u/Paintap

Even if they don't change the people in government, they will definitely change the government. They will pull the right-wing coalition further left. And they will pull any left-wing coalition further right. Exactly as advertised.

Not much good can come from swinging left when a swing back to the right can quickly undo all the progress made. Kiwimart becomes nothing but a massive waste of money when it gets sold back to private investors three years later. Creating long-term policy that stops the back and forth of wasted ideas requires compromising and getting wider consensus than we do currently.

Sad seeing so much money poured into useless, divisive advertising.

Where are the previous-voter stats from? Not saying they are wrong, I've just been curious to look into it more. The only time I remember seeing decent stats on it was when that previous-voter pie chart was floating around a couple months ago.

I feel like the only posts I ever see in my feed from nzpolitics now is just Mountain Tui complaining about how popular Opp is getting. And of course, its never talking about policy, each week its some new tinfoil hat idea about how they're all an evil facade. Lol.

May you share your crystal ball with me?

Unfortunately it looks like it now requires a paid account to use it. I did some fiddling around to access it, and under typical NZ conditions it seems buying easily outpaces renting. For my chch situation at least, it saves 85k in the first 10 years.

My tip for anyone using such a calculator is that it is important to remember that "How long you plan to own" does not reflect owning any individual house, but how long you plan to own a home in general.

If you sell your house and move to an equivalent property, then minus the sale and moving fees you are financially in the same boat as if you were still owning the same house. This could be 20k-30k or more, depending on how you go about it and your home value. Significant, but still allows for moving house a couple times in my 10 year example before it eats away at the benefits.

If you sell your house and upgrade to a nicer property, your costs will increase, but they increase just the same if you decided to rent a nicer property.

Most people don't plan on owning for 5 years then going back to permanently renting afterwards, so I would argue many people should be cranking the "How long will you stay?" slider way up. Don't view it as "How long do you want to never move house?", because mathematically its not asking that. Its asking how long you will be in the equivalent financial position of maintaining home ownership, minus sale and moving costs.

One thing Kiwis often do, rather than move house and face the costs of selling, is when they upgrade to a nicer house they keep the first one to use as an investment property. The finances behind that are a bit more complex and situational. Personally, not for me, ceebs being a landlord.

Awesome! Sounds like you two have set yourself up very well, especially paying off the mortgage so early. Being in Auckland I can only imagine how much work that would have been! Congratulations.

Thanks! After writing "Income" for the first section, it made sense to use "Outcome" even though its not linguistically common. I liked the symmetry and you're right that it does feel apt.

I think this is CGI mostly

Electrician here. I would be very, very careful with your next steps. The regulations around electrical products are very long and very comprehensive. Even just AS/NZS 5139 has many rules around how batteries must be secured, where they must be located, and how they are allowed to be connected.

If you are only relying on the suppliers websites stating they are compliant, then it's almost a guarantee they have never been tested for compliance in NZ and do not comply. Even if they were compliant to import, that does not me you are installing them in a compliant manner: many more standards relate to the installation, which neither you nor the manufacturers have checked.

You need to consult a real lawyer and testing specialist before proceeding with any installs. It will be much, much cheaper than the (non-frivolous) fines and lawsuits that will ensue otherwise.

Do not use AI: it is not yet capable of this level of niche technical and legal detail. Regardless, most AS/NZS standards are behind a heavy paywall for the general public to ensure non-technical people do not read them and misinterpret their technical language.

It is a possible that you will be able to work within the standards for this type of product. By checking, you will know exactly which limits exist and how to operate within them effectively to make the best, most competitive product. By not checking, the small amount of profit you do make will be dwarfed by the fines. You won't get a second chance to do it properly.

It seems your entire argument against an LVT is that some people who suck like it. I don't think that is a good basis for determining the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of government policy. The same policy is also supported by tens of thousands of community-minded, environmentally conscious, ambitious New Zealanders. To me, that's much more important than one evil billionaire who would scoff at the rest of Opportunities policies.

Use LVT to drive positive economic incentives and provide revenue collection when. Where it leaves gaps, apply additional tax policy (CG, Wealth, Income, etc) to create a healthy, fair balance. Simple as that.

Keep in mind that the tech millionaire donor you are so worried about worked in the ominous sector of... DJ software, lol. Just about the chillest, most down-to-earth sort of tech nerd you could find. Compared to the millionaires who run Nats and Act, a breath of fresh air.

