Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.  Click here to subscribe to Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup and New Zealand Politics Daily.

Today’s content

Housing crisis
Reuters: ‘Explosion of wealth inequality’ as housing boom leaves many behind – economist
Dan Satherley (Newshub): Housing crisis: Price falls coming, but ‘nothing compared to’ how much they’ve risen – economists
Miriam Bell (Stuff): What will happen if house prices fall?
Tara Shaskey (Stuff): Poverty will cripple Māori if housing crisis is not addressed – iwi leader
Janine Starks (Stuff): What the comments section can tell you about rental power dynamics
1News: Shortage of building materials prompts warnings of another leaky home crisis
Miriam Bell (Stuff): Govt changes likely to drive investors to new properties
Jacqueline Paul (Spinoff): A Living Hell: Apartment Disasters exposes the dire state of housing in Aotearoa
Nona Pelletier (RNZ): House prices set to fall, bank losses to remain low – S&P Global Ratings
Ashley Church (One Roof): The hidden cost of the Government’s ‘war’ on landlords
RNZ: Housing shortage forces tenants to rent from bad landlords – advocate
RNZ: ‘We need a building ministry’: doco reveals high-rise horrors
Judi Keith-Brown (Stuff): It’s unjust and inaccurate to blame individuals for leaky buildings

Government subsidies for Amazon
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): National calls on Government to release full advice on Amazon deal
RNZ: Government questioned after $100 million boost for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings filming
RNZ: Otago hopes to reap benefits from Amazon’s Lord of the Rings filming: ‘You can’t not invest’
Newstalk ZB: Economist criticises Government signing new film subsidy deal with Amazon
1News: Government to give global giant Amazon over $100m boost for Lord of the Rings filming
RNZ: Government to give Amazon over $100 million boost for Lord of the Rings filming

Covid: Vaccinations programme and border
Jack Tame (Newstalk ZB): Border issues are utterly unacceptable
Derek Cheng (Herald): Labour’s indefensible, cynical behaviour leaves us all poorer (paywalled)
Michael Morrah (Newshub): Govt’s failure to analyse border worker testing data until two weeks ago ‘worrying, incompetent’ – Chris Bishop
Jason Walls: Border worker testing register – Government could have moved earlier, Hipkins admits
Jane Clifton (Listener/Herald): Vaccine resistance not the only festering mood (paywalled)
Adam Pearse (Herald): Rawiri Jansen: No Māori age priority in Covid-19 vaccine rollout a ‘complete failure’
Chris McDowall (Herald): Ministry of Health vaccine rollout chart ‘illustrative’ only (paywalled)
Peter Wilson (RNZ): The Week in Politics: Pandemic response under stress
Luke Malpass (Stuff): The trans-Tasman bubble that couldn’t come soon enough
Stuff: Trans-Tasman travel bubble: Australian and NZ PMs hail ‘world-leading’ deal
Richard Harman: Riding the border under the threat of xenophobia

Animal welfare (Live animal export ban; Greyhound review)
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Political Roundup – The Government’s historic ban on live animal exports
Jane Nixon (1News): ‘Two years is too long’ – SAFE asks Govt to make live export ban immediate, calls for air export ban
1News: Sunday investigates the recently banned live animal export industry
Mike Watson and Jane Matthews (Stuff): Live animal exports to continue at Port Taranaki until 2023
Kristin Hall (1News): Nearly 50 greyhound deaths not recorded in industry’s annual report, prompting calls for transparency
Herald: Racing: Government announces review into greyhound racing following welfare pleas and ‘recent incidents’
1News: Government ‘not satisfied’ with greyhound racing industry’s attempts to improve animal welfare
RNZ: Greyhound racing ban the only answer, say animal welfare advocates

Mental health crisis
Dougal Sutherland (The Conversation): Road to nowhere: New Zealanders struggle to get the help they need, 2 years on from a funding boost for mental health services
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Tertiary student mental health fund announced last year hasn’t spent a cent
RNZ: Grieving father sues health authorities over mental health rights
Lucy Xia (Stuff): Asian mental health neglected by government policies, charity says
Kendall Hutt (Stuff): More than 50% of transgender youth report struggling with mental health

Health
Ian Powell: Time to end health system’s headless chook leadership
Andrew Little (Stuff): Our health system is under stress – things must change
Don Brash: One more attempt to “fix” the healthcare system
Joel Maxwell (Stuff): Health Minister Andrew Little to reveal Māori health authority details
Dan Satherley (Newshub): More work to be done’ just ahead of Māori Health Authority announcement – Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare
Martin Van Beynen (Stuff): Time to smoke the cannabis referendum
RNZ: Drug use among older adults a ‘hidden epidemic’
Tess McClure (The Guardian): An end to cigarettes? New Zealand aims to create smoke-free generation
Damien Grant (Stuff): Meddling bureaucracy has decided it knows what’s best for us when it comes to smoking
Nicholas Jones (Herald): Pregnant women may have to pay for urgent doctor visits under plans for maternity shake-up (paywalled)

