A MATE OF MINE sent me an e-mail. “I guess no one told Phil Twyford about Ali Baba.” I followed the link to an advertisement for kitset homes manufactured in China. You could have one of these: completely broken down and shipped to your nearest port in a container; for approximately $NZ15,000.
The quality of the home I cannot vouch for, but that really isn’t the point, is it? If this Government had possessed the courage to, just once, think outside the square, then by now the housing crisis would be over. By negotiating a deal with the Chinese, whereby cheap kitset homes were shipped to New Zealand at a fraction of the cost of building a similar house here, the social and economic problems attributable to the lack of low-cost housing could have been tackled head-on.
The potential problems associated with the quality of these kitset homes could easily have been addressed at a government-to-government level. Given the enormous pay-off for Beijing, the durability and weatherproofness of such dwellings could be guaranteed. With the state supplying the land and installing the necessary infrastructure, whole towns could have sprung up out of the ground with astonishing speed – as they once did in the days when New Zealand still possessed a Ministry of Works.
Just think of the economic and social impact of being able to supply a warm, dry, and healthy home for every family in need of one. The satisfaction of this need would, obviously, have reduced property speculation dramatically and kept private-sector rents low. In response, investment would have been re-directed away from real estate and into more productive areas of the economy.
Welcome as these effects might be, they would pale into insignificance when compared to the improvement universal housing would bring to New Zealand’s rapidly declining social indicators.
The educational performance of New Zealand’s poorest children would improve rapidly once their parents were safely and securely housed. Nothing retards a child’s educational attainment like being forced to move frequently from house to house and school to school. The elimination of serious overcrowding would also eliminate a broad range of the physical and mental health problems generated by too many people living in too little space. Domestic violence, too, would reduce dramatically.
Solving the housing crisis would reveal to every New Zealander just how many of the country’s other problems are the direct result of widespread homelessness and unrelenting housing insecurity.
The problem, of course, is that even if this government’s first housing minister, Phil Twyford, had been made aware of the capacity of the Chinese construction industry to meet the demand for cheap public housing, he would have been confronted immediately with a whole host of obstacles.
Obviously, New Zealand’s domestic construction industry would have screamed blue-bloody-murder at the price-depressing effects of such formidable foreign competition. The seriously disrupted relationship between local government, land-bankers and builders would, similarly, have provoked loud protests. The most ear-splitting shrieks, however, would have come from landlords. Overnight, their business model would have collapsed – along with their ability to ruthlessly immiserate their tenants by constantly ratcheting-up rents.
Owning multiple properties would no longer make commercial sense. Thousands of former rental properties would thus be put up for sale in what would very soon become a buyers’ market. What had been a crippling shortage of affordable housing would suddenly become a glut. Prices would tumble, and the dream of home-ownership for middle-class thirty-somethings would be realised.
As this cascade of consequences descended upon the New Zealand economy, homeowners would watch with mounting horror as the putative value of their houses declined precipitously. The powerful sense of well-being engendered by the seemingly unstoppable rise of house prices, sweetened by the prospect of pocketing hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in tax-free capital gains when they eventually sold-up and moved to the provinces, would evaporate in a red mist of anger and resentment.
Exposed, in all its ugly reality, would be the naked class interests bound up in the maintenance of the housing crisis. By freeing the working-poor and beneficiaries from the misery of housing insecurity and homelessness, the Deus ex machina of cheap Chinese kitset homes, purchased with cheap Chinese credit, would have produced a profound re-ordering of class relations. The 60 percent of New Zealanders who had been on the winning side of the housing crisis would not have been best pleased.
To strategic onlookers located in Washington, London and Canberra, such a sudden reversal of class fortunes, especially one made possible by the shrewd intervention of Beijing, would’ve been utterly unacceptable. As disturbing to our “allies” as it was to those on the deal’s domestic downside.
The very idea of the New Zealand working-class clasping with relief and gratitude the helping hand offered to them by a courageous Labour Government, and its Chinese Communist partners, would give New Zealand’s Five Eyes partners the screaming heebie-jeebies. In the time it takes to “make the economy scream”, Jacinda Ardern would’ve found herself walking the same path as Salvador Allende.
