Labour's continuing low blows

Refurbishing rentals

I have no problem with requiring landlords to ensure that their rental properties are fit for purpose - including insulation and heating to ensure tenants wellbeing.

My problem is that private citizens are required to achieve this two years earlier than the State. NZ Housing has a large portfolio of state owned housing, but as a ratio to its total assets, it is likely to much less than most private investors. As such they should (at least) have to upgrade their properties within the same timeframe as individual invests - not twice as long. This is plain hypocrisy.

Capital Gains Tax

Sir Michael Cullin's tax working group has seemed to have forgotten that when an individual buyers a rental property, they do so using tax-paid money. The same is true for shares, and other investment. This "envy" Capital Gains Tax will mean that Government is double-dipping. It will discourage Kiwi families striving to get ahead. It is counter productive, and just another tax grab.

Global research shows that a Capital Gains Tax will not resolve the housing crisis. And the fact is that low income New Zealanders pay no tax anyway. This proposal is socialism at its worst.

Kiwisaver & other sharemarket investments

New Zealanders are very poor at saving money, and the biggest value in Kiwisaver is that it has got most NZers saving for their retirement. Now, along comes Capital Gains and there is even more dis-incentive. Shame on you, Jacinda (or should I say Taxcinda). This tax grab is ethically criminal. Shame on you. Shame.

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Tauranga Bus Contract a disaster

A personal view from a sitting Regional Councillor.

An NZTA requirement of co-funding is that Bus Contract be for 9 years. In early December a new contract was let with the winning tender coming from Infratil's NZ Bus. NZ Bus has previously run the bus services for both Auckland and Wellington Councils.

What a disaster it is proving to be, with a shortage of bus drivers, and inadequate training, being only part of the problem. The Hopper Bus Service has been in trouble for at least 5 years. Patronage was growing at around 20% per annum from 2005 to 2010 (incidentally the time when I chaired our public Transport Committee at BOP Regional Council), and since 2013 it seems to have been consistently dropping.

Returning to BOPRC in November 2016, I warned staff and Councillors that the Bus Blueprint for change was flawed. The problem is that I got minimal support around the Council table, and staff never recognised my views.

The long and the short of it is that we have failed many (but not all) in our community, and we have to urgently address any shortfalls. NZ Bus also may have breached their contract (but that is for management - BOPRC staff, not Governance) and that could possibly give us leverage to alter the contract without penalty. Let's hope so.

Either way we need to revisit routes and timetables, as well as a total review of our reduced school bus services. We need to be customer centric. This has been a systemic failure, and is unlikely to be an easy fix. Our Tauranga BOPRC Councillors have taken ownership of the problem, and we have to get it right. Tauranga City is getting totally gridlocked, and it is worse during the school term. That tells me that the quickest fix is likely to be to focus closely on our school bus services. As I said - be customer focused...

BITCOIN PRICE PREDICTIONS: WILL THE CRYPTOCURRENCY RECOVER IN 2019?

Bitcoin prices currently sit at US$3,800 per coin. Bitcoin investors have seen billions of dollars wiped off this cryptocurrency’s total value over the past year - but some are hoping for a recovery of fortunes in 2019. Its rise since 1st January 2017 (then US$836) has been spectacular, and reaching an all-time high of US$19,127 in December 2017. Bitcoin began 2018 with a value of around US$17,500 per coin. However, by April the cryptocurrency has plummeted to around $6,800 and then continued falling to hit a low of $3,200 in December.

Several factors have been blamed for last year’s slump, which saw the total value of all bitcoins sinking from US$327bn to US$66bn - taking bitcoin from the size from the size of Exxon Mobil to about the size of FedEx. These factors include the announcement in September that investment giant Goldman Sachs was axing plans to launch a cryptocurrency trading desk. A hard fork in the bitcoin network - where the digital token splits to form two new currencies - then triggered mass sell-offs in November, says Forbes.

However, while the cryptocurrency market is currently in a “bearish” state, meaning more declines are predicted, some experts believe the cryptocurrency is set to claw back some of the value lost in 2018.

Sonny Singh, commercial head of bitcoin payment service BitPay, said that he believes the digital currency may bounce back to around $20,000 by the end of the year. But Calvin Ayre, founder of bitcoin spin-off bitcoin cash, suggests the cryptocurrency may “plummet to zero in 2019”. That isn’t to say that the cryptocurrency market will collapse in 2019, but that bitcoin will be superseded by a superior alternative, adds David Thomas, a director at London-based cryptocurrency broker GlobalBlock.

There is very little clarity for the future of Bitcoin. However, given the current global uncertainty, it would be a high-risk strategy to invest more into Bitcoin than you can afford to lose.