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Finance Minister Steven Joyce speaks to media while Transport Minister Simon Bridges looks on, April 27, 2017 (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
Finance Minister Steven Joyce speaks to media while Transport Minister Simon Bridges looks on, April 27, 2017 (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

The BulletinMarch 7, 2018

The Bulletin: Another National heavyweight bows out

Staff Writer
Finance Minister Steven Joyce speaks to media while Transport Minister Simon Bridges looks on, April 27, 2017 (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
Finance Minister Steven Joyce speaks to media while Transport Minister Simon Bridges looks on, April 27, 2017 (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Good morning and welcome to the first ever edition of The Bulletin, a round up the best and most important NZ news of the day. Sign up here to get The Bulletin direct to your inbox every single morning. 

Another National heavyweight is bowing out, a report into referrals of kids to protection services is causing alarm, and Ōpōtiki thinks big on sea farming.

Just a week after losing the race for the National Party leadership, former finance minister Steven Joyce has quit politics. RNZ has a handy rundown on his career and achievements, and the NZ Herald‘s Audrey Young analyses how the immense power he wielded as a minister and backroom fixer for National didn’t translate into support for the leadership. Richard Harman on Politik notes that Joyce has suffered a “constructive dismissal” by new leader Simon Bridges, who wants someone else in the finance role.

The next MP to come into Parliament from National’s list is former Wellington Central candidate Nicola Willis. About a month ago Newshub‘s Lloyd Burr potentially put a political kiss of death on her, saying she’d be an ideal choice for National’s next leader provided Bill English stuck around a while longer. To give a sense of how quickly things are moving in the National Party at the moment, Bill English pulled the pin a few days after that piece was published. Over on Pundit, Tim Watkin says the departure of Steven Joyce is the real harbinger of generational change within the Nats.

A new report has found almost a quarter of kids born in 1998 were reported to child protection services. The NZ Herald story on the report notes that almost 10% of kids in that cohort had been neglected or abused, and 3% had been put into foster care. The AUT report concludes that both notifications and substantiated cases of abuse and neglect of kids is far higher than generally recognised.

The government is being asked for tens of millions of dollars in regional development money for sea farming in Ōpōtiki. The report from Noted highlights the severe deprivation in the Bay of Plenty town, and the urgent need for jobs. Access in and out of Ōpōtiki harbour is hindered by a sandbar, which restricts the number of boats that can come and go, preventing expansion of the commercial sea farming developed by local iwi Whakatōhe. Mayor John Forbes admits the contribution being asked of the government is significant, but compared to the amount of money spent on roads, it’s “chump change.”

Former Fletcher Building boss Mark Binns has rubbished suggestions EQC could sue over botched Canterbury earthquake repairs. Checkpoint on Radio NZ obtained a copy of the contract signed in 2011 between Fletcher’s and EQC for home repairs, which contained an indemnity clause exempting Fletcher’s from claims against it’s work. Mr Binns also painted a picture of EQC being out of it’s depth with the scale of the disaster, and facing political pressure to unrealistically accelerate the rebuild. The Press reports there are still 2600 outstanding claims, and understands all are re-repairs.

Two important council stories from the Otago Daily Times this morning, albeit about two different councils. Their front page carries a report on Queenstown District Council plans to spend almost a billion dollars on infrastructure upgrades over ten years.Mayor Jim Boult says it means rates rises are “inevitable.” Some property owners could see their rates increase by up to 30%. Queenstown is in a tricky position, given the overwhelmingly unbalanced ratio of visitors to residents. Boult says it’s a realistic plan, which tells central government it must contribute more to the cost of hosting visitors.

And in Dunedin, the City Council has released a list of investment properties earmarked for sale. The Council wants to raise at least $63 million to fund investments, and aren’t ruling out selling operational assets either.

In a story that could change dramatically in the time it takes to send a tweet, NZ steel and aluminium producers are concerned by Donald Trump’s plans to introduce import tariffs. Stuff reports the fears are not so much for direct exports to the USA, which are minimal, but the wider effects such a move could have on the global market. Stephen Jacobi, from the New Zealand International Business Forum, says it’s time to sound the alarm on Trump’s trade actions. At the time of publication of The Bulletin, most of Trump’s recent tweets had been about North Korea or the Oscars.

And in partnership with Vector, a reality check: while EVs are taking over the world, in the same way that cars left the horse and cart floundering in their petrol guzzling wake this will come with unforeseen consequences. Vector’s Steve Heinen discusses why that might be a brilliant, planet-saving, massive headache.

