Housing groups are building a campaign to push the government into adopting an industrial-scale state house building programme. It follows the rejection of the proposal by the Minister of Housing Megan Woods in response to a letter signed by 28 organisations.
A petition has been set up and we are encouraging everyone to sign and share with family and friends through social media.
So far we have four posters prepared for the campaign – see below – and we are inviting Daily Blog readers to
- Help circulate the posters via email and social media and
- To have a go at designing your own poster for the campaign.
The themes we are working with are:
Do you have a warm, dry, affordable home?
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Can you afford to pay your rent?
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Do you want all Kiwis to live in warm, dry, affordable homes?
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Fight the housing catastrophe
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Should any child have to grow up in a motel?
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Should anyone have to live in a cold, mouldy disgusting home?
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Should anyone have to live on the streets?
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Should anyone have to live in a car or van?
Join the campaign for an industrial scale state house building programme
Sign the petition at https://www.alternativeaotearoa.nz/petition
Or write your own theme on your own poster.
Please send your posters to johnminto@orcon.net.nz and we will put them on the Daily Blog.
In April we will ask Housing Minister Megan Woods to judge the posters and pick her favourite. She has had a lot of experience avoiding housing affordability issues and ducking responsibility for housing struggling families so will be the ideal judge.
If she declines, the winning poster will be selected by The Daily Blog Editor Martyn Bradbury.
We don’t have a prize in mind yet but we are open to suggestions.
I don’t notice any building companies signing the petition. Unless its a four million dollar spec house they are just not interested. Lets not forget we need to put them somewhere that’s not a a two hour commute.
They only way we could do this is to turn the whole thing over to the Chinese or similar. They can bring in the materials, labor at fifty cents an hour and live on sites. Once finished return home.
Totally agree. Seek proposals and costs from Taiwanese, Malaysian, Chinese who take our logs, to bring containers of kitset house components, fixtures and other household furniture, and bring their labour over to assemble the buildings on prepared foundations. Main problem is the availability and cost of land which the Key government promoted and has been the main cost of a property purchase. Golf courses, parks, Maori land could be made available for this project.
And here’s me thinking you voted Labour five years ago so they could do exactly that – build lots of houses. I didn’t vote Labour, not because I didn’t want houses built but because I knew this current crop were too incompetent to make it happen.
I was correct.
So you can petition them all you like, but you can’t petition the incompetence out of them.
well andy the nats will definitely do fuck all except encourage the spec building of mc mansions…but I DO HEAR PROPERTY DEVELOPERS ARE VERY GOOD TIPPERS….sayin nowt like.
Nobody in NZ is spec building Mac Mansions. This is not the US. What actually IS happening:
Bare suburban sections in Auckland start at about 1.5 million and much more if they’re dividable or have zoning for multi-storey. So it makes no sense to put a basic 300K house on such an expensive piece of land because the developer is getting no value-add. Most of the potential owners are well off and want a fancy house to match their fancy income and fancy lifestyle. Very few of these are built speculatively. Instead they are custom built to the owners specification and most will be nightmare projects because they’re in-fill developments on steep, oddly shaped sections. Many will be renovations and extensions to older buildings.
still mc mansions though andy…still mc mansions and all private building unless ordered off the plans is spec building.
I voted Labour after being convinced by my friends that Labour was genuine about medicinal cannabis, oh how wrong they were…
Labour talked about alot of things but since getting in have just acted like National and crapped on the little guy.
Not sure we have the skill set here in NZ to do such a thing, we managed to do it in the 1940-1960’s however we don’t appear to have politican’s or companies capable of delivering the required outcomes.
We are still too busy with Covid to manage anything like this.
You mean politicians lack the will to do this. Look at the houses that the young ones at polytech are now making. We will always have a reason, always be too busy, to do anything about this.
It is totally shameful. We must force politicians to do this because they seem incapable on their own, they theoretically are our representatives.
The government can get land far cheaper than anyone else. They can buy materials in bulk, they can borrow money at a way cheaper rate. Although they currently have made Kainga ora borrow their own money so that it doesn’t show on the government books which is totally ridiculous.
House building happening right here in little old Waltham, more units than I can count 3 to a property all at least $650,000. Waltham is a low socio economic area. Every tree has been removed on all these sections.
It’s not a skill set that is required, rather it is the political will and determination to do this.
There are plenty of people and organisations that can make this happen and it should happen.
All it needs is for someone (or a small group) to drive this agenda hard and fast and smash the existing power structures that exist to prevent this from happening.
That means compulsory purchase and demolition of large areas of aged, worn out and no longer fit for purpose state housing. Flatten Mt Roskill for example, build 2000 high density homes along transport corridors, etc.
Will never happen though as John will be out there protesting that a state house should be a house for life.
Also, the way we incentivise councils to open land up needs to change and the funding for infrastructure needs adjusting.
Most of all though, we need to build roads and transport networks ahead of opening up massive areas to collapse the cost of land.
Look north of Albany, literally millions of acres of land currently sliced up into lifestyle blocks. Just take it all, build some beautiful motorways and a new bridge and then open all that land up for new housing.
Land prices will implode overnight and the cost of housing will be affordable.
Shame the economy will also die but we will all be able to buy cheaper houses although most of us will be looking for work…
Yeti said:
“Look north of Albany, literally millions of acres of land currently sliced up into lifestyle blocks. Just take it all, build some beautiful motorways and a new bridge and then open all that land up for new housing.”
And that’s the key issue. Auckland Council retains their rural/urban boundary to prevent just what you’re proposing. The ‘mink & manure’ elite don’t want the hoi polloi building a row of houses next to them. It’s no surprise then that both Auckland mayors have lifestyle blocks.
This is what Labour represents today – are you getting the picture?
Before attempting such a great thing we must first reboot our politics.
Neoliberalism wasn’t what seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a deliberate swoop and grab by the same cadre of crooks who’d been parasitising our primary industry ( Can any city person say ‘farmers’ without vomiting? Remember. The vomit you’re vomiting was once food grown by farmers. Try to keep it to the compost heap would you dears? )
We have to change the politic. We MUST change our politic. Neoliberal capitalism is a fucking fantastic idea if you’re one of the .001% now living in grotesque luxury in numerous houses trans-globally, but for the rest of us it’s a slog of hardship and uncertainty. That. Must. Change. First.
( How about we go up the riche with a royal commission of inquiry like a bum Dr’s finger up a 65 year old male-human while we’re at it?)
Our politic must become a social-capitalist democracy.
If you don’t do that, housing the lumpy prol’s desperations will simply become a money spinner for the neoliberal-capitalists and their foreign bankster buddies. Yet again.
Mandate voting, then have a referendum, then vote. See? The riche city person has gone from vomiting at the thought of some filthy famah dahling’s fondling their spuds, cabbage and snarlers ( slang for sausages fyi ) to shitting bricks. Either way ! Weight loss dahlings, weight loss.
Hey John what do you think about the fact that the Gov has instructed all power companies to raise their daily rates for low energy users by a whopping 600% over the next 5 years?
The Gov say they are counting on power companies cutting prices elsewhere to even out the pain of the price rise but they have not asked for any guarantees from the power companies . Since when do profit driven capitalist companies volunteer to cut their customers costs when they don’t have to?
Is the Gov really that naive?
Do the Gov not care?
Are the Gov set to profit from this somehow?
Once againThis is another kick in the guys for kiwis with no a lot of money
So much for Labour lifting people out of poverty
Don’t always agree with everything you have to say @ JM but on this issue support you wholeheartedly and have signed the petition
Best of luck
our deeply fragmented inefficient overpriced feudal building sector just isn’t up to it, what’s needed is a national organisation that gives tradies consistent full time employment and trains up apprentices..frankly don’t care if they build from scratch or assemble kits..just get it done.
one caveat supervision and inspection need to be rigorous and strong or we in this country will choose to build slums by default(yes I ‘m talking light touch regulation and leaky homes)
Last resort pay a chinese company to do the whole thing with the caveats above….politics is over on this issue we just need to shift ourselves and anyone pollie or administrator who isn’t on board should pick up their walking papers.
Housing in NZ is a total f**k up, in the 1920’s they were completing 1 to 2 bungalows or villas a day in Mt Albert, Auckland with skilled tradesmen using hand tools. From the 1930-1960’s we were cranking out State Houses which are still standing to this day and sell for around $2.0 million in the Mt Albert/Pt Chevalier areas.
We can’t even build slums properly these days, houses are designed to last a maximum of 10-20 years.
After the latest Roy Morgan poll there may be some action finally after 4 years of doing nothing but talk. We need a better Minster but cannot see one in Labours ranks
Goddam excellent. Clearly not much progress since One Million BC!
It really depends what they build.
The current: no parking facilities, no green areas (where do the children play?) regulations are a surrender to right wing property developers championed by the ACT and National Party.
It is a sure road to slum conditions. Which they seem to want with low wages (Failing to recognise higher wages = more spend = less poverty = more profit)
In Switzerland for example there are rules around green areas with BBQ’s and kids playground per “X” number of dwellings. We need to look to European models not SE Asian models.
Before we embark any further on any developments on any housing/property developments we need similar regulations in NZ. The current build to the boundaries up 6 stories with no parking or any other facilities are nothing short a of a crime. they are slums being built.
It is my belief that the next step is the out sourcing of Social Housing and this is really the current plan: i.e. profit for the big property developers and rental agencies. It is not about social housing. It is a big con and you are being conned.
Whether you tend towards Labour or National in your voting, surely anybody can see the failures that all the main parties, across the board, are indulging in with housing
GOOD POINTS truth
Excellent initiative.
This will resonate with many new gen voters paying extortionate rents for overpriced dumps, and with those in an “elder poverty” situation–flatting or living in a camper van in their 60s and beyond…and maybe even those that bought into the housing dream and are on the cusp of mortgage default…oh dear how unfortunate…
A community organising campaign and activism including occupying empty residential and commercial properties will help move these demands along. This could be a significant factor in the 2023 and 2026 General Elections, and a move to finally retire the NZ neo liberal state. 40 years of “Roger’n’Ruth’s” toxic legacy is enough!
My Mum used to say “Where there’s a will there’s a way”. CB is right we need political change first.
Then what’s needed is an experienced national project manager.
Love the poster competition. To take it a step further I suggest a fundraiser to make some corflutes/banners for prominent private property fence display around the country. Similar to what the Taxpayer’s Union did to notify the 3 Waters issue. It should have a website address for further information.
That might be a little sobering for the arrogant rulers…yeah nah but worth a shot. Just to create some traction with those trying to ignore the issue.
Also the poster with the homeless person sleeping on a bench could be put up in every airport arrival lounge. This government needs shaming into action but I guarantee if the posters made it to the airport lounges they would not stay there for long. Free speech yeah right.
Also the perfect possy for the detached, don’t really care middle class to be confronted with uncomfortable reality.
Let’s do a fundraiser for it.
Woods might as well be in orbit she is that far out of her depth.
Circling the Moon.
Time everybody woke up and smelled the roses.
Low incomes are on purpose so we cant afford to save for mortgages.
This is because half of us who own all the bloody houses, requires the other half to pay for them! Cant have us having the ability to save for our own now can we!
or is it, as I suspect..
jacinda- here’s the deal
woods- yes pm
j – you sit in the hot seat and do nothing for a couple of years…
w- yesssss pm
j- then I sack you but you get a nice fat pension as well as the blame
w – YEZZZSIRRIE prime minister
j- and I’ll see what I can do about some committee memberships and directorships…cool?
w – ohhhhh YUZZZZzzzzz pm
Its a no brainer, as is soft loans for first home buyers,a levy on empty homes and stamp duty for investors.
The banks only exist by dint of the mortgage business and can’t see their influence…waning.
Robo has $37b stashed away in the Treasury Account.
Let’s crack that open and start a John A Lee Housing Project!
Government becomes the main purchaser of all products and building materials.
Use the purchasing power of the chequebook.
At the same time domesticise the construction materials to site pipe line and labour force.
Add a capital gains tax to banks profits, 2nd, 3rd an every other house owned by property other than the family home.
And hurry up. Paying motel bills of $365m per year is like paying rent. It’s dead money paying someone else mortgage.
Giddy up!
What a Labour govt is meant to do. Leaving aside their glance of sharpened prism from Ayn Rand.
I’m so sure Jace would be nice to the innocent idiot for the rich, Roger Douglas.
Why the idiots rise out of their graves against democracy.
I feel she’s a fucken essential idiot. Something wrong with them and their talkers. The Left not attacking that is a willingness to accept the American laughable left.
I suggest fucken talken. Everywhere , anywhere.