I would like to congratulate Bay FM for taking up the challenge of providing community comment spots for local commentators. Clearly Newstalk ZB believes that Hawke’s Bay radio listeners will be happy with a constant diet of regurgitated guff from Auckland or elsewhere but I have always believed there is a place for local content on our radio waves.
Well done Bay FM.
And a happy New Year to you all. 2010 promises to be a year of slow but steady recovery from the economic ills that have plagued the world for the last couple of years.
When you look around the world, New Zealand has weathered the economic storm better then most. There are still some enormous hurdles to jump but unemployment seems to have peaked, investment markets are certainly improving and business confidence is climbing.
There are still some very clear problems in the economy. The hangover (in more ways than one) of commercial property from the finance company sector meltdown is affecting yields and prices in that market. Partly completed developments are a real problem because banks are reluctant to lend new owners the funds to complete these projects and some may never be completed.
Whilst every area is different, the Auckland domestic property sector is interesting. Top end properties in the $2m plus bracket are simply not moving.
Mid-priced properties are selling because people in that bracket generally have substantial equity. However, lower priced properties are struggling because the banks are now demanding greater deposits and people can simply not save 20% of the value of a property.
I am guessing that Hawke’s Bay is not too different.
Another feature of 2010 is that it is local body election year and if the past is any indication of the future, most people will not be the slightest bit interested. Aspiring local body politicians will pollute the environment with their ugly signs, they’ll troop from poorly attended campaign meeting to poorly attended campaign meeting and eventually, some will be elected by the very few, who bother to vote.
For some reason, local body politics simply does not create the interest in the community that central politics does and yet, if there is one political level that citizens can have a direct influence over, it is local body politics.
Despite that, most of the people who tend to get involved in the process, apart from the aspiring politicians themselves, are single issue nutters who are not prepared to see the bigger picture.
Sad really but that is the way it is.
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