Homeless in NZ

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#1828704 24-Jul-2017 21:18

The current government has bent over backwards to encourage the intensification of dairy farming*. How far from a vision of a high tech wealthy NZ can you get?

You can't just wave a few tax cuts and lower regulation to attract investment either - every country is doing that in a race to the bottom.

* Even going so far as sacking the democratically elected water management body of canterbury.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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mattwnz

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#1828706 24-Jul-2017 21:24

MikeB4:
We have seen an enquiry into the price of petrol I feel there should be an enquiry into the cost of just about everything to do with building, modifying or maintaining housing in NZ.

They seem to be a waste of time, based on the petrol one. What has or is going to be done about increasing competition or controlling the price.

elpenguino

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#1828708 24-Jul-2017 21:29

a large entity like fletcher who controls everything involved in building from the forest to the the timber yard to the electrical wholesaler needs to face real competition or be broken up.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

gzt

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#1828709 24-Jul-2017 21:31

networkn:
Geektastic:

Here's an article about what Singapore did. We can't copy them exactly for various reasons, but we really should be paying attention to what we CAN take from that and what we can add of our own. Otherwise we'll all be here in our old folks homes typing the very same arguments and discussions 25 years from now.

Right, sounds fantastic. The BIG difference between your examples and NZ

1) We are MUCH more spread out. We have 5m people across a much larger area. In Singapore you can get internet in the underground subway, here you are lucky if you can catch public transport.

2) Those countries are not socialist democracies. In those countries, the people at the top make plans, and everyone gets on with it. Here we have protesters marching over the bridge every time a twig gets snapped during construction, or people are made to work more than 39.999 hours a week. No-one is held responsible for a 400M road being blown out to $4B. In Singapore that kind of mistake would result in the execution of someone :)

One of his examples was Cambridge which is not a socialist democracy, but is broadly comparable to the kind of start up activity we have in Auckland, and similar to what is occuring in Christchurch and other university cities in NZ. I'd like to see us pull harder in medical research which does require a lot of training and education.

I agree with Geektastic it is strange that so much time is spent on the activities and challenges of farmers. It is an important and huge part of the economy, but I agree there is too much attention there.

The linked article emphasises the role of education in the success of Singapore. NZ could do a whole lot better in that area. It's almost as if we don't believe our people are capable of it.

Geektastic

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#1828710 24-Jul-2017 21:39

Entirely coincidentally, I just read this article in The Times. It is very much the kind of thing I would like to see here.

"A competition to boost British battery technology is to be announced today as part of a £246 million government investment.

Greg Clark, the business secretary, will launch the first phase of funding, worth £45 million, in a speech on industrial strategy in Birmingham.

The government will provide the investment for a series of competitions in the next four years, aiming to boost the research and development of expertise in battery technology.

The first part of the Faraday Challenge, named after the pioneering scientist, will be a competition led by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to bring the best minds together to create a Battery Institute.

Philip Nelson, chief executive of the research council, said that batteries would be key to a low carbon economy, including their use in cars, aircraft, consumer electronics and grid storage.

The announcement comes after a review by Sir Mark Walpole, commissioned as part of the industrial strategy green paper that recommended extra government funding in the area."

MikeB4

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#1828736 24-Jul-2017 22:11

There are growing mountains of shipping containers around the country, no one wants to pay for these to be shipped back empty and the shipping companies wont ship them. These could easily be turned into moveable "lego" houses that could be used to relieve housing shortages. There has been some amazing homes built with them.

Geektastic

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#1828745 24-Jul-2017 22:30

MikeB4:

There are growing mountains of shipping containers around the country, no one wants to pay for these to be shipped back empty and the shipping companies wont ship them. These could easily be turned into moveable "lego" houses that could be used to relieve housing shortages. There has been some amazing homes built with them.

And if you develop a patentable system for it, it would be tech we could licence all over the world. No shortage of shipping containers!

