hiring activity in the new year.

JOBS GROW, AS POPULATION GROWS
In Australia, labour force data shows employment up +3.5% or +422,000 in the year to February, 78% of them full time job gains. The number of people unemployed fell by -15,000. But their actual jobless rate was 6.0% (most other media report the 5.5% seasonally adjusted rate), while their participation rate is now 66.2%, and close to its record high set in December. Higher employment is pumping up their GDP growth. Australia's population grew by +1.6% last year, two-thirds from immigration, one third from natural increase. Queensland will beat New Zealand to the 5 mln mark, reaching that milestone in May sometime.

AUSSIE POLLUTER
Staying with the Aussie theme, casino magnate James Packer has his giant mega yacht 'Artic' in Auckland for maintenance - reporter Michael Field caught them using antifouling paint polluting the harbour badly. His photo has had the Council issue cease & abatement notices.

CONGRATS TO THE BLACKCAPS
They have restricted England to just 58 in their first innings of the first-ever day-night five day test - on day one.

BENCHMARK INTEREST RATES SIDELINED
Wholesale swap rates are down -1 bp across the curve. The UST 10yr yield is lower following the US Fed rate hike, down -3 bps to 2.87%. The Aussie Govt 10 yr is down -1 bp to 2.71%. The China 10 yr is unchanged at 3.81% and the NZ Govt 10 yr is also unchanged at 2.87% following the very brief but dovish OCR from the RBNZ. The 90 day bank bill rate however is unchanged at 1.96%.

BITCOIN UP UNCHANGED
The bitcoin price up to US$9,046, a gain of less than +1% from this time yesterday.

NZ DOLLAR FIRM
The NZD has has risen more than ½c since this time yesterday and is now at 72.4 USc as the greenback slips following the US Fed decision. On the cross rates we are little changed at 93.3 AUc and at 58.6 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 at 73.3 and back where we were earlier in the week.

This chart is animated here. For previous users, the animation process has been updated and works better now.

Daily exchange rates

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Source: RBNZ

Source: CoinDesk

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16 Comments

by dtcarter | 22nd Mar 18, 4:18pm 1521688731

They have released the video from that uber self driving crash. Good luck using a pedestrian crossing, or anything other than a signalised intersection crossing once these things hit the road. In fact based on the red light running these uber cars have done, not sure you'd even want to chance that.

"UBER VIDEO SHOWS THE KIND OF CRASH SELF-DRIVING CARS ARE MADE TO AVOID"
"it’s difficult to understand why Uber’s self-driving system—with its lidar laser sensor that sees in the dark—failed to avoid hitting Herzberg, who was slowly, steadily crossing the street, pushing a bicycle."

https://www.wired.com/story/uber-self-driving-crash-video-arizona/

by Ms de Meanour | 22nd Mar 18, 4:24pm 1521689041

By implication you are requiring that self-driving cars must be proven to be infallible before they are allowed into general use.

Why should they have to prove that? Surely they should only have to prove that they are safer than the alternative, which is human-driven cars.

How many people died in accidents involving human-driven cars on the same day?

How many more will die in accidents involving human-driven cars while we wait for self-driving cars to prove their perfection?

by dtcarter | 22nd Mar 18, 4:49pm 1521690588

Sure human driver cars killed more people; Dog driven cars killed no-one, should we all get dog driven cars?

I think they should be proven to be as safe as human drivers. So far i have only seen hype and bluster from technology enthusiasts.

If the technology is so safe, when don't we use them in planes and get rid of expensive air traffic controllers?

by antonymouse | 22nd Mar 18, 5:17pm 1521692244

It's going to be a field day for lawyers, they'll be licking their lips and polishing up their piggy-banks

by Uninterested | 22nd Mar 18, 7:59pm 1521701963

You were driving. You have ultimate responsibility. What were you doing? Your honor, I was having sex with...

by Noncents | 22nd Mar 18, 7:58pm 1521701928

Driver-less cars are claimed to be "safer" than a human driver. So yes, they should be held to higher standards.

My conclusions from watching the video:
- The video is in the normal human visible light spectrum. i.e. we only see what a human "Driver" would have seen with a very limited field of view.