The problem is not that New Zealand’s housing crisis cannot be fixed, but that it is not in the unequivocal material interest of enough New Zealanders to allow it to be fixed – not even at Ali Baba’s knock-down price of $15,000 per unit.
Kitset houses. Who ever would have thought? Next there’ll be sliced bread. Hang on….
Excellent piece.
Labour do not want to acknowledge the housing catastrophe much less address it. I can’t recall where I read it yesterday but Grant Robertson claimed that New Zealanders do not want house prices to drop. Hence he doesn’t give a shit. Despite a recent survey that said 70+% wanted exactly that, prices to drop.
And there in lies the problem with this government. Labour is stacked with professional politicians who know nothing else, obsessed only with poll watching. They have only one goal, to get re-elected. And as a result they have few if any bottom lines except what polls tell them to think.
Hence the oily Jacinda monologues, to pretend they care. Thing is she is none too convincing nowadays.
Labour want housing just the way it is and they do not care about it because the polls tell them not to worry. Voters who own homes and the wealthy vote, and a housing crisis is what they want. And Labour are happy to deliver. Why? Because they’re too stupid, too one dimensional and too privileged to see the damage it is doing. They’re insulated in their well paid jobs, ironically housed as part of the deal, and tucked away in Wellington to ever realise what lasting harm their intentional neglect is doing.
For housing, Labour like National are simply a major part of the problem, not the solution. They need to be told that at the next election!
I think both parties are afraid of what it might do to our local industry , as Chris quite rightly points out, they would scream blue murder.
“Thing is she is none too convincing nowadays.”
That was always going to happen. When you’re reliant almost entirely on marketing the message, people will eventually tire of it. It becomes a bit like really painful television advertising when you just want to scream at ads being thrashed to death.
Sure there is room for giving concise clear messaging – such as in the case of COVID 19, but when people begin to detect PR spin and bullshit that’s clearly at odds with what they’re experiencing on the ground, it all becomes a bit hollow.
I’m probably more reluctant to see JA negatively than your are @XRAY, because PR spin and message marketing is her forte, and really pretty much all she’s ever known. But it holds up only for so long.
Stuff and things need to actually get done, and sometimes it’s better to just get the fuck on with things quietly in the background.
I guess there’ll always be a job for her at Saatchi and Saatchi and Saatchi and Saatchi or whoever they’ve rebranded themselves as these days.
And then of course the senior ranks in our public service. They know all the buzz words and managerialist theory – such as being ‘change agents’, and committed to reform and continuous improvement. The reality is getting them to get on with things such as implementing changes associated with the Public Service Act 2020 will be like getting an RSS Hindu to convert to Islam. If not Neoliberalism, then the 3rd Way is their religion and they appear to have had imagination bypass surgery as they move from one gig to the next. And they know they’ll never be held to account – all they need do is piss in the pockets of their responsible Ministers, not surprise them in any way that causes them embarrassment, and their career security is guaranteed. They can even break the law with impunity, as we’ve seen.
With Jacinda to start with, I believed what she was saying.
A couple of years in I still wanted to believe what she was saying and that she still cared.
Now, on that rare day she commits to anything, I take it with a grain of salt and consider it nothing more than premium Jacinda spin until facts prove otherwise.
Quite right, this approach taken, if done to mislead, always had a use by date.
I don’t pretend to know anything about the Chinese kitset houses but with houses in China at 145 times income (GDP per capita) they certainly have a problem “orders of magnitude” greater than ours.
https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Asia/China/price-gdp-per-cap
1. When a situation becomes extreme we get evolution and innovation. Good stuff.
2. Many people are looking at kitset homes and tiny homes as an alternative. Great.
3. We must go high tech to make them easy living and attractive-eg solar for lower power consumption.
3. Don’t get rubbish from China. We have NZ companies who meet NZ standards.
4. Governments are understandably scared to innovate, so maybe it needs to be driven by the people.
5. Every town needs a site for tiny homes.
6. Don’t leave the growth of urban areas to 90 year old market gardeners with land on the edge of towns.
7. Three waters -excellent! They could rip green field sites up for sections as part of the plan-too easy. 1Km a day water pipes.