Government could (with reference to discussion above) incubate such an idea (or any other idea that looked good - imagine if NZ invented the next big thing in batteries or medicine), entering into an arrangement where the proceeds are shared in return for investment, with the income going into the Cullen Fund. Just one way of doing it differently.

MikeSkyrme

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#1828786 25-Jul-2017 08:00

networkn:

mattwnz:

MikeSkyrme:

mattwnz: I wonder how much spin the government are feeding us on this. They claim there are 10000 new jobs being created every month which is around 120000 a year. So this is why they have increased immigration. But that would also mean we need at least 60000 new houses every year just to cope with this growth. But nowhere near that number are being built. It appears we are importing workers to build houses for those imported workers. Doesn't sound very sustainable long term. I suspect the governmebts job numbers aren't that accurate as many may be just temporary.

Spin from the government.... surely not...?

After trawling through the Seek website, I can only assume they are maybe basing this number off the total number of job adds, even though there are multiple adds on Seek which are clearly referencing the same positions. The 10,000 jobs needing to be filled reference was purely and simply a reason for the govt to backtrack on their immigration 'solution' previously announced (another of the many knee-jerk announcements that have come from all political parties within the last month or so).

As already mentioned in previous posts, there is no quick fix to the homelessness issue, but it will not be resolved by being ignored by the government either - and make no mistake, the only body who are able to kick-off even the basic high level discussions that do need to be had are the government.

Also, I agree with your comment re. the imported workers being required to build the infrastructure that they are also placing additional demand on.

The PM has spouted the 10,000 new jobs a month line several times today. Once on newshub, the other here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJCNlvMZ5GM So obviously he is being told to use that line to justify the increased immigration.

But many of the housing figures they are quoting, such as 30,000 new houses from this fund, and 60,000 from another etc. Many will over a 10 year period. But they actually need those now to cope with the increase of new migrants.

Right, well just as well you said something, because without it, they would have taken 10 years to build. Now instead we will pull out a magic wand and make them appear instantly. :)

I'm lost on what your message is here tbh. No one has asked for a magic wand, but a lot of people have asked for the last decade that something be done about housing, John Key made a fairly well publicised speech in August 2007 about the state of NZ under the government of the time and campaigned on this issue, amongst many others.

If it was important, something would have been done then, and maybe we would not need a magic wand now surely?

Michael Skyrme - Instrumentation & Controls

frankv

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#1828816 25-Jul-2017 09:28

MikeSkyrme:

I'm lost on what your message is here tbh. No one has asked for a magic wand, but a lot of people have asked for the last decade that something be done about housing, John Key made a fairly well publicised speech in August 2007 about the state of NZ under the government of the time and campaigned on this issue, amongst many others.

If it was important, something would have been done then, and maybe we would not need a magic wand now surely?

If it was important, John Key would have done something about it in the years since 2007 when he was in Parliament and Prime Minister. So I guess it wasn't really important to him, and that speech was seen (correctly) as nothing but political grandstanding.

Fred99

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#1828839 25-Jul-2017 10:12

frankv:

MikeSkyrme:

I'm lost on what your message is here tbh. No one has asked for a magic wand, but a lot of people have asked for the last decade that something be done about housing, John Key made a fairly well publicised speech in August 2007 about the state of NZ under the government of the time and campaigned on this issue, amongst many others.

If it was important, something would have been done then, and maybe we would not need a magic wand now surely?

If it was important, John Key would have done something about it in the years since 2007 when he was in Parliament and Prime Minister. So I guess it wasn't really important to him, and that speech was seen (correctly) as nothing but political grandstanding.

John Key was smart - and a good salesman.

Under the circumstances (GFC) he did what he knew he'd be able to get away with - and the public loved it. This not intended to be criticism - and that "austerity" would have been better for the country than what he did. I do believe that he'd have fully understood the longer term consequences.

