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For Peter wilson*
Analysis: The government wants the Reserve Bank to curb house prices, Parliament passes the Maori districts bill, and one MP gets away with a bad word in the House.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson told the Reserve Bank that it should consider the impacts on house prices when setting monetary policy.
Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
Finance Minister Grant Robertson wrote to the Reserve Bank this week, instructing it to take house prices into account when setting monetary policy.
The keywords in Robertson’s press release were: “The bank will need to consider the government’s goal of supporting more sustainable home prices, including reducing investor demand for existing homes to help improve affordability for first-time home buyers. “
It targets investors, speculators who buy multiple houses for huge profits.
Robertson asked the bank for details on how it would use debt-to-income restrictions (DTIs), a tool it does not yet have.
“I would like that to apply only to investors,” he told the media.
The bank asked the government in December to add DTI to its toolkit, but Robertson was concerned about the impact it could have on first-time home buyers.
Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr had no problem with this week’s directive and said advice on ITDs would be delivered “in due course.”
He has said several times that the bank’s ability to fix the housing crisis is limited because it can only do things on the margins to curb demand.
In his words, problem number one is supply: there are not enough houses and that is the government’s problem.
Robertson has promised new measures, but there doesn’t seem to be a great sense of urgency.
This week, he said that he intended to announce a set of measures, but this was delayed by the latest Covid-19 outbreak. An announcement is now expected in mid-March.
House price inflation has risen to nearly 20 percent year-on-year, New Zealand Herald reported. The Reserve Bank expects it to decline significantly next year.
In Parliament, MPs felt urgent to pass a bill that would end the public’s ability to veto council decisions to establish Maori districts.
The law, as it stood, allowed a referendum to be held if 5 percent of the voters supported the petition. That allowed communities to reverse the council’s decisions: 24 have tried to establish Maori districts, but only three have succeeded.
Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta.
Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta said that removing the veto would give Maori opportunities to participate in decision-making. It was about “rectifying an unintended mistake.”
The National Party said it was an assault on democracy.
National Representative Nick Smith described him as “Trump-like” because he eliminated decisions that Labor did not like.
ACT leader David Seymour caused a minor uproar by comparing it to apartheid.
Opposition MPs staged obstructionism, using up to 12 hours of debate by challenging each of the 10 clauses of the bill. It was eventually passed with a large majority, supported by Labor, the Greens and the Maori Party.
National set its sights on Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March this week, after he twice applied for an emergency position at MIQ, when he was returning from Mexico.
The green parliamentarian Ricardo Menéndez March.
Photo: Supplied
The Tijuana-born deputy visited his seriously ill stepmother and returned with his partner, who had obtained a visa to enter New Zealand.
He applied first on the basis that he provided a “critical health or public service” and, second, as someone who was required for the “national security” or “national interest” options.
National Party leader Judith Collins said she didn’t seem to fit either of them.
Both requests were rejected and RNZ The co-leader of the Green Party, James Shaw, informed the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment not to grant them. Menéndez March said the categories were vague and that he had to explore all his options.
The details of the applications were obtained by National Representative Chris Bishop.
At the end of the week, the focus was on [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/437180/green-mp-ricardo-menendez-march-s-partner-s-visa-application-in-question
Menedez March’s partner and whether she had been entitled to the visa] He was granted.
Menédez March said his partner lived with him for “several months” before the pandemic and therefore met the criteria. National is questioning that and looking for evidence of special treatment.
The latest child poverty figures were released this week, showing marginal gains in most categories used to measure the impact of government measures to alleviate it. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has the child poverty reduction portfolio, emphasized the positive, while National did the opposite.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins kept busy as more cases surfaced from the Valentine’s Day group, which now has 11 members. Hipkins and Chief Health Officer Dr. Ashley Bloomfield held informational meetings most days with the assurance that contact tracing was working.
Papatoetoe High, the school in the center of the cluster, was closed for the second time and all students and staff had to be retested. South Auckland was asked to be a vaccination priority.
Former National Party leader Simon Bridges provided slight relief. After a discussion in the House about how President Trevor Mallard had treated National’s Paul Goldsmith, Bridges dated Goldsmith and on the way said “what an idiot” or just “an idiot” depending on what report you read.
National MP Simon Bridges.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Profanity is forbidden and that was very non-parliamentary, but Mallard didn’t seem to hear it, so nothing was done. Reporters and several MPs heard him.
Bridges apologized the next day for using non-parliamentary language, claiming he couldn’t remember exactly what he had said.
Relations between Mallard and National have been strained for some time, and there have been two failed attempts to file a motion of no confidence in the House.
*Peter Wilson is a life member of the Press Gallery of Parliament, 22 years as the political editor of NZPA and seven as head of the parliamentary office of NZ Newswire.
