Andrew Little’s speech: Backing the Kiwi dream of home ownership
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- Date published:
2:47 pm, July 10th, 2016 - 176 comments
Categories: Andrew Little, housing, labour, Politics -
Tags: homeless crisis
Tēnā koutou katoa
Can I begin by acknowledging Annette King.
Annette is an incredible Deputy Leader and a real source of counsel, wisdom and advice.
Can I also acknowledge the local MP David Cunliffe, and Phil Twyford our fantastic housing spokesperson.
You’ve never seen Nick Smith look so scared as when Phil gets up to ask him a question in the house.
I see mayoral candidate Phil Goff is here today. Phil I want to say how exciting it is to think what we will achieve for Auckland with you as mayor and Labour in government.
Can I also acknowledge other caucus colleagues and I want to make special mention of a soon to be colleague, even though he can’t be here today: the next MP for Mt Roskill, Michael Wood.
I had the pleasure of attending Michael’s campaign launch last month, and he has a great team that are working hard to deliver a Labour win in Mt Roskill at the end of the year.
We’re here today to celebrate 100 years of the Labour Party.
Here to celebrate generations of men and women who have come together to make this a better country.
We’re here to celebrate Labour’s creation of the welfare state, the achievements of widespread home ownership and the creation of state housing, a free health system and a free education system.
In short, we celebrate the building of a nation.
We celebrate and we remember the image of Michael Joseph Savage carrying the very first furniture into the very first state house.
Offering hope to people that the years of depression were over and there were brighter days ahead.
We’re here to celebrate the beginning of the reconciliation between Maori and Pakeha and the restoration of the mana of the Treaty of Waitangi.
We’re celebrating the decision to make New Zealand nuclear free. We celebrate the courage shown by thousands of New Zealanders who marched against the Springbok Tour.
We’re celebrating KiwiBank. Kiwisaver. Working for Families. The Cullen Fund.
We celebrate Homosexual Law Reform and we remember the scene of the packed galleries in Parliament rising in song after we passed Marriage Equality.
These are Labour achievements.
This is the legacy of our party.
A better, stronger, prouder country.
Today, we celebrate these achievements and we look to the future.
At the heart of our political philosophy, at the heart of all of our achievements, lies a profound sense of optimism.
An enduring belief in our shared power to make a difference.
A belief in our common ability to come together to solve the great challenges of the day.
The power of humanity, acting together, for the dignity of humankind.
We believe that as strongly today as our forebears did 100 years ago.
And this approach is desperately needed in New Zealand today.
Because still, after 100 years, there is so much work left to do.
Today, we have a government that has failed to tackle the big challenges facing our country; that has failed to stand up for most New Zealanders.
After eight years, this government’s lost touch.
And nowhere, nowhere, is this government more out of touch and out of ideas than on housing.
Housing is at the core of a good life.
It provides security and stability.
It helps families put down roots in their communities and save for retirement
It is one of the most common sources of capital for people setting up their own small business.
The ambition of widespread homeownership sits at the heart of our social contract. It is at the heart of the Kiwi Dream.
The promise that if you work hard and do the right thing, you can earn a place of your own.
But under this government, all of that is slipping away.
We all know New Zealand has a housing crisis.
I know it, you know it, the Reserve Bank knows it.
Everyone in Auckland knows it.
The rest of New Zealand knows it.
The only people who don’t think New Zealand has a housing crisis all just happen to work in the Beehive.
Under National, home ownership is at its lowest level in 65 years.
Since 2008, when this government came to office, the average house price in Auckland has nearly doubled.
But over the same period, incomes have increased by only 24%.
In the last year, house prices in Auckland have increased by $2600 a week.
Twenty six hundred dollars a week.
It’s crazy. How on earth do you save enough to keep up with that?
And look, behind all of these figures are real people who are missing out.
One of those people wrote to me recently, a young woman named Jen, she talked about what it was like for her and her partner trying to buy their first home.
She said “I work damn hard, so does my partner, working three jobs to try and save for a home” but she says “We were told that our 550k budget was laughable and made to feel like we could never own our own home.”
People like Jen and her partner, they deserve better.
They’re young, they’re hard working, they’re ambitious.
They’re exactly the type of people this government should be standing up for, instead of shutting them out.
But instead the government is siding with the speculators, the people trying to make big money out of our housing market at the expense of families looking for homes.
The proportion of Auckland houses being bought by investors has now reached 46% – around twice the level of first home buyers.
But it isn’t just first home buyers that are hurt by this crisis.
Even those who are lucky enough, often with the help of their parents, to scrape together enough for a deposit, are hurt by this crisis.
People who know they are winners on paper, but who could never actually sell their house because they would never be able to buy another one in this market.
People who can’t realise their equity because doing so would mean having to move far away from their jobs or their kid’s schools.
People who live in mortal fear of a bump in interest rates, because they know they could never keep up with the mortgage if rates rise by even a couple of per cent.
And then there is the hard edge of the crisis.
The rising poverty and homelessness that National turns a blind eye to.
We’ve all heard the stories of Kiwi kids admitted to hospitals with respiratory illnesses because the cold damp homes they have to live in are making them sick.
We’ve all seen the awful media reports in the last few weeks about what life is like for those who can’t find any home at all.
Of the 42,000 people living in overcrowded conditions or in garages or in cars.
Of children sleeping under bushes in South Auckland.
We’ve seen the story of the 11 year old girl, whose mother has a job, but whose family spent months living in a van before they were taken in by Te Puea Marae.
She said that the hardest part is actually not being able to read in the van, because you don’t have space. And there’s not much light because it would waste the battery.
When did this become the New Zealand we lived in?
When did we decide we wanted to make buying your first home so difficult, or living with a mortgage so tough?
When did we decide widespread poverty and homelessness was ok?
National wants us to believe this is just the way things are, that we don’t have a choice and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Well they might have given up, but I won’t. Not now, not ever.
The truth is, this Government is nowhere when it comes to housing.
They don’t have the political will to look at real solutions, so instead we’ve seen them flail from gimmick to gimmick.
Remember the plan to pay people to move away from Auckland, just a few weeks after they said they were going to pay people to move to Auckland?
Remember the announcement about emergency housing, that turned out wasn’t going to lead to a single extra bed?
And then their big key note announcement: letting a few councils borrow a bit more money for infrastructure – and then it turned out the money wasn’t enough to cover just the cost of one big pipe in Auckland.
And you know the saddest thing about these failures? They’re just from the last few weeks – it’s been eight years of this under National.
This government has completely failed on housing.
The Prime Minister doesn’t know what to do.
Not one of the three Housing Ministers know what to do.
And let me be clear:
New Zealanders don’t have time to wait and hope National will bumble their way into a solution.
After eight years, it’s very clear.
If we want to deal with the housing crisis: that lot has to go.
We’ve got to change the government.
Because the truth is it doesn’t have to be like this.
We can fix it, and together, we will.
Today, I want to lay out Labour’s comprehensive plan to fix the housing crisis.
It’s the plan we will be taking into the next election.
It’s a plan that will restore opportunity for first home buyers, give a fair shot to the next generation and solve the homelessness problem this government has ignored.
We will attack the housing crisis from every angle, starting with the devastating lack of supply.
We’ll start by urgently building enough emergency housing to support those in need.
We’re going to fix the homelessness problem that National has ignored for far too long.
This week, I announced that Labour will urgently address the shortage of emergency housing – with $60 million to provide 1400 new beds in emergency accommodation – enough for 5100 extra people a year.
With the existing support that will take the number of people helped each year to over 8,000.
But it isn’t just the homeless, we need to do more to ensure everyone has access to modern, warm, dry homes.
Yesterday I announced that Labour will reform housing New Zealand – so that instead of being run like a corporation making a profit off the most vulnerable, we can invest hundreds of millions of dollars in building thousands of new, modern, high quality state houses instead.
But we won’t stop there.
The next part of Labour’s plan is one that somehow none of the Government’s three housing Ministers seem to have been able to come up with.
There aren’t enough affordable homes, so we’re going to build more.
Now, the Government’s been really struggling with this concept, so let me say it again:
When there’s a housing crisis, you need to build more bloody homes.
That is what Labour is going to do.
That’s how we’re going to fix this crisis.
The next Labour Government will build 100,000 new affordable homes to be on sold to first home buyers.
Working with the private sector and experts in fields like prefabrication, we can build standalone homes for $500,000-$600,000 in Auckland, with apartments and town houses for less than $500,000
With the average house price in Auckland now about to hit a million dollars this is a big move in the right direction. This will stabilise prices and give people a fair shot again.
Affordable housing developments like Waimahia are already able to build 3 bedroom homes for $550,000 but imagine what we could do building at scale across Auckland.
Now, these homes won’t be palaces. But they will be modern, warm, and affordable, first homes to help people get a foot on the housing ladder.
To get these houses built, we’re also going to do more to free up land for new greenfields developments.
That’s why Labour will abolish the Auckland urban growth boundary that has been driving up the price of land.
We’ll replace it with a smarter way to manage urban growth that will shut down the land bankers and speculators by cutting off their profits.
And to make sure there we can deliver these homes, we need to be growing the construction workforce.
Earlier this year, I announced our Dole for Apprenticeships policy which will take on an extra 4000 young people for jobs training in fields including building and construction. Our policy of three-years’ free post-school education and training will add thousands of skilled workers to the workforce. KiwiBuild will also provide a pipeline of future work for the building industry as the work of the Canterbury rebuild nears completion, freeing up more workers.
100,000 houses will make a real difference to Kiwi families. It will go a long way towards helping families get into their first home.
