Social concerns lace Mainfreight report
Politicians need to take action to fix New Zealand’s “social disgrace” around housing, says Mainfreight founder and chairman Bruce Plested.
In his chairman’s statement for the transport and logistics company’s latest annual report, Plested reflected on a year in which the firm posted a record profit but also one that presented big challenges like the Kaikoura earthquakes.
Mainfreight posted a 16 per cent gain in profit in the 12 months to March, exceeding $100 million for the first time, led by earnings growth in New Zealand and Australia.
Profit rose to $101.5m, from $87.6m a year earlier. Sales climbed to $2.3 billion $2.28b.
Given 2017 is an an election year, Plested said it was worth asking questions of politicians. “Our normal housing, through most parts of New Zealand, costs some 10 times the net annual income of the family seeking to buy them,” said Plested, who has been on Mainfreight’s board since 1978.
“These high prices ( three times annual income was the price paid by buyers for many years prior to the early 2000s) have been progressively from As long as New Zealand continues to get premium prices for its highly sought-after goods in international markets, prices domestically will not reduce, Webling said.
“Food companies think very care- increasing for the past 15 years, and all governments have been aware of the problem.
“No government or local government has taken any meaningful action against this rising tide,” Plested said.
He believed the problem was due to planning restrictions making it difficult to grow within city boundaries, cities being prevented from growing outward because of rural and urban limits and that new developments required investment from local councils that could only be paid for by rate increases.
“The politicians, both local and national, must take action on this very fixable social disgrace. ‘ The market’ cannot sort out this problem. Real leadership and intestinal fortitude is needed now,” he said.
Plested also addressed education and environment issues in his chairman’s address.
New Zealand’s “lack of respect for water and water quality is an indictment of governments going back decades”, he said.
While by some standards New Zealand’s education system was satisfactory, only 30 per cent of “children from lower decile school areas” were reaching the average for NCEA Level 3, Plested said.