I don't doubt that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place - but it's also a little early for "hindsight". In a few years we'll be able to look back perhaps - and see whether his actions created or exacerbated an unsustainable "bubble" - or were appropriate actions to stave off some serious pain we'd have experienced if he hadn't gone that way.

SepticSceptic

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#1829029 25-Jul-2017 12:31

MikeB4:

There are growing mountains of shipping containers around the country, no one wants to pay for these to be shipped back empty and the shipping companies wont ship them. These could easily be turned into moveable "lego" houses that could be used to relieve housing shortages. There has been some amazing homes built with them.

You'd have to be quite careful that these containers are up to a habitable or even a convertible standard. Many have been used for hazardous goods transport. 2 or 3 use would be the max.

But I do agree overall - there are some awesome deigns and conversions - plenty of examples on Choice and HGTV channels, as well as youtube, etc

And then there is planning consent ... sigh.

How hard can it be - sink some poles into the ground, plonk the container on it, work upon it at your leisure ...

Fred99

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#1829055 25-Jul-2017 13:11

This kitset home assembled by a mate of mine in NSW a couple of years ago. IIRC cost was $120k, took 4 guys two days to assemble it to move in, I think only one of them was a tradie (plumber) - none had any building experience. Insulated weatherboard clad panels pre-made with framing and internal lining, window cutouts etc - it just bolted together. Two BR downstairs, large mezzanine BR upstairs, large living area.

mattwnz

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#1829057 25-Jul-2017 13:22

Fred99:
This kitset home assembled by a mate of mine in NSW a couple of years ago. IIRC cost was $120k, took 4 guys two days to assemble it to move in, I think only one of them was a tradie (plumber) - none had any building experience. Insulated weatherboard clad panels pre-made with framing and internal lining, window cutouts etc - it just bolted together. Two BR downstairs, large mezzanine BR upstairs, large living area.

One problem in nz is that the cost of labour is so high. These tradie companies are getting big dollars these days, in many cases far more than many people with uni degrees. Maybe this is partly due to a lack of supply, so any can charge what they want. But many will make a lot of extra money from the margins they make in materials, which will be on top of their hourly rate. Thenthey make get gifts from suppliers for buying a particular product, eg a trip to oz to see the rugby. personally I think all that should be disclosed, like it is now required with the financial market.

robjg63

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#1829065 25-Jul-2017 13:38

House building should really be a factory build operation. They are stupidly expensive because (apart from land costs) we cut and assemble everyting onsite by hand - every house is a bit different - very labour intensive and quite slow.

Cars only became truly affordable when they went big on production lines.

A modular factory build would/could drive down the prices. They have a few producers in Europe and they have shown some on Grand Designs - they looked pretty good too. I suppose it would be a matter of someone setting up such and operation and there being demand. That could be the problem.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

Fred99

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#1829066 25-Jul-2017 13:39

mattwnz:

One problem in nz is that the cost of labour is so high. These tradie companies are getting big dollars these days, in many cases far more than many people with uni degrees. Maybe this is partly due to a lack of supply, so any can charge what they want. But many will make a lot of extra money from the margins they make in materials, which will be on top of their hourly rate. Thenthey make get gifts from suppliers for buying a particular product, eg a trip to oz to see the rugby. personally I think all that should be disclosed, like it is now required with the financial market.

Oh dear. I don't agree with the suggestion you seem to be making that a licensed builder is "less qualified" in the workplace than many graduates.

They might make good money if they own a building business - with all the hassles that incurs (dealing with staff etc), but $65 / hour or so as a charge out rate for a tradesperson isn't much. If they're an employee (or contract labour) they're not making that as an hourly rates and also not creaming it on material margins.

Yet despite this opinion about the gold mine and rip-offs in the industry, building companies just keep losing money and going under.

If you talk to some builders and get their opinion, I suspect you'll get some confirmation about rip-off pricing in NZ for some materials, but the major gripe will be about costs for compliance -building consents, worksafe etc.

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