I am ultimately not surprised that some startupy, techy people are interested in Opportunity. For people who are entrepreneurial and not selfish assholes, there's no alternative party for the people who think the NZ economy should be able to support itself without relying on exploiting animals as we sent all our smartest graduates overseas.

Yup, the board is listed on their website:

https://www.opportunity.org.nz/opportunity-board

Advisor for the Wellington Council, project manager at a hospital, lawyer who works in patent law, rural Taranaki event planner, founder of a DJ software company.

Pretty diverse and normal bunch of people.

Their sums rely on an estimated land depreciation of 10-15%. The downward pressure of the LVT is baked into the policy.

How did you come to have this opinion? I've been following TOP for many years now, they seem to me the most grass roots of any major party.

So cool! Such a quiet, pretty street.

Those increased mortgage rates may flow down to rents. Once you've locked in a mortgage, your expenditure for housing is largely flat, while rents increase over time with inflation.

Additionally, rates may have just gone up slightly, but they are still much lower than one year ago. I don't think these rate increases will cause downward pressure on house prices, though they may dampen the upward pressure slightly.

Besides the financial side, and trying to "time the market", the psychological benefits of owning are great. I'd only recommend continuing to rent if you aren't feeling ready to settle down in one city and want the freedom to move location and job readily.

That's 5.2k per year, which will get you an amazing trip to SE Asia. And that's just from $100 per week. OP has $600 to play with! That's fantastic, she's killing it.

Hence why cost of living may vary, of course! If we look at the numbers, Auckland is just shy of 7% more expensive than Christchurch when excluding housing (which is already excluded from our comparison). If we apply that to my figure, that means OP would have ~$370 of disposable income after mortgage, food, etc. That’s still over $19k a year! For travel, clothes, new phone, brunch? That would be more than enough for me.

I got my numbers from Numbio. Below is the comparison if you’re interested:

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=New+Zealand&city1=Christchurch&country2=New+Zealand&city2=Auckland

I’m in Christchurch so cost of living will vary a bit. Excluding mortgage repayments (~190k ~5%), my weekly expenses are about $260 per week. Rates, insurance, maintenance covered by 2 boarders (friends) paying below market rate. To get to OPs $650, that goes $390 of discretionary spending for travel, new clothes, etc. Very doable! That’s $20k a year!

If OP got flatmates that would greatly increase their disposable income! But living alone is worth that cost sometimes.

The government is a very big organization... the ones with employment contracts are probably very happy to have more dividends to reinvest. The members of government who have to face reelection... I'm sure it dampens their armpits a wee bit

Actually in Chch we are somewhat lucky. Most of our infrastructure is state owned and depending on which retailer you are with your retailer can be mostly state owned aswell.

Transpower, who own the national grid, are fully state-owned by the central government. They get electricity from the power stations to Canterbury. All profits are returned to the central government as dividends.

Orion, who own all of our local electrical distribution infrastructure, is owned 90% by the Christchurch Council and 10% by Selwyn District Council. Profits are returned to the Councils and help fund local projects and keep rates lower.

Meridian, Mercury, and Genesis are all 51% state owned. Dividends are split, so only 51% of gentailer dividends go to the government.

This means if you are with a mixed-ownership retailer, the vast majority of profits from your power bill will be going to the government. This is excluding all of the various taxes baked in, like GST and corporate tax on the various organisations. To keep it this way, make sure to pay close attention in local elections and fight hard against any privatisation efforts put forward by the Council.

Wellington Council sold off their electrical infrastructure in the past... very sad.

The person you replied to is saying that immigration increases demand for goods and services so much that it outweighs the jobs they take. To reply to your first line specifically, they are saying the the large increase in the supply of labour is offset by a large increase in the demand of labour. They are supporting this with an unverified claim that "every popular school of economics agrees that immigration has this net positive effect". I have not studied economics, so I might look online for some good reading on this topic. I encourage you to do the same, and if I see anything interesting I will add another reply to share to share it with you. Personally, before having done any research, it does make sense to me that immigration would create a net increase in demand for jobs (especially high-value ones), but it would be very context dependent and more efficient when done through documented legal means (ie, low barriers and high quotas for legal immigration to discourage illegal/undocumented immigration).

If you do more reading on this topic as well make sure to let me know some good sources!

*edit for grammar/proofreading

Woohoo! Thank you!