NZ Economy —if you’re not Treasury

Either an interest rate hike or rising unemployment, together with falling migration, would spell “the end of the party”….
Due to the Reserve Bank putting restrictions on lending and other measures, the underlying economy was in good shape to withstand “a shock”. –Dominick Stephens, Westpac Chief Economist

### radionz.co.nz Fri, 10 June 2016
Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan
The risks of rising household debt
9:08 AM. NZ household debt has reached half a trillion dollars. That’s $100,000 of housing and personal debt for every man, woman and child. Nine to Noon speaks to Westpac Chief Economist, Dominick Stephens and Massey University’s Dr Jeff Stangl about the risks that poses to the economy. Link
Audio | Download: Ogg MP3 (30′19″)

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### radionz.co.nz Sat, 11 Jun 2016 at 12:15 pm
RNZ News
Tough times coming as debt soars, warns economist
Record high household debt levels are not sustainable, warns a leading bank economist. At half a trillion dollars, housing and personal debt has hit 162 percent of the average household’s annual disposable income – higher than levels before the global financial crisis.
Westpac Chief Economist Dominick Stephens told Nine to Noon the decline in dairy prices was hurting the regions, but the downturn following the end of the Canterbury rebuild would be more severe than most people were prepared for. The rebuild played a huge role in the “rock star economy” between 2012 and 2014, with the international reinsurance industry dropping $20 billion on New Zealand and the government pumping in another $10b. As that money dried up, some business owners could find their businesses were not as robust as they thought, Mr Stephens said. What was less certain was when the “borrow and spend” dynamic – fed by skyrocketing houseprices – would come to an end.
Read more

Harry’s View 19 Jan 2016 [scmp.com]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Queen’s Birthday honours to rogues #TTCF #ORFU #PokieRorts

### Stuff.co.nz
Last updated 15:04, June 1 2015
Weekes triplets grandfather awarded Queen’s Service Medal for service to community
A Wellington community stalwart, who lost three grandchildren in the Qatar mall fire, has been recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Rod Turner received the Queen’s Service Medal for service to the community, including a long career in the Army and dozens of volunteer organisations. The honour recognised “his leadership and selfless dedication to the community”. Turner spent 22 year in the military, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, before retiring and spending nine years as chief executive of the Children’s Health Camps.
Read more

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The piece of skirt responsible for funding irregularities* around the Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport [for Professional RUGBY] has claimed a QB Honour. Paperwork showing this fraud is held independently.

ODT: Queen’s Birthday Honours 2015
Members MNZM
Kereyn Maree Smith, Auckland, services to sports governance.

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More at this ODT Link

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● The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF Inc) ● The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd (TTCF Ltd) ● Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) ● Professional Rugby ● Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport ● Harness Racing ● Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) ● Gambling Commission ● Pokies ● Rorts ● Organised Crime ● Serious Fraud ● Political Interference

RECEIVED COMMENTARY
Tue, 2 Jun 2015 at 7:45 p.m.

Awards all round for those associated with gambling, pokies, serious audit failings and the negative findings of the NZ Gambling Commission.

Sad as the circumstances are for Ron Turner, he was a TTCF Trustee who approved grants to the Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport in the hope of gaining ORFU’s pokie business after the ORFU had purchased the South Auckland Jokers Bars for about $3 million and so were desperate to align themselves with a pokie trust that would agree to illegally approve all the profits from those bars back to the interests of the ORFU.

The DIA investigated these arrangements and deemed that ORFU had an interest/ownership in the bars and therefore could not receive any proceeds from those bars. Facing potential financial disaster it would appear Kereyn Smith and other cronies associated with the ORFU agreed to front a new trust to counter DIA action.

Ex employees of ORFU, have confirmed that their contracts and pay were suddenly transferred over from the ORFU to the Centre of Excellence. The COE trustees then submitted grant applications to TTCF applying for salaries and costs that had previously been with the ORFU and avoided DIA scrutiny.

According to sources and documents, the very first grant of $500k from TTCF was needed and used for ORFU to meet its financial obligations to complete the purchase of the Jokers Bars and Ms Smith signature appears as sign off for the accountability.

There are serious anomalies which required proper investigation but as we know neither the DIA, the Police, the SFO or this Government are interested in proper investigations. Far easier to hold an award ceremony!!

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Another TTCF trustee, Warren Flaunty, NZ’s most elected man, was convicted of careless driving after causing the death of a young motor cyclist in West Auckland in 2010.

█ For more, enter the terms *pokies*, *pokie rorts*, *ttcf*, *orfu*, *dia* or *kereyn* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Auckland Council report on pokie grant distribution

### NZ Herald Online 5:51 PM Monday Aug 11, 2014
Poor losing out on pokie cash
By David Fisher
Money tipped into pokie machines in the poorest parts of Auckland doesn’t come back to those communities in gaming grants, new data shows. In contrast, the wealthiest areas gamble far less but take a disproportionate amount of money out of other areas. This has been greeted as proof of a long-stated but never-proven claim about pokies – that the poor get poorer but the rich get richer. The Auckland Council research is behind a challenge to government plans to ringfence 80 per cent of pokie grant distribution inside large regional areas. Instead, it wants a special system for distributing pokie grants inside Auckland which will allow the poorest areas to benefit from money gambled locally. […] Overall, the study found all of Auckland missed out to the benefit of the rest of New Zealand. The $214.6 million put into pokie machines would have made $61.6 million available for grants, on industry averages after expenses were taken out. Auckland got $35.2 million.
Read more

● David Fisher is a senior reporter for the NZ Herald.