The solutions are quite simple for the average kiwi. But we have a real hesitancy to change from those who are a condom on the prick of progress. Look at our legal system -hasn’t been changed in 500 years. Despite so many dodgy outcomes and those dodgy looking curly wigs!
In fact Twyford was initially looking at this option and had arranged to do a deal with a Vietnamese company to deliver houses off the ship, plug in, complete with curtains. I’ve seen examples – they’re really good.
Then reality dawned:
> Where is the land to put them on?
> Who builds the roads?
> Who lays the sewers and builds the new waste water treatment plant?
In each instance the council (and here I’m talking Auckland) told him to bugger off, because they won’t release land for building, wouldn’t give them a building permit and don’t have the budget to deliver the infrastructure.
I have heard similar stories, Andrew.
What remains to be explained is why Twyford’s colleagues didn’t pick up the phone and tell Goff et al that if they didn’t co-operate with the Government, then it would legislate right over the top of them.
That’s what Norman Kirk would have done.
100% Chris! Bear in mind this was actual Labour policy right up until they were elected. A view options have passed through my mind on the topic:
One can imagine that the existence of a large cohort of Labour voting councillors, Mayor and staff in Auckland Council had toes that couldn’t be trodden on.
Maybe it was because literally nobody in the incoming Labour government had any experience of leadership or management so were too timid to kick backsides.
It may be mere coincidence that both of the super city’s mayors live on lifestyle blocks outside of town, as well as a lot of the movers & shakers in this town. These people wouldn’t want the hoi polloi living across the road.
What happens if in 12 months time these kitset homes start to fall apart? Who pays and does Ali Baba have a remedial repairs department. I’m sure proposals similar have been considered and dismissed with the obvious pitfalls become apparent. There is no silver bullet to this problem.
As I wrote in the post, Frank, the quality problem would need to be addressed at a government-to-government level.
NZ would make it clear to the PRC that substandard product would not be acceptable. I have no doubt that Xi Jinping and his comrades, assessing the huge geopolitical pay-off from taking their Belt & Road initiative into a democratic Western nation, would make very sure that there were no embarrassing stories about Chinese kitset houses falling apart.
Labour would have an equally large interest in making sure these “Commie kitsets” were comfortable, healthy and weatherproof.
Sadly, our Five Eyes “partners” would have an equally large interest in making sure the project never got off the ground.
The CIA call this sort of problem “the danger of a good example”.
We are on the same page again Frankie.
Be interesting to add to the cost of the kitset house (NZ$ or US$ ??) the land cost, section development cost (3 waters, electricity, roads, schools, shops, etc) PLUS the consent fees local councils charge.
Hopefully you will have a fully compliant house for around $100K.
Which is good.
The biggest problem I see is the land and ownership thereof. How many can you fit at Ihumatao?
Not to many bare single sections for sale so the state is gong to have to free up land somewhere. (Or as Bomber would say nationalise the golf clubs and use the land to plonk houses on)
Here is South Auckland we have massive state housing projects (eg. Rowandale) where some 30 state houses have been demolished and some 120 multi story units placed on their former sections. All good, but;
No extra class rooms for Rowandale primary school, no playgrounds, no shops, no doctors, no green spaces, etc. One thing to build a whole lot of houses, quite another to create a livable village. No room for a car but because a village has not been created, each dwelling needs at least one car to access essential services. So roads get cluttered, next we have a 30K zone and speed humps the make the road “safer” slowing public transport to a crawl. Medium density housing for the poor, ghetto’s in the making?
The kitset home is but a single item to create livable villages within the urban environment.
All true, Gerrit.
But as I noted in a reply above, governments have the power to legislate obstacles out of existence.
Also, there is real economic value in the construction of useful infrastructure – likes sewers, roads and footpaths.
What’s really lacking in this government is vision and will.
Rowandale – 17 speed bumps in 1.7 kilometers.