But we can go even further. The scale of the challenge demands that we must.
Today, I want to add the next part of our plan to restore the Kiwi Dream.
Just like freeing up restrictive urban growth controls, this announcement is about cutting through the barriers that stop us building homes and letting the private sector crack on with the job.
It’s simple: The country needs more houses built, it needs them urgently, and it needs them in well-designed communities with all the services and utilities people need.
Building on that scale gets complicated. With the need for infrastructure, and dealing with different land owners, it can easily get too risky for private developers.
Just getting a change to the Council plan can take several years.
This is an urgent crisis, we can’t afford delays like that. If we want to deal with the housing crisis, we’ve got to cut through these delays and get cracking on building homes fast.
Which is why today I am announcing that Labour in government will set up an Affordable Housing Authority to deliver ambitious new urban development projects, at scale and at pace.
We are going to change the face of our towns and cities, and fix this housing crisis.
Our Affordable Housing Authority will roll up its sleeves and build like we haven’t seen in this country for a long time.
It will lead and master-plan the building of new communities and the revitalisation of old ones.
It will partner with developers to deliver thousands and thousands of high-quality affordable homes, in communities Kiwis will be proud to live in.
The Authority will have a target to meet: 50% across all of the homes in its developments will have to be affordable.
Under National, that number has been as low as 5%.
The Authority will look after the Government’s urban land holdings, and will make sure there is a pipeline of land for future needs – for housing, business, schools, parks and hospitals.
At the local level it will partner with others: the local Council, iwi and private investors to form development companies which will manage the projects.
The Affordable Housing Authority will allow us to turbo charge the scale of urban development so desperately needed in Auckland.
Imagine 10 or 15 projects on the scale of a Hobsonville or a Tamaki.
There is huge potential in greenfield areas like Drury, Whenuapai, and Kumeu while within the city there are opportunities to redevelop around the city centre and in town centres like Henderson and Manukau.
And this is not just about Auckland.
All around the country there are towns and cities who want to revitalise neighbourhoods and town centres.
With the Affordable Housing Authority on their side, they will be able to. The Authority will be able to lead redevelopment projects in places like South Dunedin and the East Frame in Christchurch.
The funny thing is, this is not a new idea. The First Labour Government planned and built ambitious new communities with parks, and community centres.
As with KiwiBuild we are drawing inspiration from the greatest generation to find solutions for the 21st century.
This approach to urban development is widely used overseas, including in Australia.
And it has been endorsed by the Productivity Commission, and the leading lights in the property industry here.
This is a common-sense, achievable way to get homes build.
It’s long overdue, it’s widely supported.
And Labour will do it.
But we can’t just fix the supply issues, we have to fix the problems with demand as well.
We urgently need to clamp down on the speculators who are driving up the prices.
I have no sympathy for speculators and land bankers who are just in the market to make a quick buck. Not when families are missing out.
So we’ll start by cracking down on the offshore speculators – the people who don’t live here, don’t want to live here, whose only interest in New Zealand is to extract profits.
We’ll ban offshore buyers from the market unless they are willing to build a new home and add to the stock.
It’s a common sense idea, supported by a big majority of New Zealanders, and it’s been staring the government in the face for years.
But there’s more we need to do.
Right now, there’s no doubt that the way our tax system is designed gives speculators enormous incentives to wreak havoc in our housing market, allowing them to reap super profits practically tax free.
The government has a piecemeal response to this – a bright line test of just two years that means as long as a speculator holds on to a property for two years and one day, they can flick it on without paying any tax on the profit.
That’s not good enough in the midst of a housing crisis.
What’s more, our rules around negative gearing encourage speculation as well.
The way this works is investors are able to write off any losses they make in property investment against the rest of their income for tax purposes.
That means other taxpayers pick up the tab – its effectively a taxpayer subsidy for speculation.
If homeowners cannot claim their mortgage payments against their taxes why should speculators?
Taken together, these rules give a boost to the speculators, and gives them an unfair advantage over first home buyers.
That’s not right, and it can’t continue.
In government, Labour will hold a comprehensive review of our tax system, to restore fairness and balance between the productive and speculative parts of our economy.
But it has become clear to me that we can’t wait.
The crisis is urgent.
That’s why today I am announcing that the Government I lead will extend the bright line test so that if you sell an investment property within five years, you’ll pay the full tax on it.
That means the short term speculators won’t be able to get away tax free anymore. It means ending the tax incentives to speculate in short term property gains at the expense of families trying to get into a home.
But we won’t stop there.
I am announcing today that Labour will begin consulting on how to end the loop hole of negative gearing.
We’ll do this in a way that’s targeted at speculators, not investors looking for a stable, long term return.
Under Labour, the market won’t be stacked in favour of speculators anymore – we’ll back families and first home buyers. We’ll back the Kiwi Dream.
These announcements make it very clear: Labour is the party of home ownership in New Zealand today.
That’s what we stand for and that’s what my government will deliver.
For 100 years now, Labour has stood for security and opportunity for every New Zealander.
A good job. A good life for your family. Good education. Healthcare that’s there for you when you need it.
And a home you can call your own.
For generations, Labour members and supporters have made this a better, more decent, more caring country.
Today, it’s our turn to continue that mission.
Next year, New Zealanders will have a clear choice.
On the one hand a tired, out of touch government that will do nothing to solve the housing crisis.
That will deliver three more years like the last eight.
Falling home-ownership, substandard rentals.
A housing crisis with no end in sight.
Or New Zealand can choose a better way
They can choose to build affordable homes.
To cut through the red tape and get the job done.
To crack down on foreign speculators.
To bring in proper rental standards.
To stop tolerating homelessness and start giving Kiwis in need a roof over their heads.
That’s the choice in front of us next year.
And together, New Zealand, we can make the right choice.
We can choose to end the housing crisis.
We can choose to restore opportunity to our young people.
We can choose to make this a better, fairer country once again.
Together, let’s go make it happen.
Thank you.
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I appreciate that A Phuulish Fellow has been fairly quiet recently. That’s a combination of two things – comparatively little in the way of relevant material to discuss (at least until The War of the Rohirrim comes out next month), and my general work on The Secret Non-Fiction Writing Project. ...6 days ago - Here’s how governments could fix their Paris climate commitment failures
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Governments around the world face a conundrum. Virtually none are on track to meet their Paris climate commitments. That includes the United States, which committed to cut its emissions at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 but is only on track for 32-43% cuts ...6 days ago
- Unstoppable.
6 days ago
- Katherine Trebeck – An Alternative Economic Narrative
The era of neoliberalism has been destructive on so many levels, with a huge growth in wealth and privilege for the one percent. A hollowing out of the state; fraying of the safety net; inadequate government investment in infrastructure; and continued environmental degradation has resulted in damage on a vast ...6 days ago - In a Manner of Speaking
In a manner of speakingI just want to sayThat I could never forget the wayYou told me everythingBy saying nothingOh, give me the wordsGive me the wordsThat tell me nothingOh, give me the wordsGive me the wordsThat tell me everythingSongwriter: Winston TongNext Tuesday, the subscription price for Nick’s Kōrero will ...6 days ago - Monday 18 November 2024
The NZNO have announced a nationwide strike for December over its pay dispute with Health NZ, who have put a 1 per cent cap on pay rises. The Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti and Treaty Principles Bill remain front and centre in the media, with the impacts of the Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke-led ...6 days ago
- Shipley warns Seymour’s bill is ‘inviting civil war’
The divisive Treaty Principles Bill is not just a risk for the National Party, it’s a risk to civil order and unity, warns a National Party grandee. Photo: Getty ImagesKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on ...6 days ago - A clearer network for the City Rail Link?
This post was originally published on Linked In by Nicolas Reid. It is republished here with permission. Auckland is now just a year or so away from having the keystone of its urban rail network complete. As I wrote about here, the City Rail Link will be a literal game changer for ...6 days ago
- National’s support base is wobbling
If ACT leader David Seymour intended the Treaty Principles Bill to drive a wedge into National’s support base, he may well already be succeeding. By midnight on Thursday after the Maori Party haka in Parliament, National MPs were being deluged with emails and messages from their members calling them out ...6 days ago
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
A listing of 33 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, November 10, 2024 thru Sat, November 16, 2024. Story of the week Our Story of the Week is completely "meta" (no, not that Meta). It's about our exploring how ...7 days ago
- Grifter Eftpos Tamaki at it again
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Self-appointed “Bishop” and proto-fascist, Brian Tamaki was at it again on 16 November, blocking Auckland’s southern motorway, SH1.This time, the target of his ire wasn’t the Civil Unions Act; covid lock-downs; mask mandates; or ...7 days ago - Rip up a bill, lead a haka are words to live by
I cannot stop grabbing people by the lapels, or shoulders, or similar, and raving at them about the tiny miracles in my ears.I can hear again! There could not be a more satisfied customer in all the world.In a noisy cafe I am even catching words that Karren cannot, she ...1 week ago - Unintended Consequences
Take the baitYou pay the priceIt's much too lateFor good adviceYou know and I know that our good things' throughBecause there's consequences for what we doConsequences for me and youWriters: Kevin Robert Hayes, David Nagier, Bonnie Adele Hayes.Fallout from the first readingOne News began last night by saying that tens ...1 week ago - Thank you, driver!
