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: Rental market
Stuff: Editorial – Renters could be ‘lost generation’ in New Zealand’s housing crisis
1News: ‘I want them to have a future’ – Concerns renters have been overlooked in housing package
1News: Megan Woods challenged by John Campbell on consideration given to renters in housing package
1News: Rents will increase, regardless of Government’s housing package — senior economist
Jenny Ruth (BusinessDesk): Predictions of falling house prices, rising rents and homelessness (paywalled)
RNZ: Housing: Landlords are still raising rents despite best financial circumstances – Swarbrick
Rupert Gough (Stuff): The numbers that could kill off a rental property
Ben Leahy (Herald): Housing shake up: all eyes on South Auckland to see if investors exit market (paywalled)
Justin Latif (Spinoff): Housing reforms could end up hurting South Auckland families, expert warns
Simon Angelo (Wealth Morning): Help! They just made housing uninvestable
Jean Bell (RNZ): Housing policies ‘leaving Bay of Plenty first-home buyers out in the cold’

Housing: Government announcement
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Kiwis need 120 percent pay rise for current house prices to be ‘affordable’, according to analysis
David Hargreaves (Interest): ‘A full attack on house prices is now under way’
ODT: Editorial – Housing ‘levers’ and crossed fingers
Brian Fallow (Herald): Shooting the property investors’ sacred cow (paywalled)
Anna Rawhiti-Connell (RNZ): Doomscrolling the housing crisis: Soap opera, fairy tale or horrorscope?
Daria Kuprienko (One Roof): The mood in the auction rooms: ‘They are putting the knife into New Zealanders’
Brent Edwards (NBR): Will Labour’s moves actually make a difference to housing crisis? (paywalled)
Mat Brown (Stuff): How the new housing policy could affect the homes we design
RNZ: We tried to find an Auckland home for less than $625,000

Housing: Tax deductibility changes
Bob Jones: Rental housing
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Investors might pay 30 per cent less for properties after deductibility changes, says ASB economist
Bryce Wilkinson (Herald): Why the Government’s housing policy is shambolic (paywalled)
Anne Gibson (Herald): Government housing changes: British tax overhaul ‘nowhere near as severe as here’ (paywalled)
Brent Melville and Andy Fyers (BusinessDesk): How the housing package will tank property investors’ returns (paywalled)
Zane Small (Newshub): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has no regrets moving against property investor ‘tax loophole’
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Property investors petition for reversal of rule changes

Housing: Ten-year bright line test extension
Peter Dunne: The Government’s Orwellian broken promise on tax
Jenée Tibshraeny (Interest): Will bright-line test compliance improve from dismal levels?
Anne Gibson (Herald): Government housing changes: Inland Revenue reveals 33,020 rental sales ‘potentially taxable’ (paywalled)

Health
Tess Brunton (RNZ): New Zealand hospitals in crisis after ‘biggest January, February on record’
1News: ‘It’s a crisis’ – Overwhelmed ED staff in hospitals often in tears, experts say
Stephen Forbes (Stuff): Middlemore Hospital’s ED capacity at ‘dangerous level’ – health worker
RNZ: Health Minister answers questions as hospitals hit capacity
Ian Powell: If it looks like data cleansing, barks like data cleansing, smells like data cleansing then it’s data cleansing
Newstalk ZB: Health commentator pleased DHB mergers appear to be off the table
Sally Murphy (RNZ): DHBs’ dermatology gap forces kids to miss school ‘for months’ – doctor
Chris Lynch (Herald): Where has all the mental health funding gone?
Georgia O’Connor (Spinoff): Women shouldn’t have to wait seven years to find out they have endometriosis

Parliament and Government
Matthew Hooton: Jacinda Ardern and Christopher Luxon, so close, and yet so far apart (paywalled)
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): National needs to know what it stands for
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Christopher Luxon needs to avoid being ‘the Christian guy’
Tess McClure (The Guardian): New Zealand brings in bereavement leave for miscarriages and stillbirths
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Labour’s Peeni Henare apologises to National’s Erica Stanford after ‘cat-calling’ incident
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): National’s Chris Bishop accuses Grant Robertson of ‘double standards’ in criticism of Israel Adesanya rape remark
Kate Hawkesby (Newstalk ZB): Where has the Government’s kindness gone?
Bryan Gould: Jacinda for a British readership

NZ and China
Chris Trotter: Weapons of war
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): China bites at New Zealand after Uighur abuses condemnation, but criticism pales in comparison to Chinese attack on Australia
Guled Mire (Stuff): New Zealand’s stance on China’s treatment of Uyghurs: Why turning a blind eye is no longer an option
Audrey Young (Herald): National backs call for UN investigation in China over Uighurs

Local government
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Government thinks $110 billion needed to fix broken water system
Simon Wilson (Herald): Why we need a bike lane on the harbour bridge now (paywalled)
Logan Savory (Stuff): Leadership void remains at Invercargill City Council
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington councillors blindsided by serious drinking water incident
Nicholas Boyack (Stuff): Upper Hutt Council increasing debt to pay for infrastructure
Susan Botting (Stuff): Whangārei District Council Māori wards to go ahead after councillors’ challenge fails

Covid
Tess McClure (The Guardian): ‘Unless you’re wealthy, don’t come back’: dismay over new rules for returning to NZ
Adam Jacobson (RNZ): Managed isolation management in question as officials investigate possible hotel transmission
Jo Moir (Newsroom): Govt under pressure on vaccine queue jumping
Matthew Scott (Newsroom): Loved ones separated by border closure demand answers from Government
RNZ: MIQ hotel complications a ‘betrayal of trust’ – returnee
Leah Tebbutt (Herald): Covid 19 coronavirus and the impact on our trust: Bay of Plenty professor involved in global survey

Racism; Police
Jason Walls (Herald): Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon admits ‘police are racist’ comment was wrong
Jason Walls (Herald): Meng Foon set NZ’s race relations back 10 years: National leader Judith Collins

Other
Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): Why we (don’t) fight
Verity Johnson (Stuff): Woke culture’s lack of forgiveness only destroys its own voices
Catherine Harris (Stuff): Most businesses took Covid support, arts and events hurt the most
No Right Turn: Juking the stats
No Right Turn: Today’s bad OIA story
Rosemary McLeod (Stuff): Prisoners are broken people. They deserve better treatment
Richard Harman: The SIS; its other friends overseas and its problems at home (paywalled)
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Minister Andrew Little says review of spy powers is coming, takes swipe at media
Nicola Gaston (Spinoff): Beware the handbrakes on climate change action
Bryan Gould: The concentration of media ownership