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Right now on The Spinoff, editor Toby Manhire outlines what this whole Bulletin thing is all about – tell your friends. Toby Morris critiques how the ranks of NZ’s cartoonists have barely changed in decades, and why that sometimes leaves publications looking out of touch. David Farrier dives down the rabbit hole of some AI technology that seems too good to be true. And Madeleine Chapman ponders the explosive societal changes unleashed by Dan Carter asking the crowds at Auckland City Limits to make some noise for Peking Duk.

This week the Prime Minister has been in the Pacific, prompting plenty of good reporting and analysis. Stuff has details of a new funding plan for Niue, particularly aimed at helping the island generate renewable energy. It comes amid Niue’s push for greater economic self reliance, reports RNZ. And amid New Zealand’s support, Newshub reports that China is also spending big on infrastructure in the Pacific.

Underpinning much of the tour through the Pacific is the looming threat of rising sea levels and climate change. RNZ‘s Mei Heron wrote about a visit to a seaside village in Samoa that is now regularly swamped with water. Gia Garrick, for Newstalk ZB, links Ardern’s urgent campaign rhetoric on climate change to the reality facing Pacific Island nations. 

“If she’s truly going to stand by her words, she must smell the emissions on the deniers’ breath and truly change the way New Zealanders view this issue. She must stand by her statements in the Pacific this week.”

And what is the view from the Pacific? The Samoa Observer editorialises that New Zealand is an excellent role model on curbing corruption and gender equality, but asks that our immigration laws be changed so that Samoan arrivals are not treated like second class citizens. And there’s some probably well deserved cynicism from Samoa Planet‘s Lani Wendt Young, over just how generous New Zealand’s aid package really is, and how calls for the Pacific to join New Zealand in acting on climate change are condescending.

More Reading

In sport, the NZ Herald had a scoop yesterday about the likely departure of NZ Rugby League CEO Alex Hayton, in the wake of the horrific World Cup campaign. It also chronicled the well-publicised scandals League has faced in the last 18 months, that the organisation has seemed ill-equipped to deal with. Expect more to come on this story soon, either in the form of a cast iron denial, or a departure.

That’s it for the first ever edition of The Bulletin. If you liked what you read, and know other people who would find it useful, please tell them to sign up here.

The Bulletin is brought to you by Vector. If you live in Auckland, they also delivered the power you’re using to read it. And they’re creating a new energy future for all of us, as showcased by the incredible Vector Lights.

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The transition to EVs will involve some speed bumps.
The transition to EVs will involve some speed bumps.

The BulletinMarch 7, 2018

Five unintended consequences of the electric car revolution

Guest writer
The transition to EVs will involve some speed bumps.
The transition to EVs will involve some speed bumps.

EVs are taking over the world, in the same way that cars left the horse and cart floundering in their petrol guzzling wake. Vector’s Steve Heinen discusses why that might be a brilliant, planet-saving, massive headache.

Electric vehicles (EV) are great. They’re quieter, need less maintenance, provide more acceleration, and in New Zealand, where our power is mostly renewable, create a lot fewer carbon emissions.

The number of EVs on New Zealand roads has exploded from fewer than 600 in January 2015 to 6600 in January this year. That’s still a tiny oasis of green in the vast, smoggy desert of internal combustion engines (ICEs), but the number is increasing exponentially, meaning very soon there will be more EVs being bought here than cars that use million-year-old undersea corpses for fuel.

As the economies of scale for manufacturing, fuelling and maintenance stack up ever more strongly in favour of EVs, they become all the more desirable on a cost-comparison basis. And that is a good thing if you enjoy inhabiting our planet, since about 15% of all global greenhouse gas emissions are from transport (in New Zealand it’s 37%). Interestingly, it might also reduce smoking rates.

And yet, the law of unintended consequences means the EV revolution might not go entirely according to plan. We’ve outlined five factors that could prevent New Zealand becoming an EV paradise.

Charging nightmares

Forget range anxiety, the very advances making EVs competitive with ICEs – their increased range and ability to handle large loads – could soon be their biggest headache. Next generation EVs will have bigger batteries, which will mean longer charging times. Without improved charging capability you could be looking at a whole weekend to charge the SUV. On a 2.4kW ‘trickle’ charge, the upcoming Audi Q6 EV, with an electric range four times longer than a Nissan Leaf, would need 42 hours of charging time.