Today, Saturday 16th of November, is Auckland Transport’s Bus Driver Appreciation Day! Saturday 16 November marks the third annual Auckland Transport (AT) ‘Bus Driver Appreciation Day’, and this year we are encouraging all of New Zealand to thank their driver or let the bus go first if you are in ...1 week ago
- Totally Normal: Holiday Edition
Hi,If I was to accurately sum up my mental state over the week, I’d just say that I got a huge fright from my own shadow.I’d nipped out for an 11pm neighborhood stroll, just to calm down after a day of stress and screens. The Cure and Fazerdaze’s new record ...1 week ago - We Are Not Listening
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
1 week ago - More lawlessness from National
On Tuesday, sick of government stonewalling, the Waitangi Tribunal issued a rare court order, ordering the Minister of Health to release unredacted documents within 48 hours showing its reasoning for disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. The government's response to the lawful order of a court? Yeah, ...1 week ago
- National’s tyrannical “foreign interference” law
Yesterday, under cover the the biggest political fight of the year, National quietly - covertly, even - introduced anti-foreign interference legislation. The bill is the product of a years-long work-program aimed at countering shit like this and this, and there's unquestionably a need to do something to counter foreign states' ...1 week ago
- The Haka Represents The Best Of Us
A few months ago, I was in an audience watching a Haka-Kapa and as I watched children dance and sing and sway and shout and beat, I couldn’t help but think “The Haka represents the best of us.”Yes, yes - there will be a thousand voices that rush forth to ...1 week ago
- Adding up the climate cost
St Mary’s Bay housing left hanging: Climate risk is systemically underestimated in the climate scenarios used by central banks, and a new report warns 10,000 houses are set to become uninsurable in Aotearoa. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in ...1 week ago
- Auckland chafing at Bishop’s housing intensification orders
One of the major problems the Government has in implementing its ‘going for housing growth’ strategy is that it isn’t giving much funding help to councils. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and ...1 week ago - Friday 15 November 2024
The Treaty Principles Bill continues to dominate political news, with it passing its first reading in the House. Parliament was briefly suspended and Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke suspended for 24 hours after leading a haka that was joined by opposition MPs and the public in the gallery. Willie ...1 week ago
- Weekly Roundup 15-November-2024
Happy Friday, welcome to another round-up of interesting stories about what’s happening in Auckland and other cities. Feel free to add your links in the comments! This post, like all our work, is brought to you by a largely volunteer crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers ...1 week ago
- Are We The Waiting?
And screamingAre we we are, are we we are the waitingAnd screamingAre we we are, are we we are the waitingForget me nots, second thoughts live in isolationHeads or tails and fairy tales in my mindAre we we are, are we we are the waiting unknownThe rage and love, the ...1 week ago - The Hoon around the week to November 15
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on the latest climate news, including from COP29 this week; on the US Presidential elections, Israel vs Gaza/Iran/Lebanon, Ukraine/Nato vs Russia/North ...1 week ago
- First Tea and Toast, now Milo — why do NZ’s best beverages need so much defending?
Only two months ago, Nicola Willis had to step in to stop Health New Zealand cutting tea and toast for post-birth parents, and now Lester Levy is riding to the rescue with a welcome message for all: our health workers can once again drink Milo, and will no longer need ...1 week ago - Gordon Campbell on the folly of making apologies in a social vacuum.
Day One of the Treaty Principles Bill…and everyone got what they wanted, and did what they liked. Heated words were exchanged. Culturally appropriate acts of outrage were performed. David Seymour got to play the victim card. Willie Jackson got kicked out of class. A comically red-faced Mr Speaker bellowed “Order, ...1 week ago
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #46 2024
Open access notables Microbial solutions must be deployed against climate catastrophe, Peixoto et al., Nature Communications [comment]: The climate crisis is escalating. A multitude of microbe-based solutions have been proposed, and these technologies hold great promise and could be deployed along with other climate mitigation strategies. However, these solutions have ...1 week ago
- The PM gets some extremely valuable legal advice for free
You can pay a great deal of money for the services of a KC. So just what would some peerless legal writing from 40 or so of them be worth, do you reckon?Priceless, that’s what. It’s not even the half of it, but this is my favourite part of the ...1 week ago - D-day for the government
The government's Treaty Principles Bill is up for its first reading today - bought forward in a rush in a desperate effort to avoid the hikoi which is currently marching on Wellington. But the Prime Minister won’t be there for it – he’s literally running away to Peru! But he ...1 week ago
- 97% of submissions did not want no-cause evictions, Trump chooses a Russian spy for US Intelligence ...
Good morning, and I’m sorry I’ve been away for a couple of days.I’ve been focusing on the Hikoi, and also testing out sentiment on the Treaty Principles Bill. It’s complicated, and the Treaty Principles Bill will be debated in the House today. The Government’s own lawyers have told them the ...1 week ago
- Release: Government should be transparent on live exports
Targeted consultation on reinstating live cattle exports by sea won’t allow the New Zealand public to have their say. ...2 days ago - NZ’s global climate rankings plummet as Govt removes agriculture from ETS
The Government has passed legislation to remove agriculture from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) while Aotearoa’s reputation on climate action plummets. ...3 days ago - Failed boot camp experiment must end
As legislation to set up boot camps passed its first reading, the Green Party urged the Government to abandon this failed policy experiment for the good of our rangatahi. ...3 days ago
- Gender-affirming care must centre evidence and health needs, not political posturing
The Ministry of Health has today released an evidence brief regarding the use of puberty blockers in gender-affirming healthcare, amid moves by the government to limit access. ...3 days ago
- Release: National doesn’t care about manufacturing
The National Government is walking away from our manufacturing sector with constant reports of closures and job losses. ...3 days ago
- Release: David Parker speech – Piketty, Inequality and Climate Change
David Parker's speech from the University of Auckland's forum on Piketty, Inequality and Climate Change in September 2024. ...3 days ago
- Release: Youth mental wellbeing no longer a priority for Child Poverty Minister
Louise Upston has revealed her diminished vision for vulnerable youth against a backdrop of snubbed advice, scrapped priorities, shifted goal posts and thousands more children projected to fall into poverty. ...3 days ago
- Release: National’s lack of climate action taking NZ backwards
National Government’s backward-looking climate policy has seen New Zealand fall seven places on the Climate Change Performance Index to 41 out of 63 countries measured. ...3 days ago
- Release: Simple reason for drop in emergency housing
When the Government says it has reduced the number of people in emergency housing, what it means is it is stopping people from accessing it in the first place. ...3 days ago
- Govt’s child wellbeing strategy ‘shallow and shameful’
The Government is turning its back on children by not only weakening child poverty reduction targets, but also removing child mental wellbeing as a priority focus in their Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy. ...3 days ago
- Release: A historic win for Samoan communities
Labour warmly welcomes the Restoring Samoan Citizenship Bill as it passes its third reading, before becoming law. ...3 days ago
- Government plan to reinstate live animal exports a “national disgrace”
The Government has taken a giant step backwards by reinstating live animal exports. ...4 days ago
- Pasifika justice as Member’s Bill passes final reading
Teanau Tuiono’s Member’s Bill, the Citizenship (Western Samoa Restoration) Amendment Bill, has passed its third reading and will become law. ...4 days ago
- Release: Minister of Education thinks New Zealand ends at the Bombay Hills
The Minister of Education has shown complete disregard for rural communities and their school bus routes in Question Time today. ...4 days ago
- Economists sound alarm on Government’s slash-and-burn approach
A group of prominent economists has released an open letter to the Government, raising grave concerns about the far-reaching consequences of its fiscal policy. ...4 days ago
- Release: Smoking numbers up under Costello’s watch
National’s repeal of Labour’s smokefree legislation has taken New Zealand further away from achieving a Smokefree 2025 and a smokefree generation. ...4 days ago
- Release: Call for Palestine recognition by NZ, Australian and Canadian MPs
Parliamentarians from Australia, Canada and New Zealand have written an open letter to their respective Prime Ministers calling on them to recognise Palestine. ...4 days ago
- Justice Select Committee opens floor for Treaty Principles submissions
Today, the Justice Select Committee has decided to officially open submissions for the controversial Treaty Principles Bill. ...5 days ago
- Power of the people on full display as hīkoi approaches Parliament
Today, Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived in Wellington, with thousands gathering to march in unity against the divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...5 days ago
- Hypocrisy as Te Whatu Ora contractor bill balloons
Te Whatu Ora’s bill for contracting and consulting staff has ballooned by nearly 20 percent under the National Government, breaking a promise they made during the election campaign to cut contractors. ...6 days ago
- Release: Growing pressure to scrap Section 7AA Repeal Bill
The newly released Section 7AA Repeal Bill's select committee report is further evidence that the Government should scrap it. ...7 days ago
- Government’s move to monetise access to nature a slippery slope
The Green Party is voicing serious concerns over the Government’s proposal to charge for access to public conservation land, released today. ...1 week ago
- Green Party condemns the passage of Treaty Principles Bill
The Green Party condemns the passing of the Treaty Principles Bill at first reading, and is clear that the fight is not over. ...1 week ago
- Stand Up for Te Tiriti
Te Tiriti o Waitangi is our country’s founding document. It forms the basis of the relationship between Māori and the Crown – and the Aotearoa New Zealand we live in today. ...1 week ago
- Release: Over 15,000 sign Labour’s open letter to Luxon
As the hīkoi to Parliament continues, Labour has sent an open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in a last-ditch attempt to get him to kill the Treaty Principles Bill. ...1 week ago
- Fast Track Bill threatens environment, climate and reputation
The fast-track legislation passing its second reading in Parliament is another step towards environmental ruin. ...2 weeks ago
- Greens join King’s Counsel in calling for Treaty Principles Bill to be abandoned
The Prime Minister must answer the call from a group of senior lawyers of the King’s Counsel to abandon the divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Chris Hipkins’ apology statement to state and faith-based care survivors
...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour formally apologises to state and faith-based care survivors
Labour joins with the Government in unreservedly apologising for the abuse, neglect and trauma including torture in state and faith-based care and for ignoring the voices of survivors for too long. ...2 weeks ago
- Green Party stands in support of survivors of abuse in care
Today, the Green Party stands alongside the survivors of abuse in state care and faith-based care as the Government issues an historic apology. ...2 weeks ago
- Green Party calls for conscience vote on Treaty Principles Bill
The Green Party has written to the Speaker of the House requesting he enable a personal vote on the Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Govt move to exclude journalist risks chilling effect
The Green Party is alarmed by the Government’s move to exclude a journalist from covering this week’s apology for the survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care. ...2 weeks ago
- Without action, an apology will be empty air
For tomorrow’s apology to survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care to hold any water, the Government must not pursue the same policies that drove the abuse in the first place. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Concerns remain over tobacco interference
Concerns about the tobacco industry’s ability to interfere in government policy making remain, despite the inability of the Office of the Auditor-General to investigate the Government’s decision to halve the excise tax on heated tobacco products. ...2 weeks ago
- Urgent wake-up call on climate
The Climate Change Commission’s latest advice indicates Aotearoa needs to be stepping up on climate action. ...2 weeks ago
- Green MP’s Meme-ber’s Bill set to save the world
Break out the punchlines and dust off your meme folder: Green Party MP Kahurangi Carter’s Copyright (Parody and Satire) Amendment Bill was pulled from the Ballot yesterday. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Poroporoaki: Ta Robert (Bom) Gillies
Kua hinga te manawa kairākau o Te Rua Tekau Ma Waru Tiwhatiwha te po! Kakarauru i te po! Ka rapuhia kei hea koe kua riro! Haere e te Ika a Whiro ki o tini hoa kua ngaro atu ki te Pō ...2 weeks ago
- Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principles Bill
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principle...