Bob Jones has been suggesting this for some time now.
Great stuff Chris. We live in a world of smoke and mirrors, where governments of every stripe pay lip service to the ideals of democracy, while a bought-and-paid-for media “manufactures our consent” to the Barons of Capitalism, those who really run things, having free rein. As the man said; “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”
Yep sounds, great on paper but I wonder what the durability and quality is like. Then there is all the other infrastructure, in Auckland, you pay $30,000 development contribution for each household unit.
Chris – families are only forced to move school when they move house because our school zoning laws are designed by the unions to protect teacher jobs – not for the good of the families. At South Auckland Middle School – a designated character school with no zoning – we have 3% transience. The other schools in the area average over 40%.
Alwyn,
They don’t teach evolution at your schools. Plus LGBT students are bullied.
You want the schools privatised and run by churches with teachers earning minimum wage
Also, removing zoning will only cause white flight and the creation of a two tiered school system.
We had plenty of social housing but National sold them saying they were not fit for purpose, earthquake prone,
or had too many rooms or not enough, they also sold lots of state housing land to developers. All lies just so they didn’t have to house the poor or deal with them for that matter. I noted a block of flats down Petone said to be earthquake prone was rented out not long after being privately sold. I saw the new Indian landlords put a fresh coat of paint on these so called earthquake prone flats.
National/ACT working on behalf of the people…tui ad.
Remember how the Chinese built a hospital in Wuhan at the beginning of the pandemic in days. I do wonder what has happened to it.
But seriously as an interim measure to build these kit set house would have been good. Even if they didn’t last forever……..
I don’t see it as an either/or situation @ Chris. We could order a couple of thousand of these little gems, and park them up on some remote site away from the media’s gaze. Put a few of the indigent, the homeless and a few in need of quarantine to test them out.
We’d probably need a builder or two to properly assemble them on a concrete pad that’s surreptitiously had its reinforcing steel removed to be used elsewhere – so automatically the 15k immediately becomes 30k, But …. still a win win in the battle against the housing emergency.
AND!!!! It’d give the building Kim Ploince part of the Ministry for Everything something to do. They could concentrate on how well these dainty little modulars fit our regulations and standards rather than having to go and inspect existing slum landlords in breach of the most basic standards.
Jeez, Mr T – I feel like you’ve been suckered into the idea that the ‘Housing Crisis’ is all to do with supply side economics. Old school, Chicago school.
This crisis has very little to do with house building and a lot to do with globalism.
NZ offshored it’s manufacturing in the 1990’s, and we have since offshored our working classes via a flourishing and corrupt migrant labour ‘market’. This ‘workforce’ provides fodder to shore up the base of the property ponzi pyramid (the 3 P’s), ensuring ever increasing demand.
I find the idea that it is OK to use slaves in an offshore dictatorship to fabricate aerated concrete shells in which to house our local victims of this scam somewhat distasteful.
NZ has plenty of houses – many thousands sitting empty for 95% of the year, often in very nice seaside towns.
We have intelligent young people in this Nation because they are equipped with some tools to enhance their education, eg school books, a PC, etc. Long gone are the days where poor parents meant you had a poor education. I recall the chasm between public and private school kids of the 1990’s, and it was vast.
With housing, my opinion here is that the primary reason why we have a housing shortage is that we have a surplus of migrants. The surplus of migrants is because we lagged behind in skills for at least five years. The other main reason for our housing shortage is that the government failed to deliver on their promise to build ten thousand homes a year for ten years.
Albeit from some minor changes, there is no real problem with New Zealand’s education system. The same goes for the housing issues. The same for roading, one area which has seen some really desirable and steady progress over the past four years with Labour, and also during the last two Key terms in power.
The area which is still so neglected is mental health. This is the same area which has seen increased demand over the past two years. Thankfully, we have a surplus of citizens who are willing to train as counselors, social workers, and psychiatrists. I see the importance of budget allocation here. The government ought to make the funding of mental health services, including drug and alcohol rehabilitation, an urgent priority.
100% , Mr Trotter, – and some good comments from people on BOTH sides of the political spectrum!
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