Daily News Roundup – 25 March 2021

Housing: Rental market
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Forget first-home buyers, the metric of success in the housing crisis is rental prices
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): New Zealanders react after Finance Minister Grant Robertson says tenants will ‘go looking elsewhere’ if landlords hike rents
Rachel Sadler (Newshub): Housing crisis: Social media users attack Jacinda Ardern over Government’s new housing plans
RNZ: Housing package opens door to investor angst, renter despondency
Madison Reidy (Newshub): Housing crisis: Landlords’ warning to increase rents not an empty threat – economists
Anne Gibson (Herald): Government housing changes: 12-house landlord reveals plan to defeat state, avoid extra tax (paywalled)
Kate Hawkesby (Newstalk ZB): The housing announcement will not help renters
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Judith Collins says rents will rise thanks to Government housing package
The Civilian: Landlords threaten to install uneven stairs, put light switches in awkward places if bright-line test is extended

Housing: Govt announcement
Shamubeel Eaqub (RNZ): Housing policies: Tilting towards supply, away from landed gentry
Stephen Forbes (Stuff): Salvation Army questions Government’s new housing package
Dita De Boni (NBR): Housing package doesn’t address irrationality underlying real estate market (paywalled)
Greg Ninness (Interest): Government’s new housing policies should bring hope to first home buyers
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Will the Government’s housing policy work?
RNZ: Labour hopes changes bring stability to housing market, Ardern says ‘we’ll see’ if prices fall
Daniel Dunkley (Stuff): Govt reforms put investors and first-home buyers on collision course
Michael Reddell: Messing around with housing
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Housing package likely makes it harder for first-home buyers
Steven Cowan: Housing: Labour tinkers with a failed system
Mark Quinlivan and Mel Logan (Newshub): Government housing policy appears to have been made ‘on the fly’ – political scientist Bryce Edwards
Adam Jacobson (RNZ): Housing Acceleration Fund welcomed but industry questions if it is enough to fix crisis
1News: First home buyers: What you can buy around the country under the new First Home Loan price caps

Housing: Tax deductibility changes
Hamish Rutherford (Herald): ‘Will my sector be next?’ – BusinessNZ slams Government’s move on interest deductibility (paywalled)
Jason Walls (Herald): Housing package interest policy: Economist questions Treasury’s lack of advice due to ‘time constraints
Priscilla Dickinson (Newshub): Not ‘money-hungry fat cats’: Landlord takes exception to Government reference to interest deduction ‘loophole’
Tamsyn Parker (Herald): Investment property interest write-off change prompts lending rethink by ANZ

Housing: Ten-year bright line test extension
Claire Trevett (Herald): Will housing be PM Jacinda Ardern’s political capital gains tax risk? (paywalled)
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Brightline test reform ‘worse than doing nothing’: Treasury (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): How much tax has come from the bright-line test? Inland Revenue doesn’t know
Henry Cooke (Stuff): How the Government is changing rules for renting out your ‘main home’ and the bright-line test

Housing: General
Brendon Blue (Democracy Project): Non-homeowners are paying the cost of the Covid recovery
Sam Kelway (1News): Government must ‘build houses now’, ?p?tiki mayor pleads amid housing crisis
Rebecca Moore (1News): Property commentator Ashley Church predicts house prices will double in next six years
Stuart Smith; Arena Williams (Stuff): If we are to solve the housing problem we need more houses – not a capital gains tax

Health
Audrey Young (Herald): Health system under serious stress, major reform coming, Andrew Little says
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Government set to urgently restructure stressed and unequal health system
Richard Harman: The big health overhaul picks up pace
Hannah Martin (Stuff): How coronavirus and lockdown impacted New Zealand’s health system
Hamish MacLean (ODT): Code black at Dunedin Hospital: ‘Avoid ED if possible’

Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard
Barry Soper (Herald): Jacinda Ardern seems to have a ‘la la la’ moment when it comes to Trevor Mallard
Yvette McCullough (RNZ): National calls on PM to back no confidence vote on Mallard
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Judith Collins renews call for Trevor Mallard’s head in letter to Jacinda Ardern
Herald: National, Collins step up campaign against Speaker Trevor Mallard
Newstalk ZB: Judith Collins renews calls for removal of Trevor Mallard as Speaker

Parliament and Government
Audrey Young (Herald): Former Air NZ boss Christopher Luxon explains his Christian faith in maiden speech
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Ex-Air NZ CEO Christopher Luxon gives maiden speech to Parliament, defends his Christianity
RNZ: MP Chris Luxon tells Parliament his religious views not extreme
Stuff: Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds delivers maiden speech
Derek Cheng (Herald): Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds tells Wellington to get out of the way
Herald: National MPs Nicola Grigg and Simon Watts deliver maiden speeches

Security Intelligence Service
Tova O’Brien (Newshub): NZSIS boss Rebecca Kitteridge can’t promise spies are looking in right places, picking up obvious far-right threats
Jane Patterson (RNZ): Andrew Little defends SIS, criticises media coverage
RNZ: SIS expansion of data mining powers not off the cards – Andrew Little
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Spies increasingly investigating ‘white identity extremism’, including organised extremist groups
Derek Cheng (Herald): Spy agency’s shift to far-right white nationalist threat – but SIS won’t say how far balance has swung
Rebecca Moore (1News): Threat of young people, mainly men, joining extremist groups ‘very real’, security expert says
Zane Small (Newshub): NZSIS top spy Rebecca Kitteridge tells group of powerful MPs there’s ‘no doubt’ white supremacy is on the rise

Economy and work
RNZ: More than a third of people living pay day to pay day – study
Herald: Westpac Bank considers selling New Zealand business, cites RBNZ pressure
Mike Hosking (Herald): Has the Government sabotaged our economy? (paywalled)
Sarah Robson (RNZ): Covid-19 employment hardship: Where does New Zealand stand a year on?
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Power bills start to climb as wholesale prices surge

Local government
RNZ: Otago Regional Council ponders general rates rise of 73%
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Secret planning under way for second Auckland Harbour Bridge (paywalled)
Joel MacManus (Stuff): Seventeen years have passed, but Let’s Get Wellington Moving plan hasn’t budged
Brittany Keogh (Stuff): Some Hutt City councillors face $6500 pay cut, in a move labelled as seeming ‘petty’
RNZ: Three Christchurch City Council redundancies cost ratepayers $316,000
Tina Law (Stuff): Canterbury’s civic leaders call for Government to slow down its water reforms

Racism; Police
Qiuyi Tan (Herald): Racism prevalent in New Zealand, says Human Rights Commission
Newstalk ZB: Meng Foon criticised by both political parties for calling police racist
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (Herald): A greater Maori TV presence? We’re not talking Police Ten 7 (paywalled)
Darroch Ball (Kiwiblog): Police are not racist, they are just doing their job

Covid
Colleen Hawkes (Stuff): A year since the first lockdown, how the pandemic has changed how and where we live
Herald: One year on from New Zealand’s unprecedented move into full lockdown
Stuff: Editorial – The toil and trouble of the trans-Tasman bubble

Other
Stephen Hoadley (The Guardian): No matter how disagreeable Australia is, New Zealand may just have to accept it
Jason Walls (Herald): 2021 Budget date revealed: Finance Minister Grant Robertson unveils the big date to MPs