WaateaNews: Māori Home Ownership in Tāmaki Makaurau: Is Auckland’s future an economically gated Pākeha community?
Could the largest Pacific Island and Maori city in New Zealand be unintentionally white washed by Labour’s new affordable housing KiwiBuild project?
Banning foreign buyers will reduce demand and building 100 000 new houses is all very good for the children of the middle classes who have been squeezed out of home ownership, but the ugly truth is that Labour’s definition of ‘affordable’ at $600 000 is completely out of the grasp of most Māori and Pacific Islanders in Auckland.
Why does that matter?
Well with Labour in such a dominant position in terms of the political voice of Māoridom, the expectations and demands upon them are far greater and building 50 000 ‘affordable’ houses in Auckland that are out of reach for most Māori isn’t a solution.
Some Iwi are involved in social housing in Auckland, but they are falsely invested meaning they are mostly invested in the prime profit motives of the fully priced properties with a tiny pittance carved out for ‘social housing’.
This isn’t solving or helping ease the problem of housing affordability, it is actually exacerbating it and to date the previous Government’s social housing projects using profit as its motive have all been terrible and embarrassing failures.
What we need is an urban Māori Authority mandate for getting more Māori into home ownership. Over 25 years between 1991 and 2013, Māori and Pacific Island home ownership rates have plummeted 25% in Auckland. The Government Stats are grim…
Between 1986 and 2013, the proportion of New Zealand’s population living in dwellings not owned by the household increased from around one-quarter to over one-third of the population (24.8 percent to 36.3 percent) – up 46.4 percent. As home-ownership rates have declined, Māori and Pacific people have also been increasingly living in properties rented from private landlords, businesses, or a trust, rather than from other sources.
Since 1986, the proportion of Māori living in private rentals has increased more than for the total population (up 88.3 percent and 42.7 percent, respectively). The increase for Pacific people was 58.5 percent.
The falls in home ownership did not just occur in our largest cities. For Māori, falls were close to 40 percent in the Whangarei, Southern Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, and Hastings urban areas.
The decline in home-ownership rates for all Pacific people in Auckland was similar, down over 40 percent in Western and Southern Auckland.
…what we have here is a systemic poverty issue deeply rooted in colonialism which have left Māori and Pacific Islanders with less economic certainty than Pākeha.
Building more houses for the children of the middle classes is fine, and we should want those children to be able to buy homes in the city they live in, but Labour has a moral mandate to do far more for Māori and building $600 000 ‘affordable’ homes is not and can not be the solution to that mandate.
First Published on WaateaNews.com
What we need is more truly ‘social housing’, that is STATE HOUSING!
Building state houses is part of this new government’s housing policy.
Oh, did Labour forget to tell Martyn this? Or did you forget to tell Martyn this? Why did he write this post then?
I read too little on ‘state housing’ in Labour’s policy:
http://www.labour.org.nz/housing
“Affordable housing” is mentioned, rather in the context of ‘Kiwi Build’, and in Auckland in most places that starts at around 600k per dwelling, what a joke, truly.
And the Greens have not really got much input there, I note, as housing is held by Twyford as Minister.
Only boosting Housing NZ and building tens of thousands of state housing dwellings nationwide over ten years will solve the crisis, the rest is a bit of a pipe dream.
Agree with you Martyn. Didn’t Labour’s Deputy leader Kelvin Davis speak of a Maori housing development?
“around 10,200 people with the cost of keeping each individual prisoner approximately $97,090 annually, culminating in eye-watering yearly spends of around $165m for remand facilities on top of the $590m spent on sentenced prisoners.” #rediculous… http://briefingpapers.co.nz/transforming-to-a-prison-free-society/
And. “a bigger house can be sold for a lower unit rate (typically around $2k/m2 for a 250m2) at a greater profitability level than a smaller ‘affordable’ house (typically around $3k/m2 for a 120m2 home).” Better… http://briefingpapers.co.nz/cost-is-not-price/
While conscripting prisoners and beneficiaries are not an ideal solution. Ala NZ1st work for the dole programmes and other prisoner work release programmes pushed by The Minister for Corrections Kelvin Davies. IMHO the opportunity of enacting these policies is far more beneficial than not enacting them.
30 yr housing loans at a moderate interest rate would assist this group into homes. New 3/4 bed townhouse type for families and 1/ 2 bed units for singles or couples should be on offer with the crown owning the land on long term leases. Each development should have a quarter of the homes in this category, guaranteed by the crown. This would assist with the risk factors as well.
There is only limited Crown owned land left in a place such as Auckland, and building on it may mean, smaller parks and reserves, or building along railway tracks and motorways.
Instead the government should look at seizing hold of land owned by private owners using the Public Works Act and other provisions.
It is time also to bring in some more regulation for land ownership, so owners will be bound by some obligations for the common good.
We have become a bit like a Mini USA here, where private ownership rights seem to ‘trump’ everything else, and we know where that leads to.
I watched Phil Twyford on The Nation today, and I was NOT impressed by his performance. The journalist behind this story is one of a few I still respect in the MSM:
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/11/no-means-testing-for-kiwibuild-homes.html
Phil Twyford was talking about intervening in the market, but gave insufficient details, admitted a ‘ballot’ will decide on who gets a Kiwi Build home, they will even deal with developers who are willing to sell parts of their developments to the government to meet the Kiwi Build numbers.
Twyford is one I trust least in the Labour led government, he is in bed with developers, he is talking without sufficient info on how they will reach their goals, and he is not going to get the government build the homes, it will be done largely by developers, working under PPP arrangements.
Considering homes around a max of 600k as ‘affordable’ is dishonest for a start. And the use of Crown land, to allow developers and private buyers build homes, that is nothing less than asset sales.
We should look at seizing property of speculators and large land holders, tax land holders not using land for years (land bankers), we should take many more measures, what I hear so far, that is unconvincing.
This is not what I voted for, get real, Labour.
We need state action, a true reversal of capitalism, allow state investment and management of housing and essential social and core infrastructure services, all else is a waste of time, a short change. That is where Labour and Green supporters now must pile the pressure on, or lose the next election.
Enjoy Beethoven by the way, I wonder how he would have voted under present circumstances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6aQ3i4MdFU