- It would be interesting to see the video 10-20 seconds earlier, as I suspect she may be visible leaving the footpath.

- The lady did not "appear" from nowhere, i.e. she wasn't physically obscured. She was 3 or so lanes across the road already. The only reason she wasn't visible was that she was obscured by shadow/lighting.

- A human driver would have no chance, they simply did not have visibility - Maybe peripheral vision could have picked her up. But the actual human "Driver" was in no way paying attention to anything outside the car.

We have the technology that the lighting (or lack there of) should not pose an issue for the driver-less car. i.e. the car should have "seen" her crossing the lane next to the car, and it should not have hit her.

by JB | 22nd Mar 18, 5:09pm 1521691758

An excellent post as always from M de M

We have road kill every month in excess of the Pike River disaster and no one gives a stuff.

It just keeps getting worse.

In addition roughly as many permanently disabled in some shape or form.

The cost to the medical system and ACC is in the billions.

The sooner we automate driving the safer it will be and yes there will still be accidents - but the huge plus is that new software will fix any problems that do occur and they won’t be repeated.

Tell that to an alcoholic impaired driver who just keeps on keeping on until he kills someone - often not himself which is a shame!

Aircraft already have the ability to take off and land without human intervention - just punch TOGO on a 777 and sit back ! Very reliable.

by dtcarter | 22nd Mar 18, 4:52pm 1521690744

" new software will fix any problems that do occur and they won’t be repeated."

I don't think the technology industry has a good reputation in this regard. Updates for 2 year old devices are rare, I hope the regulators will be much stronger in this regard for vehicles.

by JB | 22nd Mar 18, 5:10pm 1521691809

Think aircraft industry software and regulation..

2017 did not involve a single fatality in western aircraft despite the millions of passengers flown billions of miles.

That's what we should aspire to on our roads.

by dtcarter | 22nd Mar 18, 5:16pm 1521692176

yes, except aircraft are flown in the sky which is a pretty closed environment when they are on autopilot. Not many pedestrians at 10,000 meters above ground.

When they return to the ground they hand over control to a human air traffic controller.

So the aircraft industry gives me no faith that autonomous vehicles will be safe.

by JB | 22nd Mar 18, 5:38pm 1521693523

I have driven a new rental Ford here for some distance over a period of weeks with dynamic cruise, auto brake and lane following assist.

Truly amazing and I am sure even at this relatively low level of sophistication offers a huge increase in road safety.

I suggest trying just what's available even on cars costing less than $ 30,000 today - it is a real step change in driving and I would now not be be purchasing a vehicle without this level of functionality.

by Noncents | 22nd Mar 18, 8:07pm 1521702425

I think you are on the right track. Driver assistance is better than Driver-less.

by dtcarter | 24th Mar 18, 11:36am 1521844590

yup, and closed motorway environments are trivial compared to the open road and urban environments. How does lane assist work when the road doesn't have painted lanes?

The only issue with driver assistance is that then the driver isn't paying attention. Just like this Uber backup safety driver who wasn't able to react as they weren't looking at the road nor had their hands on the controls.

by Noncents | 22nd Mar 18, 7:32pm 1521700376

Lets compare apples with apples.

We can have driverless cars, but unless you are giving them away. The bulk will either not have access, or wont want access to them.

by Andrewj | 22nd Mar 18, 5:38pm 1521693499

it's politics, Uber are getting a lead on driverless technology, the competition wants time to catch up.
This video is slightly faster than the link above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=5mDxiYguNPI

by dtcarter | 25th Mar 18, 10:48am 1521928095

LIDAR should have seen the pedestrian, they had already crossed two lanes, and nighttime is irrelevant to LIDAR it works the same in night as it does in the day.

As for UBER being ahead of the competition that must be a joke? The competition doesn't run red lights and get kicked out of regulated states. Forced to do all their testing in states that have no regulations over autonomous cars. Letting software that has "erring on one of its most basic functions." drive on our streets? No thanks.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/self-driving-car-ube…

Uber is simply trying to rush something to market to beat the competition, but autonomous vehicles aren't something we should let companies like Uber self-regulate.