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- NZ must pursue independent foreign policy
The Green Party says the need is greater than ever for Aotearoa New Zealand to pursue an independent foreign policy. ...2 weeks ago
- Child Protection Investigation Unit established
A new Child Protection Investigation Unit is being established to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children in care, Minister for Children Karen Chhour says. “The report released by the Royal Commission into abuse in state care shows us all the risk of not acting immediately when there are serious ...2 days ago - Speech at United States Business Summit 2024
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Ka mihi ki te mana whenua ko Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. Kia ora and good morning everyone. Thank you Fran and Simon for inviting me here today, and importantly your leadership of this forum over several years now. I want to acknowledge David Gehrenbeck, Deputy ...2 days ago
- Record number of submissions received on granny flat proposal
Nearly 2,000 submissions have been received on the Government’s proposals aimed at making it easier to build a granny flat of up to 60 square metres without a resource or building consent, RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk say. “This is the highest number ...2 days ago
- District Court Judge appointed
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Rebecca Guthrie as a District Court Judge. Judge Guthrie was admitted to the bar in 1997 following her graduation from the University of Canterbury in 1996 (LLB, BA). She commenced her legal career in Hastings in 1997 before moving to London in ...2 days ago
- Appointments strengthen Predator Free 2050
The latest Predator Free 2050 Board appointments will help to strengthen biodiversity efforts across Aotearoa New Zealand, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka says. Mr Potaka today announced two appointments to the Board of Directors of Predator Free 2050 Limited, a key player in the wider Predator Free 2050 Programme. “The Predator ...2 days ago
- New facility in Christchurch will improve the lives of young New Zealanders
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey today opened Kahurangi, an innovative and much-needed facility for Canterbury’s Child, Adolescent, and Family Mental Health Services. “The new state of the art outpatient facility opened today will be a gamechanger for the way mental health is delivered for young people in Canterbury,” says Mr ...2 days ago
- Driver safety screens to be installed on Auckland buses
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed news from the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) that bus driver protection screens will be installed across Auckland’s bus fleet by 2026.“The Government is committed to improving the safety of working environments for bus drivers, and Budget 2024 allocated $15 million of Crown funding over ...2 days ago
- Government action provides Southland farmers more time to meet plan requirements
The Government is taking action to ensure Southland farmers and growers are not affected by unreasonable regional farm plan deadlines, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard say.“Cabinet has agreed to provide more time for farmers and growers to comply with regional rules ...3 days ago
- Bill reaffirms Government’s commitment to crack down on serious youth offending
The Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Bill had its first reading at Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Government’s commitment to crack down on serious youth offending, Minister for Children Karen Chhour says. “In recent years we have seen an unacceptable spike in youth offending. “This Bill makes ...3 days ago
- Critical milestones for earthquake buildings review
Fairer, more sensible rules about managing earthquake risks are a step closer with the passing of legislation and the appointment of an independent chair to provide expert advice, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The Government is committed to reinvigorating our cities and regions to support economic growth, ...3 days ago
- State of the art radiology machine for Auckland
People in Northland and Auckland will benefit from a new machine for cancer treatment installed at the Regional Cancer and Blood Service at Auckland City Hospital. The MV5 linear accelerator, or LINAC machine, officially opened today targets cancer tumours with pinpoint accuracy. Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says this new, ...3 days ago
- Foreign Minister to visit Europe
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Europe for high-level talks with France, Germany and the United Kingdom next week. "Since taking office almost a year ago, the Coalition Government has emphasised the importance we place on New Zealand's traditional and likeminded diplomatic and ...3 days ago
- First arrests made under gang patch ban
Police have made their first arrests under the new gang patch legislation, with two gang members arrested, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. “Just before 11 this morning, Police in Wairoa apprehended a gang member for wearing a patch to the supermarket. He has been arrested and will now face enforcement ...3 days ago
- Better support for victims of sexual violence
The Government is proposing two major changes to name suppression laws that will put the views of victims of sexual violence first, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “We are committed to restoring law and order and these two proposed changes will help ensure the victims of crime are put at ...3 days ago
- Government moving forward with Regional Deals
Cabinet has agreed to invite all regions to submit proposals for Regional Deals between central and local government that drive economic growth and deliver the infrastructure our country needs, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop say. Inviting all regions to propose a Regional Deal that boosts ...3 days ago
- MSA pilot participant update
One of the ten young men selected to participate in the Military-Style Academy Pilot has allegedly reoffended. Children’s Minister Karen Chhour is disappointed but says it would be naïve to think that none of these young men would reoffend. “I’m saddened that this young person has not taken this opportunity ...3 days ago
- Fighting for Kiwis in Trade
Delivered at Auckland Trade and Economic Policy School Good morning and thank you Deputy Vice Chancellor Lithander for your warm welcome and for inviting me to open Auckland Trade and Economic Policy School today. A Special thanks to the University of Auckland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and ...3 days ago
- Attendance rates increase, again
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says that school attendance is continuing to rise. In Term 3 of 2024 51.3 per cent of students attended school regularly, an increase of 5.3 percentage points from 46 per cent in Term 3 of 2023. “This Government has prioritised student attendance and it is ...3 days ago
- Improving the lives of young New Zealanders
Ensuring New Zealand is the best place in the world for children and young people is the vision at the heart of the Government’s new Child and Youth Strategy, Child Poverty Reduction Minister Louise Upston says. “Childhood represents a huge opportunity to set people on a positive path towards living ...3 days ago
- Government continues work to reinstate livestock exports by sea
The Government is reinstating the trade of livestock exports by sea while ensuring the highest standards of animal welfare, says Associate Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hoggard.“The Government will introduce legislation changes to reinstate the trade, enhance oversight, and strengthen requirements for exporters to identify risks and manage the welfare of ...4 days ago
- Speech to the National Quality Forum 2024
Tēnā koutou katoa – it is a pleasure to be here today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the important leadership role you all play in ensuring a quality health system New Zealanders can trust. There is enormous clinical expertise in this room covering a wide range of disciplines. ...4 days ago
- New Zealand’s COP29 National Statement
Tēnā koutou katoa. Mr President, Excellencies, Delegates. New Zealand, and all nations represented here today, are already dealing with the impacts of climate change. Our households, businesses, and economies are bearing the costs of its effects. The choices we make now will shape the severity of these impacts for generations ...4 days ago
- Latest Quarterly Investment Report released
The Government has released its second Quarterly Investment Report (QIR) which shows substantial work still to be done by agencies to improve investment reporting and meet the Government’s expectations, Infrastructure and Acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “New Zealand has significant infrastructure and investment needs. The Government is determined to get ...4 days ago
- New Zealand supporting loss and damage fund
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced New Zealand will contribute NZ$10 million to the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage while at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan. “New Zealand is joining the global effort to address the significant challenge of responding to ...4 days ago
- Gang crackdown begins at stroke of midnight
The free ride for gangs is over when the clock strikes midnight tonight, with tough new laws officially coming into effect, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell say. “Gang patches will no longer be able to be worn in public. To earn the right to wear a ...4 days ago
- LGFA increases borrowing capacity to support high growth councils
The Government is welcoming the decision by the Local Government Funding Agency to increase access to financing tools for fast growing councils to support greater investment in critical infrastructure, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says.“Communities across the country are facing an infrastructure deficit and significant population growth is projected in ...4 days ago
- Temporary Traffic Management costs revealed
The Government has revealed that over the past three years, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has spent an eyewatering $786 million of taxpayers’ money on road cones and temporary traffic management (TTM), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“When I became Minister, I was surprised to learn that that NZTA did ...5 days ago
- Jurisdiction of Disputes Tribunal to double
Legislation that will double the financial jurisdiction of the Disputes Tribunal from $30,000 to $60,000 has passed first reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. “We need to improve court timeliness and access to justice so that Kiwis and get on with their lives. Court delays affect everyone, the ...5 days ago
- Protecting New Zealand from foreign interference
Legislation that will specifically criminalise foreign interference and strengthen espionage offences has passed first reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “It is normal and appropriate for states to interact and work to influence one another. This encourages cooperation and can have mutually beneficial outcomes. “However, the reality ...5 days ago
- Significant milestone for Canterbury Road of National Significance