This might mean that faster charging options may become the norm in the future even for at-home charging. But this is not a zero-sum game as faster chargers may reduce charging duration, but they require more spare capacity in the network, which brings me to my next point…

Local network overload

Obviously, every EV charger adds to the load on our electricity networks, but you might be surprised to learn how much more. Every slow charger (7kW) adds the equivalent of 2.8 houses to the grid and every fast charger (22kW) adds nearly nine. Clearly, major uptake of even low speed chargers across a city the size of Auckland is going to mean adding whole suburbs’ worth of capacity to the local network.

To be clear, I’m not saying there isn’t enough electricity in the national grid to handle EVs, just that with our current local networks, it will struggle to get to the garages and charging stations where it’s needed all at once. It’s like lots of people trying to get through a doorway at once; we either learn to take turns (not all charge at once) or get a bigger door, by using public charging.

In Norway – which has world-leading EV adoption rates – the national energy agency is encouraging EV owners to refrain from charging on Thursday nights. Because, it’s hot tub night. Probably.

Upgrades will be needed, and that costs money, and it’s not necessarily clear how much of that cost non-EV owners will be up for. Speaking of which…

Paying for your neighbour’s car

Just because EVs are environmentally friendly, doesn’t mean all their owners will be paragons of green virtue. EV car makers will continue to cater to buyers with a need for speed, a desire for status, or just in the grip of a mid-life crisis.

Those who purchase a next-generation EV will pay for the charge, and will get the benefit of the mileage, but if they all charge at peak hours or using fast chargers, then we’ll all pay for the network upgrade to cope with the increased charging load.

This is not necessarily wrong – cross-subsidisation is a fact of daily life and makes things like public transport and universal healthcare work – but it raises questions of energy fairness.    

Of course, this is only a transitional problem, since the petrol-dependant car could be a historical relic by 2030, and EV owners can ease the burden by choosing to charge in most optimal way, but it does create some interesting social dynamics in the meantime as the late EV adopters subsidise those with the means and desire to get off the petrol station forecourt for good.

Petrol powered cars could be a relic as soon as 2030.

Lithium-ion batteries = mining

A bigger long-term problem is the fact that to fuel EVs, you need to extract finite natural resources from politically unstable regions of world, at increasingly inflated prices.

Not oil – I’m talking about cobalt and lithium, critical ingredients in lithium ion batteries. The biggest deposits of cobalt, for instance, are in the Democratic Republic of Congo – a notoriously violent, corrupt and unstable country. And while someone is getting rich off the Congo’s cobalt, it’s not the children used to mine for it.

Similarly, the world’s richest sources of lithium are in South American nations like Chile and Argentina, with historical questions around mine safety and human rights.

Other users of lithium-ion batteries such as Apple are actively looking for alternatives to mined minerals. If EV use continues its exponential growth, some serious recycling efforts will be needed to reduce the reliance on mining, especially as EV batteries eventually need replacement.

Incidentally, Vector has made a start in this direction with a mobile generator made from repurposed EV batteries. Expect to see more innovation around secondary uses for the ever-growing pile of EV batteries, like a Taiwanese ‘swap-a-battery’ scheme.

The other long-term solution is to find an alternative power source to batteries – something manufacturers are actively exploring.

ICE dumping

Finally, there is a problem that might hold-up our conversion to an all-EV national fleet – at least temporarily.

As Europe prepares to ban internal combustion engines, car makers will look for a market to offload their stock as they switch to EV production. New Zealand is already a popular destination for used Japanese cars, could our appetite for a good deal mean we will be flooded with cheap ICE cars, delaying the transition to carbon neutral transport?

The answer is a firm maybe. Cheap new ICEs would be hard to turn down, but in the long run, EVs will simply be better, and ultimately cheaper to make, so car makers will stop making them.

While there are a few potential speedbumps on the road to a carbon neutral fleet in New Zealand, but overall the reality is that EVs are going to take over, and we’re going to be fine – it’s just a matter of when.  In fact, given a humble Nissan Leaf can provide enough power for the average home for 10 hours, EVs potentially present the answer to a whole lot of problems including power network resilience in the face of climate change.

There’s a whole lot more detail on the impact of EV adoption on local power networks in Vector’s green paper on the subject, available here.

This content is brought to you by Vector. If you live in Auckland, they also delivered the power you’re using to read it. And they’re creating a new energy future for all of us, as showcased by the incredible Vector Lights.