Latest: Shore council reschedules works to cut rate rise, Environment chief heads to nursery, tax review details on view.
24 June 2001
Transport Minister Mark Gosche and Minister for Auckland Judith Tizard turned the first sods on Friday on the $20 million Puhinui interchange which will link Auckland’s Southern Motorway and State Highway 20, the South-western Motorway. Completion is scheduled for May 2003.
Transfund will increase its spending on roads and passenger transport services by $10 million, taking its total spending this year to $950 million. Transport Minister Mark Gosche said $189 million of this would be spent on roading and passenger services in the Auckland region, up 10.4% ($18 million) on last year, and the patronage funding system (supporting regional councils which increased passenger numbers) had increased passenger transport funding 17% to $61 million. Projects for the year include the Grafton Gully motorway link to the port, a South-western Motorway flyover at Puhinui and design funding for Spaghetti Junction improvements.
Auckland Regional Council chairman Phil Warren said the annual national roading programme lacked any significant new road construction spending for the region. “Most of the activity in the Auckland region appears to be on investigation and design, with precious little funds committed to construction,” Mr Warren said. “We seem to take forever to work through funding and consent approvals and are not able to get these processes streamlined.” He said a shift in the benefit-cost ratio from 3.0 to 4.0 meant less money would be spent on transport.
The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research’s June consensus forecasts, an average of 14 institutional economists’ picks, show an expectation of a cut in real gdp growth from 2.6% to 2.4% for the March 2001 year, mainly because of a cut in export growth from 8.1% to 5.5%. The actual figure is due out next Friday. For the next year, the basket of economists has forecast a growth cut from 2.9% to 2.7%, based on a slower export rise of 4%, compared to 5.4% in their previous forecast. The basket picks 0.7% inflation for the June quarter, making 2.9% for the March 2002 year, but expects inflationary pressure to ease for a 2.3% annual rate, still higher than the previous forecast of 2%. Details: http://www.nzier.org.nz/.
North Shore City Council has rescheduled some capital works projects, helping to cut the rates rise from the originally proposed 7.16% to 4.95%. Mayor George Wood said the $287 million budget, including $121 million of capital works, would maintain the council’s focus on upgrading infrastructure. That includes $40 million on sewerage and wastewater-related projects. The council increased its grant to Enterprise North Shore by $200,000 to $625,000 and budgeted another $150,000 for economic development initiatives.
21 June 2001
Ministry for the Environment chief executive Denise Church has resigned after five years in the job and will leave in August to look after her two-year-old daughter. She will remain on the board of Landcare, a Crown research institute providing research and services in the sustainable management of land, an appointment made this week.
20: The Tax Review team released its issues paper on Wednesday, throwing up the possibility of taxing housing equity as the most controversial subject. The paper will form the basis of a second round of public submissions which will close on 1 August. The entire issues paper is available in Adobe PDF format, and the executive summary available in both PDF and HTML (text) formats. Click here to see the paper: Tax Review issues paper. The section on taxing housing equity is in chapter 2, tax bases, and runs from section 46 on page 32 to section 67 on page 37. Immediately preceding it is a segment on the risk-free return method (RFRM), on which the notion of taxing housing is based. That runs from section 38 on page 30.