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed news that the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board has approved funding towards pre-implementation and early works on the State Highway 1 (SH1) Belfast to Pegasus Motorway and Woodend Bypass Road of National Significance (RoNS). “Reaching this significant milestone is a reflection of our Government’s ...5 days ago
- Health survey results to help drive change
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says findings from the annual Health Survey highlight the need to continue driving better health outcomes for New Zealanders. The New Zealand Health Survey is an annual snapshot of key metrics measured from July 2023 – July 2024. Findings released this morning include: In 2023/24, ...5 days ago
- Final push needed to get to Smokefree 2025
A renewed effort to get people to quit smoking will build on what has worked to date and target the groups who most need support, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello said today. “The latest New Zealand Health Survey results show the daily smoking rate at 6.9 per cent and we ...5 days ago
- New diplomatic appointments
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced four new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign ...5 days ago
- Next steps for Regulatory Standards Bill
Regulation Minister David Seymour has today announced the next steps in the Government’s plan improve the quality of regulation by opening consultation on a proposed Regulatory Standards Bill. “New Zealand's low wages can be blamed on low productivity, and low productivity can be blamed on poor regulation,” says Mr Seymour. ...5 days ago
- Red Tape Tipline goes live
Minister for Regulation David Seymour has today announced that the Ministry for Regulation’s Red Tape Tipline is now live. “We want to hear about your red tape horror stories. From today, New Zealanders will have a say on how they are regulated through an online portal,” says Mr Seymour. The ...5 days ago
- Youth Parliament 2025 announced
The Minister for Youth Matt Doocey has today announced the eleventh Youth Parliament will be taking place in 2025. “Youth Parliament offers a unique youth development opportunity to young people from across New Zealand to experience the political process and learn about how government works,” says Mr Doocey. “The two-day ...6 days ago
- Police stats show promising change
After nearly a year in Government, Kiwis have seen significant change across law and order with promising early results shown across some Police statistics, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. “In August 2023, I told New Zealanders that if they had not started to see a change in public safety within ...6 days ago
- Better coordination of anti-scam efforts
With the launch of Fraud Awareness Week, the Government is committing to new coordination efforts across industry and government to combat online scams, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Online financial scams are a growing problem for New Zealand. New data released today shows that Kiwis lost nearly ...6 days ago
- Minister to consider 7AA select committee report
Minister for Children Karen Chhour will consider the recommendations made by the Social Services and Community Committee in its report back to Parliament on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill. “I want to thank the people who made submissions and those who appeared before the committee in ...6 days ago
- Defence Minister to attend ASEAN meeting
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus in Vientiane, Laos. “We need to take every opportunity to engage with our international partners, given the increasingly unstable geo-political situation,” Ms Collins says. “New Zealand has a long-standing commitment to this ...6 days ago
- All Blacks end of year tour: What we learned
Analysis - There's plenty to talk about including TJ Perenara's statement during the haka, Jamie Wall writes. ...2 hours ago - ‘To love is to move towards freedom’: Parliament’s newest MP makes their maiden st...
Green MP Benjamin Doyle has joined the 54th Parliament a year into its term. Their maiden statement emphasised the need for radical love. ...6 hours ago
- Live: Minister absent on crucial day as climate talks near collapse
Small island and vulnerable nations walked out of climate finance negotiations on Saturday afternoon in Baku, Azerbaijan, protesting a process they say excluded their participation and views.The COP29 talks are now on the edge of collapse on the crucial issue of a new global finance goal, as the summit has ...8 hours ago - Hīkoi hats: Why are so many people wearing red berets?
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Labour is going to build a large number of $500K-$600K first homes.
If your household income is around $90,000 to $120,000 p.a. thanks to Labour you should be able to afford one of these.
What’s your view CV ? A pointless exercise, would result in no overall improvement ?
Its a policy which will greatly help the top quintile by earnings.
If you are a median full time employed wage earner on $55K it doesnt help you. Unless your partner also earns similarly. If you are single or your partner doesnt work: sorry.
Strict rules will have to be put in place to prevent these properties being flipped on a few years down the track. Perhaps they can only be sold back to the government. This will suppress the prices of these houses long term.
I think Andrew is going to shift the 2 year clause out to 5 years for the penalty to kick in.
Edit “It will also extend the ‘bright line test’ from two years to five years so investment properties on-sold within five years have to pay a tax on the capital gains achieved.”
Face it – we are all hissing into the wind unless the average house price drops enough to suit the average wage-earner, or the average wage rises enough to enable buying a house.
Surely we all know that neither will come to pass.
So what you are actually trying to do is to help those who are currently not quite rich enough. But this still limits the help to the rich.
That does not inspire me. (I started very late – could have bought in 1970 with 3% State Advances loan, but did not. Bought a $49,000 house in 1982. It is now worth nearly 10 times that. Unearned and bloody ridiculous. Nobody should be able to make unearned profit.)
The bubble needs somehow a big deflation rather than a burst.
Sorry – none of this inspires me much. The system needs fundamental correction, not just another superficial temporary massage.
It would be a step in the right direction if the average dual income family could afford a home in the Auckland market. Which sucks especially hard for single parents. But this is where things are at.
+100 In Vino
Considering homes in that range are only 4% of the Auckland market at the moment, it’s not bad.
But I think Labour should not have ceded the Urban Growth Boundary argument to the glee of land bankers. There’s plenty of space within Auckland without more endless sprawl required, ffs Auckland is already ridiculously spread out. The problem isn’t the urban limits its a building industry that can’t keep up (and is rorting the situation). The biggest single cost of a house in Auckland is the construction, not the land
http://www.beaconpathway.co.nz/new-homes/article/cost_tower
” Considering homes in that range are only 4% of the Auckland market at the moment, it’s not bad.”
Yes this Labour policy targets households earning around $100K pa which were finding themselves priced out of the market.
True, but perhaps the social housing end of the market is better managed by HNZ than the proposed “Affordable Housing Authority”? Need to hear more on this from Lab/Green
nothing wrong with putting price pressure on the market with housing aimed at that demographic PROVIDED the social housing and rental market is also addressed (i.e. emergency and state rentals)……assistance to buy first homes is nothing new and this is simply a variation on that theme……removing some of the ticket clippers, hopefully.
OK, so the Kiwi dream of house ownership is for those in the $100K earnings bracket.
the dream remains…..home ownership has never been 100% (it peaked at a shade under 74% in 1991) even in the heady days of state housing builds….thats why state house rentals were built.
Do you read the policy- ever-?
half the houses are for Auckland, the rest for other cities in NZ.
median household income in Auckland is $76k(2013) already ( highest in NZ, so is probably over $80k now)). so the $100k figure is just made up by you.
You normally have these sort of things sorted , so Im surprised you have slipped up here.
Using a house price to income ratio of 5 as the limit of affordability, a $500,000 house in this scheme requires $100K pa household income.
Also by the time the first house in Labours scheme is finished in 2019 it’ll probably be up to $700,000 given 10% annual price increases.
Those are retail prices, which include hefty profit factor.
TDTI ( total debt to income ratio) can go as high as 6-7.
Labours scheme has apartments as well as houses , so they will be young couples who can afford an apartment in Auckland , or a house in Hamilton
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/financial-stability/financial-stability-report/fsr2015-11/debt-to-income-ratios-of-new-zealand-borrowers
That’s dreaming.
Ask a working couple earning $80,000 per year total what they think of having $500,000 worth of mortgage debt requiring $21,000 pa interest alone.
If interest rates bumped up to 6% for any reason that would be $30,000 pa interest charges to be serviced out of a $80K pa gross income.
If a number of people in the $100k plus wage bracket can afford to buy new houses. this will free up rentals which while not perfect is a step in the right direction.
Yeah that was my thought add well. Expanding the boundaries only plays into the hands of the land bankers.
Actually, the biggest cost of building is the materials. That’s the problem of having a duopoly and most of the raw materials are sent off shore for the benefit of the owners rather than having them used here for the benefit of New Zealand.
With materials it’s also a function of scale, virtually all the houses built in New Zealand are one offs. Our Housing Trust in Queenstown is doing good things by getting the scale up into the 10s. I would hope a Crown building programme would get this up by a couple orders of magnitude. Get standard designs that you are building 1000s of and costs come down with a wallop.
CV you are such a cherry picking negative wanker. I am so sick of you trolling this site. No doubt you will spend the rest of day with dozens of negative nitpicking comments. So to balance out all your negativity.
Little said terrace housing would be under $500K -only the stand alone housing would be $500 to $600K. These house prices are a massive improvement on the $1 million average that the market currently offers and would be a huge step towards affordability.
Anyone can criticise the good for not being the perfect. But in the real world perfect doesn’t exist and moving towards the good is the better policy.
I think Andrew Little and Labour did well today -they were brave and pragmatic. It was an excellent birthday celebration.
A $400K terrace house, using a house price to income affordability ratio of 5 (which is already generally considered “highly unaffordable”) would require an income level of $80K p.a.
No one is denying that this is better than the current situation. But lets be clear who is helped by housing at these price levels, and who is not.
That is why we needed state housing reform package announced earlier this week and why we need to move on improving renting conditions and security of tenure rights. It is all part of a broad package that overall will massively improve housing conditions for kiwis.