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Auckland Council Regional Strategy and Policy Committee
07 August 2014

Gambling Working Party – new regulations for the distribution of class 4 (pokie) gambling grants to communities

File No.: CP2014/14759

Purpose
1. To report back on a gambling working party’s deliberations regarding new government regulations to control the distribution of grants from class 4 (commonly known as “pokie”) gambling, and present recommendations based on feedback from the working party.

Executive summary
2. The Minister of Internal Affairs has recently acquired the power to make new regulations specifying the amount of class 4 grants money that must be returned to the area from which it came, and to set out how areas will be identified and defined for that purpose
3. The Minister recently announced that regional council areas will be used as the areas into which grants must be distributed, and the rate of return to those areas will be 80%. New regulations implementing that decision are expected to be issued later this year.
4. A gambling working party, established by minute REG/2013/10, has reviewed information regarding class 4 gaming machine proceeds in Auckland, and the current rate of return of class 4 grant money by local board area.
5. The new regulations could increase the amount of grant money flowing to community and sport groups in Auckland as a whole, but there are significant inequities in the distribution of class 4 grants within the region that the Minister’s proposal would not overcome.
6. The working party has developed a proposal which would address those inequities by defining areas, within Auckland, for the return of class 4 gambling grants.

Recommendation/s
That the Regional Strategy and Policy Committee:
a) endorse the working party’s proposal to define areas within Auckland, as presented in the appended map, whereby a proportion of grants derived from the proceeds of class 4 gambling in those areas would be returned to them
b) endorse the option of advocating for a 90 percent return of grant money to the defined areas, instead of the 80 percent currently proposed by the Minister of Internal Affairs
c) endorse the option of advocating for a different rate of return to the area identified as CGI on the map (comprising the City Centre and Gulf Islands), of either 40 percent or 45 percent
d) delegate to the chair of the Regional Strategy and Policy Committee to write to the Minister of Internal Affairs advocating that the proposed regulations be amended in accordance with the committee’s response to recommendations (a) to (c) above
e) note that the grants data for Auckland will be published on a web portal
f) note that the findings of the working party will be reported to local boards.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Minister of Finance Bill English on Dunedin governance #Regions #Cull

Received from Anonymous
Wed, 23 Jul 2014 at 6:29 p.m. and 7:02 p.m.

Message: Watched a few moments of Question Time from Parliament today and in response to a question on regional development Minister of Finance Bill English said (citing the most recent ANZ survey) “the top two areas for business confidence are Otago despite the complaints of their civic leadership, and the Waikato”. Have a look from about 3’20” of this clip. Great stuff.

Bound to receive not a word of reportage from the ODT.

A really big dig at Cull.

In The House – Question Time
Topic: Growing Gaps among Regions
23/07/14 23.07.14 – Question 4: Hon David Parker to the Minister of Finance
Does he agree that there are growing gaps among the regions of New Zealand, making the economy and society increasingly unbalanced; if not, why not?
Url: http://www.inthehouse.co.nz/video/34086

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Fall Down Otago —The Summit (gasp!)

ON THE AGENDA

• Regional decline wider than Dunedin issue.

• No government hand-outs wanted.

• Working cohesively with the government of the day a priority.

• Report from summit presented to AgResearch and Government.

WHO IS ATTENDING
All dead trout, some ‘performed’ the [DCC] Economic Development Strategy

Representatives from Central Otago, Clutha, Gore, Invercargill, Waitaki and Dunedin local authorities, Otago Regional Council, Environment Southland, Federated Farmers, Clutha Development Board, Council of Social Services, Ministry of Social Development, Ngai Tahu, Otago Chamber of Commerce, Otago Polytechnic, Otago Polytechnic Students’ Association, Otago-Southland Employers Association, the Otago Daily Times, the University of Otago, Otago University Students’ Association, local MPs, unions and Venture Southland.

ODT Link

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: environmentalgeography.wordpress.com – dead trout

Landscape urbanism + ‘larger infrastructure of the territory of our cities and towns’

“Landscape is doing some serious environmental heavy lifting.”
–Adriaan Geuze, West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture

### architectmagazine.com October 6, 2010
Source: ARCHITECT October 2010
Urban Design
Systems, Not Icons: The unstoppable rise of landscape urbanism
By John Gendall
Not long ago, landscape architects were often dismissed as the consultants who put finishing touches on a building site—the broccoli around a steak. But with landscape architects increasingly taking lead positions on large-scale projects, winning urban design competitions around the world, and expanding the design market share, broccoli, clearly, is a thing of the past.
In many ways, the bellwether for these changes was James Corner’s career arc. As a young designer in Richard Rogers’ office, he grew frustrated by a lack of collaboration between disciplines on the postindustrial London Docklands project. Setting out on his own, he founded Field Operations, which has transformed itself from a boutique landscape practice turning out small projects and academic essays into a significant urban design firm with high-profile projects around the world. The critical step in that transition was when Corner won the competition to turn Freshkills, a huge former landfill in New York City, into a public park.
Underscoring this trend, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is in the midst of expanding its landscape faculty by six professorships over two years, and its landscape student body by 50 percent. And landscape architecture’s academic expansion holds up with the most tried-and-true indicator: It’s following the money. Large corporate architecture firms are ramping up their urban design and landscape divisions, as AECOM notably did in 2005 when it acquired EDAW, then among the world’s largest landscape firms.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr