National’s answer to the housing crisis: One new affordable house per 100 new Aucklanders
National’s fudge of a housing plan will make Auckland even more of a speculators’ paradise, says Leader of the Opposition Andrew Little.
“National’s housing announcement is a shambles with Amy Adams unable to say how many house will be affordable or what ‘affordable’ actually means. It’s bumbling of Nick Smith proportions. No wonder Adams was trying to hide the truth, given the eventual admission that just one in five houses will be affordable and those houses will cost $650,000.
“No wonder National waited until the Prime Minister was out of the country before they announced this.
“By National’s own admission, four out five houses they want built over the next decade will be unaffordable and open for speculators to buy. We already have the lowest homeownership in 66 years – why is National prioritising the interests of speculators over families who want a place of their own?
“While as many as 17,000 unaffordable homes will be built on publicly-owned land under National’s plan, only 4,000 ‘affordable’ houses will be built over a decade.
“National plans just one new ‘affordable’ house a day while Auckland’s population is growing by over 100 a day. This is a recipe for higher house prices and rents, lower homeownership, more overcrowding, and more profits for speculators.
“After nine years of failed policies from National, it’s time for Labour’s fresh thinking on housing. National is on the side of the speculators; Labour is standing up for families and first homebuyers.
“Labour will build 50,000 houses people can afford to buy in Auckland, as part of our plan for 100,000 KiwiBuild homes nationwide. These will be genuinely affordable – under $500,000 for apartments and terraced homes, under $600,000 for stand-alones. Along with KiwiBuild, Labour will build thousands more state houses for families in need.
“Labour’s three point plan to crack down on speculators will ban overseas speculators from buying our homes, make speculators who flip houses within five years pay tax, and close the loophole that lets speculators avoid $150m of tax each year.
“Unlike National, we have a credible plan, not one stitched together from previous announcements and rehashed four months out from the election,” says Andrew Little.
Why is the conversation just about ‘new home owners’.
Are they important because ‘home owners are voters’?
What happens when someone reaches out to the ‘great unwashed’ and the lifetime renter class get active?
I think I’ll take labours plan. Why wouldn’t you? The alternative is a disaster and Labour is like this is what we’ve come up with. Labour has shown on paper it can go from one regime to another in one year and I’m like ok then. Why not give it a try?
Both National and Labour are trapped in a surreal policy bubble of their own making, and it’s killing us!
Australia is building TEN THOUSAND NEW APARTMENTS A MONTH.
Even if you scale that back to 20% for New Zealand, that’s still TWO THOUSAND NEW APARTMENTS EVERY MONTH.
If we cut back immigration by half, to 50 per day, we will catch up on our residential deficit at a rate of FIVE HUNDRED NEW APARTMENTS PER MONTH.
Phil Twyford thought he was being radical, and called a policy launch when he promised Hamilton Labour would build 200 houses in a YEAR.
Why are NZ Politicians talking about PATHETICALLY LOW build levels like 3,000 a year?
Could it be that there is no WILL to build any new houses amongst the Bourgoisie in New Zealand? Could it have something to do with the Banks, which routinely pull the lending rug out from under developers, or effective Monopolies like Fletchers who supply some of the most expensive building materials in the world?
We could beat the Australians at building if we were prepared to bust up our monopolies and introduce new technologies, like 3D printed houses and mass construction techniques. The Australians don’t treat building as a Cottage Industry, they build massive tracts of attractive houses and apartments at low prices using modern techniques.
New Zealanders need to come into the 21st century and come to grips with mass transit, large scale building and modern apartment living. But that will never happen while the Bourgoisie of this country maintain a death grip on the supply and construction of free-standing cottage housing, aided and abetted by pandering politicians.