P.S $80,000 is about the median household income, so a $400,000 terrace house would help the median income earning family.
@Brendan Harre (1.3)
+1
According to Trademe Property there are currently 775 homes for sale in the Auckland market at your “affordable” price, that is a huge number to choose from, how much more choice do you want?
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/CategoryAttributeSearchResults.aspx?sort_order=expiry_desc&search=1&cid=5748&sidebar=1&132=PROPERTY&134=1&135=&216=0%2C0&217=0%2C0&153=&29=Apartment%2CHouse%2CLifestyle+dwelling%2CTownhouse%2CUnit&122=0%2C0&123=0%2C0&49=300000%2C550000&178=0%2C0&sidebarSearch_keypresses=0&sidebarSearch_suggested=0
Those are CV’s (council valuations not the other CV), the sale prices tend to be double that. Also there’s a crapload of apartments, 1 brm units, and places for auction on your list. Auctions tend to go miles over any sensible value at the moment.
Hmmm, well it’s not my list, it’s Trademe’s, and they are not CV’s, they are the asking prices, but say we reduce the list to 3 and 4 bedroom homes; there’s still a choice of a mere 256 places for sale in that range in the Auckland area, is that not enough?
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/CategoryAttributeSearchResults.aspx?sort_order=price_desc&search=1&cid=5748&sidebar=1&132=PROPERTY&134=1&135=&216=0%2C0&217=0%2C0&153=&29=Apartment%2CHouse%2CLifestyle+dwelling%2CTownhouse%2CUnit&122=3%2C4&123=0%2C0&49=300000%2C550000&178=0%2C0&sidebarSearch_keypresses=0&sidebarSearch_suggested=0
Why not have a look at this one?
75J Hill Street, Onehunga
Location: 75I/(J) Hill Street
Onehunga, Auckland City
Rooms: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
Property type: House
Price: Asking price $320,000
Parking: 2 Car Garage
Modern townhouse nicely spread over three levels, complimented by four large bedrooms, and a generous living area, that joins onto the outside courtyard.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential-property-for-sale/auction-710644853.htm
Yeah nay. It is a leasehold property you muppet.
So what, muppet?
[Focus on ideas, not personalities, please. TRP]
“Presently tenanted by Housing New Zealand until 22nd May 2018. This property is also Leasehold. “
So, what’s your point?
you do know what a leasehold property is?
Yeah, I’ve got some idea. Large areas of Karori and Newlands, here in Wellington, are leasehold sections, owned by Manchester Unity and other trusts. My in-laws house on Wrights Hill, Karori was a leasehold section, they didn’t die under pressure of payments. It’s a viable option for first-home buyers especially and is a sensible option for Labour to explore, but…hey, if you don’t like it, there are still another 255 properties to look at…go for your life.
think I’ll pass thanks….like most folk I think leasehold properties are to be avoided like the plague…..theres good reasons why banks are far more restrictive on their lending for them.
That’s a leasehold property so you’re paying a hefty ground rental separately to buying the house. And you’re totally helpless when it comes to rent review time, it could go up to anything.
https://www.kensingtonswan.com/Legal-Updates-And-Events/Property/2014/Leasehold-properties-beware-the-rent-review.aspx
Fair enough, but in what way is it not affordable?
You are not “totally helpless” when it comes to rent review time, you have options including selling the property, using your (hoped for) capital gains or property improvements to take another small step up the ladder, that’s the way the vast majority of people gain value; hard work and small increments. It’s worthwhile, I assure you.
unless you know the details on the lease and the term to run you have no way of knowing its affordability or value, so as an example it is pointless
Well then Pat, drop that property off your list, there are still 255 others to look at, and time waits for nobody…
In the law firm paper I linked, the ground rent went from $8300pa to $73750 pa, so the owner abandoned the property and lost everything she had paid for it.
In the Onehunga property you linked to, the ground rental on a neighbouring property (looks exactly the same) in the same block is a bit over $14k pa, plus body corp fees plus etc. That’s on top of $340k for the house. That doesn’t look affordable to me. Then you’ve got the risk of having to walk away from it all if the rent review does what the Cornwall Park Trust ground rents did.
I appreciate what you’re saying Andre, that there are horror stories, and I accept that, but there are also numerous good stories, yours could be one yet to be told. Don’t be afraid of a lease-hold section…check out your landlords by all means, and if they are bastards, well then they are bastards and stay away from them, but don’t be afraid of the concept, it could be the best thing you ever did.
good grief, you sound like a realtor…are you on commission?
Not so far Pat, but I’m open to offers.
Seriously though, Labour should be considering this. Forget Kiwibuild and think Kiwisite.
Government should not be involved in house-building in a big way, not with all the legal requirements and related whoo-har of end-product value or usage, lack of productivity, poor quality, or the shortfalls implicit in complaints associated with people’s aspirations, but instead home in on an on-going, long-term, cash return based on viability and affordability of sections alone, this is a concept most Kiwis would be comfortable with, it would be a far better focus, and could be accommodated under the NZ Superannuation Fund and ACC Funds terms of business without compromising earnings potential.
KIwi site is a great idea, free up and develop the land and then get out of the way.
Unfortunately socialists are control freaks and can’t cope if they aren’t controlling the whole process.
“Government should not be involved in house-building in a big way, not with all the legal requirements and related whoo-har of end-product value or usage, lack of productivity, poor quality, or the shortfalls implicit in complaints associated with people’s aspirations, but instead home in on an on-going, long-term, cash return based on viability and affordability of sections alone, this is a concept most Kiwis would be comfortable with, it would be a far better focus, and could be accommodated under the NZ Superannuation Fund and ACC Funds terms of business without compromising earnings potential.”
one more time….in english if you would be so kind.
Yep, ok Pat, fair point.
Let me try again;
Labour should not pretend to be house-builders, they should concentrate on supplying developed sections which could then be leased back to lessees based on the capital value of the building above the ground (already reliably and timely assessed and re-assessed by QVNZ or local councils, so there is no extra level of cost).
Disappointments related to mortgage restrictions made by banks on houses built on leasehold sections, due to the perceived volativity in ground rents, would disappear, or largely disappear, if backed by HNZ long-term leases.
The capital cost of home-building could be halved, at least in Auckland’s case, and in this way every tradesman or teacher, Jack or Jill or in-between, could aspire to an affordable home and the security that offers, and taxpayers would receive a return on thier investment, forever.
I don’t see negatives, compared to the alternatives.
so idbkiwi you reckon the govt should
a) develop new subdivisions & associated infrastructure
b) offer the developed land to the open market on 100 year leases or something
c) jack up the lease price if someone actually puts a house on top?
That isn’t going to encourage development much
IMO a land value tax will work better. It’s similar to rates, but the difference is the same tax applies whether you have developed the land or not. Effectively this discourages land banking & encourages greater housing density.
OK…
“Labour should not pretend to be house-builders,”
No they should not pretend, but they can (and have in the past) been that and the private sector have made a pigs ear of the construction industry these past few decades so on that I disagree.
As to government owned leasehold land on say 99 year lease that i have no real issue with and it may well offer some of the cost benefits to which you refer, though I would suggest the public would prefer freehold and act accordingly and the leases would have to be watertight to prevent future government modification.
“256 places for sale in that range in the Auckland area, is that not enough?”
hmmm and HOW may people do we have arriving to live in Auckland each day ?
you “256 places ” is maybe a 1-2 week supply @ best ?
pathetic…
Christ CV at least read the speech before sniping at it. The policy includes apartments which will be significantly cheaper.
Labour’s announcement definitely helps people who are in the top quartile income bracket own their own home, no mistake about it.
At 5x your earnings, houses are generally regarded as highly unaffordable.
Going lower end, $400K terrace houses or apartments will work for those households earning $80K or more.
For a couple both working full time minimum wage ~$65K pa total income they will likely have to stay renting long term.
Labour’s plan can be built on. Coalition partners will have good ideas too. So howz John Key’s brighter future doing for everyone Colonial Viper? Sounds like you rather retain the Nats current outrageous mess, rather than give Labour a fair go.
No more 1/4 way measures.
That’s just the way you think. Sad really.
@ Colonial Viper 10 July 2016 at 6:54 pm:
You seem to be displaying shades of absolutistic, dichotomous thinking, i.e. black & white, all or nothing, etc.
Potential solutions are judged on achieving 100% cure, success, or whatever; anything less is considered short of the mark and thus utterly and completely (!) futile.
This seems to fit with your apparent contempt for NZ Labour, for example, which you have supported in the past I believe.
The only reason why I raise this – and I might well be very wrong – is that your negativity is starting to grate and is becoming a distraction, at least for me, and I find it increasingly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff in your comments. So, essentially, this comment is about me more than anything …
How stupid of me thinking that building lots of houses would help the lack of housing crisis.
FFS CV improve the quality of your comments. Please.
MS, just pointing out that building $400K, $500K and $600K houses destined for first home owners is going to help a very select group of aspiring first home owners.
Those with household incomes in the $80K to $120K range.
(And I’m being generous here – by the time Labour can implement this policy, both land costs and build costs will have increased another 20%)
For other Kiwis who aren’t lucky enough to be that well off…the “Kiwi dream of home ownership” apparently ain’t for you.
And who exactly are Labour helping to become first home owners? Those people who sit in the top half of household incomes.
Well that do good for these people? Of course it will. Never denied it.
This is also the demographic you can count on to swing vote for their own best interests.
Which workers will be lucky, not these ones:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/81788403/the-struggle-to-balance-budgets-for-todays-working-poor
There are cheaper town houses and apartments too. Honestly, read the policy dude.