Media
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): The Government media bailout – who got what
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): The good, bad and awkward of the new public interest media fund
Karl du Fresne: Why we should be sceptical about Kris Faafoi’s grand broadcasting project
Mike O’Donnell (Stuff): Why future-proofing public media will be no easy feat
Stuff: Stuff partners with Substack on local newsletter experiment

Speech regulation
David Farrar: Labour wants to jail people for three years for speech that targets political opinion
Don Franks (Redline): Hate speech bad, hate economics acceptable
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Q+A Review: How the Free Speech issue will turbocharge ACT

National Party
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): The return of Simon Bridges (paywalled)
Dan Satherley (Newshub): Former National leader Simon Bridges insists he doesn’t want ‘worst job in New Zealand’ back
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): The 2 ways National can beat Labour in 2023

Government
Jacinta Gulasekharam (The Guardian): If Jacinda Ardern wants to end period poverty she needs to take some lessons from abroad
Steven Joyce (Herald): Labour drifting along on a road to nowhere (paywalled)
Monique Poirier (Kiwiblog): Promises, promises

Local Government
Alex Braae (Spinoff): Wellington’s nearly man on why he lost and the state of the council today
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington City Council review finds council in need of a circuit breaker
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Former National MP Maurice Williamson toying with a return to politics on Auckland Council (paywalled)
Jamie Gray (Herald): NZ councils’ infrastructure spend could erode credit ratings – S&P (paywalled)
Cherie Sivignon (Stuff): Word on the street indicates dam cost closer to $300m: McNamara
Denise Piper (Stuff): Northland farmers query proposed rate hike of 30 per cent: ‘How is this fair?’

Parliament
Audrey Young (Herald): Act’s David Seymour set to capitalise on National’s trouble (paywalled)
Stuff: Parliament’s desperately needed new building escapes politics
Vita Molyneux (Newshub): Judith Collins apologises to Nicola Willis on behalf of ‘sexist slug’ after distasteful period jab

Economy and work
Tina Morrison (Stuff): Companies should collaborate with China, not withdraw, academic says
Liam Dann (Herald): Time for big spending is over – now policy making gets tough (paywalled)
Jenée Tibshraeny (Interest): What’s behind sky-high electricity prices
Liu Chen (RNZ): Unite union’s ‘Hospo Help’ initiative seeks to educate workers about their rights
Brian Easton (Pundit): Will The 2021 Budget be focused on wellbeing?
Melanie Carroll (Stuff): Are minimum wage rises passed on to customers, as business groups claim?
Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Government was preparing to directly subsidise Rio Tinto’s transmission costs (paywalled)

Climate change
Alex Johnston (Stuff): Delay is the new climate denial — what the Government needs to do to step up our ambition
Matt Burrows (Newshub): Coastal erosion: The sea level rises putting thousands of New Zealand homes at risk – and how the Govt decides who foots the bill
No Right Turn: Climate Change: Admitting it
Catherine Harris (Stuff): Farewell to carbon: the clean fuels in NZ’s future
Jon Johansson (Stuff): Young climate strikers could do with a dash of doubt to go along with their commitment

Migrant separations
Denham Sadler (The Guardian): ‘Absolutely devastating’: how Australia’s deportation of New Zealanders is tearing families apart
Maxine Jacobs (Stuff): Immigrants desperate for action as no light shed on when families will be reunited
Catherine Harris (Stuff): Migrant worker ponders move to Australia to reunite family

Transport
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): It’s official – the Hamilton to Auckland train is a disaster
Paul Callister and Robert McLachlan (Newsroom): A night train could help break public sector’s addiction to air travel

Other
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Will gang shootings lead to arming of police?
Jason Walls (Herald): Government warned new anti-terror law may lead to disproportional surveillance (paywalled)
Phil Pennington (RNZ): State surveillance body cautions over police facial recognition technology
Andrew Geddis (Spinoff): The terrible story of Mrs P: Cruel injustice compounded by arbitrary, unkind response
Dan Satherley (Newshub): Whanau Ora Minister has no issue with National Urban Māori Authority donation to Māori Party
Holly Walker (Herald): Building a less lonely world (paywalled)
RNZ: The lasting, shameful legacy of the Dawn Raids
Te Rina Triponel (Herald): ‘Shameful stain on NZ history’: Polynesian Panthers push for dawn raids apology
Joel Maxwell (Stuff): ‘There will always be an Oranga Tamariki’: Sir Wira Gardiner on trust, the Treaty, and true partnership
Polly Gillespie (Stuff): I thought Covid would make us better people: I was wrong
Paul Conway (Stuff): How do we bridge the digital divide?
Michael Macaulay (The Conversation): Workplace whistleblowers deserve more protection than NZ’s new law will deliver
Maire Leadbeater (RNZ): Military exports to Indonesia strain NZ’s human rights record