A nationwide shortage of 60,000 houses, growing by over 40 a day, confirms the need for Labour’s Kiwibuild policy, says Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Little.
New Treasury papers released under the Official Information Act show that ANZ estimates the country has 60,000 houses fewer than it needs for housing demand to be met. Each quarter, 4,000 fewer houses are built than are needed to keep up with record population growth. Latest Statistics New Zealand figures show building consents are falling.
“The solution is simple: build more houses. Labour will build 100,000 affordable homes for first homebuyers. We can fix this.
“When there’s been housing crises in the past, governments have stepped in and built, or helped to build, good, basic homes to get families on the property ladder and stabilise prices. It worked then, why aren’t we doing it now?
“Bill English needs to stop tinkering and start leading. Labour’s KiwiBuild Bill to start our affordable building programme is before Parliament. Mr English just needs to have the guts to back it and we can get on with fixing this crisis.
“The solution is in the Government’s hands, but only if Mr English stops sitting on his.
“Every day we wait, the housing shortage grows by over 40 houses. The results are all around us – out of control prices, speculators, skyrocketing rents. It means families missing out on the Kiwi dream of owning your own place. It means overcrowded, over-priced rentals. It means families ending up homeless,” says Andrew Little.
Bills social investment approach is not working and will not work Bill but he thinks it is, sad! and when will he finally realize it when it is too late to say they have been working on it when they have been in for 8 years and done nothing to improve this issue. Motel owners are getting rich and we the tax payers are paying for Bills little experiment
100% MICHELLE,
Bill English is just rubber stamp for the agenda of Corporates who want to privatise everything and rape what’s left of our state system.
He is directed by Goldman Sachs and their criminal cabal like they are in Greece.
“When there’s been housing crises in the past, governments have stepped in and built, or helped to build, good, basic homes to get families on the property ladder and stabilise prices. It worked then, why aren’t we doing it now?”
But here’s the thing. Where was the crisis between 2001 and 2008 when house prices in NZ more than doubled, across the entire country? Where are all the so called houses built from that crisis?
Sure, this time around house prices have doubled in Auckland, again, but not in the rest of the country.
Why is it a crisis now and not then?
John Key said it was a crisis then and just look at what he and his government did over the years – nothing. In fact, they seem to have encouraged the bubble.
Bollocks, they have done more to try and alleviate the issue than the previous government ever did.
Bullshit all they have done is play smoke and mirrors.
“Alleviate the issue”…..hmmm… let me see….
Was that when they refused to keep a register of foreign buyers for 6 years and only did so after a real estate agent released figures to the Labour Party to show the extent of the rorting that was going on.
Or was it when they consistently let in 60,000 to 70,000 new immigrants per annum despite all the data showing that the market is 50,000 houses short and 40%- 60%
overvalued.
Or was it when they ignored the information out there about the amount of laundered money being pumped into the market.
I could go on … How about when they hung Len Brown out to dry when he wanted to get help with funding to fast forward some action on the much needed infrastructure required before any new housing subdivisions could begin.
Sorry . I forgot … What were the things that National has done to ”alleviate the issue” ?
For starters,
* Investors who buy and sell residential property for profit within two years will be taxed on the capital gains.
* Requiring non-residents and New Zealanders buying and selling any property other than their main homes to provide a New Zealand IRD number.
* Requiring non-residents to have a New Zealand bank account to get a New Zealand IRD number.
* More money to IRD to enforce the changes.
* Owners of rental houses can no longer claim depreciation on their investment properties.
Now, tell me again what Labour did while they sat back and oversaw a more than doubling of house prices between 2001 and 2008?
WTF – this has been happening for decades, not until it started affecting the middle classes did those neo-liberal NAZI terrorists in Labour start talking about it.
And they’re going to provide houses to the middle classes yet again – while disabled people miss out because they’re definitely not going to provide the safe stable housing people like me entitled to under NZ human rights and criminal laws!
Labour brought neo-liberal terrorism to this country and they have never done anything to stop it – they don’t change laws that create inequality – THEY ARE THE ESTABILSHMENT. Groan
+1 Murphy
$500,000 houses are for the children of the middle classes.
How Labour can keep calling that ‘affordable’ is beyond me.
Even their policies directed at helping ‘the homeless’ are, I suspect, just a token gesture to dampen the middle class guilt about such things.
It doesn’t address the great majority of folk who might manage to avoid actual homelessness but are under constant, life long, grinding ‘house stress’.
Actually, it confirms that even Labour’s Kiwibuild isn’t enough.
What they really need to do is to buy up a few 3D printers that have the capability of building houses – there’s a few – and develop the infrastructure needed to support them. At the same time they need to put a few hundred million into developing and producing our own technology to do that with all the necessary infrastructure as well.
Then we’ll have enough capacity to keep on top of the demand for houses.
This ‘leaving it to the market’ just isn’t working.
STOP with the ‘getting people on the property ladder’ rhetoric,
p l e a s e.
That’s how we got into this mess in the first place.
A house is a ‘HOME’ not a thing to be traded to get ahead. If we do that, we create a ‘market’, and ‘markets’ are not healthy places to live in.
Further more…all your missing voters know darn well they are not, nor will ever be, part of this so called Kiwi Dream.
So how about a Kiwi Dream where ALL NZers have a warm secure and affordable house to RENT, or to own.
Plus one to that.
Comments are closed.