CV, most poor people do not have a income anywhere near the $90,000-$12,000,00 that you say is required.
This so called radical policy from Labour is fucking humbug and will do nothing for the poor people of NZ except make them more poor to the rest of the population.
Rip off politics from Andrew Little and the Labour party.
Fellow NZs wake up to these self serving bastards.
It’s good for the middle class voters (and their kids) who are being priced out of the Auckland housing market.
What’s the advantage in me buying a house off Kiwi Build instead of getting some one like G.J. Gardner to build it for me directly?
Also when did it become, your first home has to be a brand new home?
Supposedly a KB house will be cheaper? Economies of scale, supply chain optimisation, lower markup and what not
I’m assuming G.J. Gardner, Jennians and all the other housing companies will be building these houses.
If you add the the cost of running Kiwibuild into the mix I can’t see how it’s going to be cheaper unless this who thing is going to be tax payer subsidised.
I’ll be honest I wouldn’t be too impressed if my tax dollars were going toward people buying a flash brand new house.
if the houses go to auction, prices would indeed be bid up to current silly numbers, presumably these houses would be sold by some form of rationing
these houses would be sold by some form of rationing
Yeah and I’ll bet all the labour/green party members will “some how” end up at the front of the queue.
That’ s so typical of the left.
I am with you on most of this, Working for Families is just as obviously a subsidy to middle NZ and to minimum wage employers. In order to be truly affordable these homes need to be around 250k and really basic. That would help a lot more people than 500k houses for young professional labour voters.
iam picking homes built on such a scale will move from the site to the factory as they do in Europe ,production automation would take care of any changes people wanted . working hours per house would plummet also you wouldn’t need skilled labour , skilled labour would only be necessary in siting the home.
https://youtu.be/1X-9W0P-8Tc
automation is coming and kiwi build is perfect scale for its use
https://youtu.be/fpD5H1EH0go
From the detail released so far:
– You need to be a first home buyer
– You buy directly from the Govt (department)
– The house will be encumbered by the Govt that you can’t on sell for x number of years.
Maybe if demand exceeds supply some kind of raffle / lottery for the lucky family??
You can sell it, but any profit above the initial sale price (and presumably cost of sale) in those X years will go back to the government.
“I’ll be honest I wouldn’t be too impressed if my tax dollars were going toward”
to be fair mate i cant imagine your happy about paying any tax AT ALL…
lol
based on your assumptions you can’t see it, and you wouldn’t be impressed by another of your assumptions.
Come on, BM, you can spin better than that if it’s actually a bad policy.
Because this is a $500-600k house AND land, in Auckland.
Go try and build a house for that price in Auckland now, including land, with G.J. Gardner and see how you get on.
There will be 50,000 of these houses, rather than the 400 or 500 that GJ Gardner might be able to supply, on the very fringes of the city.
So the saving will be in the land price?, because G.J. Gardner isn’t going to build it for nothing.
A part of the saving will be in the land price, the other part will be from the economies of scale and new methods (see the mention of prefabrication), and another part will be a saving in consenting and standard overhead costs.
So it would be something like this?.
The government will grab land using the public works act, then develop the land for housing using some one like fulton hogan and then hire housing companies to build on the new sections.?
The public will then buy the houses off the government at a greatly reduced price because the government is doing everything at cost.?
If this is indeed the case you’d be mad to buy a house from anyone but KiwiBuild.
That seems to be the plan.
Bearing in mind, that if you sell it within 5 years, all profit above the initial purchase price goes back to the government.
What do you think that will do to house prices?
No idea.
You don’t think it may put down ward pressure on house prices.
Lets be honest no private firm will be able to get near the prices of what the government could build a house for.
It’s a bit of a no brainer why pay 800k when you can get the same thing for 600k
Going to be tough for a lot of developers or housing companies that do house and land packages because everyone will want to get a house via Kiwi Build.
It’s not the same thing. For starters, if you re-sell your $600k house within 5 years, you don’t get to keep any of the profit.
I’m sure they’ll have rules about owner-occupiers only. They may have other rules too, about who qualifies to buy a house, and how the houses are dished out, like a lottery.
So these houses simply won’t be on the same level as the others.
But yes, the point of this policy is to take heat out of the market. If a bunch of supply becomes available that meets a large part of the demand (houses for owner-occupiers to buy and live in), then it means the rest of the housing stock will have less aggregate demand, easing house price pressure.
“You don’t think it may put down ward pressure on house prices.”
isn’t that the point in an unaffordable housing market?
But yes, the point of this policy is to take heat out of the market. If a bunch of supply becomes available that meets a large part of the demand (houses for owner-occupiers to buy and live in), then it means the rest of the housing stock will have less aggregate demand, easing house price pressure.
There’ll be a lot of unhappy monkeys, who’ll all blame Labor.
Can’t see them voting left in 2017..
Be like a Turkey voting for Christmas.
“There’ll be a lot of unhappy monkeys, who’ll all blame Labor.
Can’t see them voting left in 2017..
Be like a Turkey voting for Christmas.”
well there may be some upset turkeys but I suspect you overestimate their number….I would suggest most property owners will be reasonably happy to see the bubble deflated somewhat….especially when the alternative is a wholesale crash.
tough
Oh noes, property developers will all be homeless in the future! No, wait, we could always build some houses for them…
@ BM 10 July 2016 at 5:21 pm:
Who are those “mon-keys” and what exactly will they blame Labour for?
Do you really think that your imaginary doomsday scenario will eventuate, i.e. that house prices will go down?
IMO the more likely scenario is that the absurd rises in house prices will come down somewhat but they will still rise.
Another likely scenario, according to many experts, so don’t take my word for it, is that if we stay on the current course, i.e. do nothing and hope for the best as National seems to be doing, we’re in for a major ‘correction’ AKA an uncontrolled and uncontrollable collapse of the market.
My guess is that you, and some other commenters here on TS, will opt for the second scenario without giving it a second thought! I believe there is a name for that: cognitive distortion. (NB don’t look this up; it’s depressing reading)
Those greedy monkeys cannot keep expecting free money as a birthright simply because Mummy and Daddy gave them a house deposit and wealthy foreigners want to launder dirty money.
I’d presume the KB homes would also be to standard plans with basically no options. Think Neil or Keith Hay from late 70’s, which were a response to a similar situation in early 70’s, but in current vernacular. So basic designs, really standard componentry, but with the government taking the spec risk, not the builder. If you want something better, then go direct to the builders.
and even then you can do all the internal fripperies yourself, like different kitchen bench etc, if bogstandard (or the standard bogs) isn’t good enough for you.
Pleasing to see that Labour will extend National’s 2 year CGT out to 5 years, ought to be longer. Some policies that should make a real difference.
Would have liked to see some policies with real teeth like a LVT and FTT. Disappointing that AL spoke positively of property “investors” as opposed to “speculators”; in my book they are the same. I consider the NZ cult of landlordism to be immoral, all rentals should be non profit (and all banking for that matter).
Should also ban *all* offshore buyers, allowing foreign “investors” to build & buy still takes builders & land out of the domestic market.
I suspect that the size of this category will be small and not put a significant demand on and compete for resources.
To treat the market as one amorphous whole in which state housing is lumped with upper-market housing is losing sight of important detail & differences IMO and not conducive to good policy setting.
Similarly, to treat investors and speculators the exact same way is overlooking important differences. Labour is careful not to spook the business sector and private investors as you can tell from AL’s speech.
One might argue that Labour is using market tools to try and deal with social issues that cannot be fixed by the market alone (obviously) or arguably have been created/increased by market forces. Only a dogmatic purist would vehemently object IMO.
The devil will be in the details.
100,000 new affordable houses over 10 years, add in another 1,000+ new state houses per year that = 11,000+ new house’s per year. On top of that we already build about 8,000 new houses in Auckland per year. Easy for Andrew Little to promise this in the safety of opposition, another to deliver.
The affordable homes ($550 – $600k!) will not be able to be on-sold, Little has already pointed this out. Interesting to see just how long they are encumbered for…what happens if a family circumstance changes? are they locked in for 10 years?. Will lenders lend on standard terms if the price is suppressed? think mortgagee sales or a down turn in the property market.
Only for first home buyers? what about the Smith family (example) who owned a house somewhere other than Auckland. They move to Auckland for work, all they can afford is $600k to buy…they are still out in the cold under Labour.
At the moment its sound bites for the faithful…the public will be waiting for the details and ability / chance that Labour can deliver on its promise’s.
You can’t do it, that’s true. That’s because you’re a delusional fuckwit, in a team of delusional fuckwits, whose sole purpose is naked self-interest.
You worship market forces, and yet you’ve failed to notice the most powerful market force of all.
You can’t do it. Get out of the way before you get hurt.
When you resort to name calling OAB, basically it means you have nothing…its school 101 type of thing.
I do hold out hope that at some stage in the future, you can be a productive member of society… I will not give up on you buddy!
Oh, indeed, the labels I apply to you are irrelevant.
The market force you’ve failed to notice is the substantive part of my contempt for your opinions.
As for your insulting reference to your hallucinations about my life, oh noes, it’s exactly like my labels only longer, you vermiculous trash.
You are making good progress OAB…let it all out, I am here for you mate.
Stop projecting, Wormtongue.
I have faith in old OAB as well, we are all here for him, possibly and exorcism may help with his anger, a few demons lie within I suspect.
When ya don’t have enough affordable houses you bloody well build some more!
Labour, been doing it since ages ago!
YES, SPOT ON !!!!
Good policy, nice speech-writing. Well done, Labour.
Agreed Sacha.
All this focus on Auckland housing. Hope we can also get thousands of affordable homes in other parts of the country. Say $210K to $250K in price.
$400K to $600K housing options still aren’t affordable to the vast bulk of working people.
Andrew Little did say it’s not just Auckland, regions around the country too.
Yet it’s still a lot cheaper than the current cost. Labour have outlined a plan that can be built on, to assist Kiwis into a home, what is wrong in that? Far better than the no future the key National government is offering.
I agree, Labour’s plan helps a lot more people, if your household is in the ~$80K to $120K income bracket Labour will help get you into the ‘Kiwi dream’ of your own home.
Anyone in that income bracket in Auckland who is not yet a home owner should certainly swing their vote to Labour.
Just because it’s not written in neon lights for you Colonial Viper, Labour have not forgotten those in lower income brackets. What we have seen in the announcements is the direction Labour is heading, it’s a beginning for change that will be built on. We should be welcoming that. At least Labour is offering Kiwis a future, we don’t have that with John key and his Nats.
“All this focus on Auckland housing.”
Tiresome. Get over yourself. This is where 60% of the population growth is projected over the next few decades – two thirds of it from internal births, not migration. Auckland is where the problem bites hardest. It is where the solution is needed most. Nothing you or I say will change that.
Labour’s housing plan ad
<a href="https://nz.news.yahoo.com/top-stories/a/32024143/labour-outlines-plan-for-more-homes/#page1
Nice, I hope Labour puts this on Bill Boards next year.
I hope so too.
Good speech.
Labour really need to look at the tiny house movement. If you are on a minimum wage job then you need something under 300,000 not 500,000-600,000. The only way to achieve that is to build smaller. Currently only apartments are built smaller but are often not suitable for families and often have high body corporates so cost more.
In other countries they have allowed tiny houses to be built with free permits to save costs and within a single story be able to be sited on existing sites with existing infrastructure. At present the proposed unitary plan increased height zoning is a joke, with the council approving many properties in violation of the district plan guide lines which are not affordable and over size – they are actually driving people on Kiwi incomes out of districts, as by the time a property becomes a 3 story mansion it becomes unaffordable on local wages, and are often totally unsustainable in most respects. One of the reasons that Auckland house prices are escalating is that houses are being doubled or tripled in size and therefore are going to cost a lot more. The idea of increased height to boundary seems to be to drive terraced housing but it is not working at all, instead larger mansion are being built that are creating inner city mansion districts away from the traditional bungalows priced much more affordably.
A few years ago you could buy a studio apartment in Auckland for $200,000 now it is close to impossible. One of the reason’s first home buyers could not buy them was that the bank would not lend unless you had a 30% deposit.
The other issue is the proposed capital gains road tax, that clearly will discriminate for the cheaper further out areas of housing. It is clearly not going to work to build houses in the greenfield areas like Drury, Whenuapai, and Kumeu if people have to pay $30 – $100 in road charges per person per week and then have to pay petrol on top of that. BTW, just a section in Kumeu is over $400,000 so you would be looking further out like Helensville and then you need to look at high speed rail to link and place to park for park and ride.
The other big issue is migration, if migrants who have settled here at a rate of 60,000 overseas students living here and trying to gain residency and 60,000 new migrants then it is a waste of time trying to build the houses, Labour will not be able to keep up with that level of change in the population. Migration is the biggest factor inflaming the housing. Once that falls, then investors will stop being in the market as it will flatline the prices and there will be no profit to be made.
One man’s Tiny House is another man’s caravan park.
Save me from Kirsten Dirksen.
Make the rule no renting. If you take the tiny house route you sack the landlord forever.
Tiny houses are for hair shirters.
What are “hair shirters”?
+100 save nz…”Migration is the biggest factor inflaming the housing”…and overseas ownership…and we still don’t have the stats on this
actually I am not that impressed with Labour’s housing policy…too Little to late…and building a few more houses for those on a relatively good income won’t affect the crisis in housing much imo until the underlying core of the problem is addressed
…and state houses should not be sold off …they should be repaired and renovated…as well as many many new ones built for New Zealanders
Well, according to some we may have to wait till 2020 (GR2020?) before this policy may be implemented.
They may not get what they wish for Incognito. They don’t seem to be on the side of average Kiwis do they?
Indeed!
I really don’t know what’s behind their (wishful?) thinking and what purpose it serves, if any, for the good of all.
I have very few answers and many questions and admittedly sometimes feel a little overwhelmed by it all …
Same here.
“…and state houses should not be sold off …they should be repaired and renovated…as well as many many new ones built for New Zealanders”
That’s what Labour is proposing.
“and building a few more houses for those on a relatively good income won’t affect the crisis in housing much imo until the underlying core of the problem is addressed”
But it’s not just a few houses though, it’s 100,000 and that will go a long way in resolving the crisis. It’s a start isn’t it? Or would you rather stick with John key and the dismal, bleak status quo?
“actually I am not that impressed with Labour’s housing policy…too Little to late…”
That’s a surprise, NOT!! Sour grapes? Little’s big bold plans are timely, and they are what is really needed right now.
Watched Newshub on Little’s housing speech. Paddy E Neuman trying to claim that Labour’s election future will sink or swim solely on this one policy issue.Does he really think Labour is a one policy party? Watch this space for more Paddy.
And didn’t you love Mr Joyce’s frenetic spin/sneer response to Andrew Little’s housing policy announcement. Apparently it’s called ‘post truth politics.’…Donald would be proud of you Stephen..
Lol they know they are on the back foot.
I think its more that Nationals biggest weakness is housing affordability so if Labour don’t get any traction with this then it’s all over until 2020
Kindly correct me if I am wrong.
“The next Labour Government will build 100,000 new affordable homes to be on sold to first home buyers.
Working with the private sector and experts in fields like prefabrication, we can build standalone homes for $500,000-$600,000 in Auckland, with apartments and town houses for less than $500,000”
Andrew Little claims that he will use $2,000,000,000 to build 100,000 houses.
Do the arithmetic . Does anyone seriously believe you can buy a section and build a house for $20,000? of course not.
He acknowledges the minimum cost would be $500,000. That equates to just 4,000 houses.
Dude, the $2B is only needed to build the first few houses with.
The government then sells those completed houses into the market to raise the next tranche of funding required to complete another phase of houses.
It is not necessary or desirable to have all the cash available up front for 100,000 houses lol. You only need to be able to fund the first part of the first phase of the project then start selling units off the plans to get more $$$ rolling in.
Wasnt there a rent to own policy for state houses, or was just that a policy suggestion,
But that’s just a copy of what is already happening. What a damp squib. I actually thought he was going to announce something radical.
Nothing is what is happening Fisiani, that’s why Labour have come up with an achievable, practical, comprehensive plan to put Kiwis into homes. Labour have done it before, and will do it again. Who said anything about it having to be radical?
A fair point barring that the policy encompasses once the houses are sold the funds will used to payback the tax payer loan, only leaving profit for reinvestment, which i suggest based on making housing affordable this will be very little
Okay, so when National put up $1Bn for councils to move forward infrastructure programs there were howls that this would only allow 500 houses to be brought forward. Based on this logic, $2Bn would cover 1,000 houses.
Let’s say 6 months for council consents / land development (generous), 6 months to build (again, generous) and buyers are already lining up so no downtime on purchase, the means $2Bn would build around 1,000 homes / year, 10,000 over 10 years.
So now I ask, where are the other 90,000 homes coming from???
It’s all too difficult for right wingers to comprehend. That’s why you make shit governments.
Ah, now I understand where they are coming from, thank you for once again enlightening the world with your pure intellect. Great contribution as always OAB.
That’s rich coming from someone whose sole contribution is “it’s too ambitious, let’s do nothing”.
If you can’t figure out how a government can build more houses than the one you support, well, that probably explains your support for such a pack of incompetent buck-passing dimbulbs.
Bullshit OAB, my contribution was suggesting raising the minimum wage significantly to increase inflation, allowing the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates: http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26052016/#comment-1179200
This has already been singled out as the ‘biggest risk’ to Australian house prices: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11672222
Of course my ‘right wing’ ideas are obviously too hard for you to comprehend.
What was your contribution again OAB? Oh that’s right:
“Oh noes, property developers will all be homeless in the future! No, wait, we could always build some houses for them…”
“That’s because you’re a delusional fuckwit, in a team of delusional fuckwits, whose sole purpose is naked self-interest”
“Stop projecting, Wormtongue.”
“If you can’t figure out how a government can build more houses than the one you support, well, that probably explains your support for such a pack of incompetent buck-passing dimbulbs.”
Such enlightening commentary.
You’ve proposed a lot of “market” tinkering, in other words, that won’t see a single homeless family housed, and when it doesn’t, you’ll act all surprised and come up with some more market tinkering that won’t get a single extra house built either.
Brighter future, remember: the party of no plan and no ideas needs to get out of the way.
Private developers in Auckland are building low end houses in 8 weeks now. Everything is timed to the day, ie deliveries to the time of day, subbies to be there on a certain day as well. The costs are lowered by not having large areas of sliding doors and more insulation to do away with need for double glazing.
Existing consent rules allow standard house designs to be pre approved, so if you have 10 designs, once one is consented doesnt need individual consent again.
For far loo long NZ has built over individual designs , which is Ok for people who want this or that but it makes the houses un affordable in the process.
Who really needs over 75 different aluminium window colours to choose from, and every window is unique dimensions. Lets have 12 window sizes and 12 different colours and save maoney
Can you give me an example of such a development?
I was under the impression that developers far prefer to build higher margin homes, minimum $800K selling price.
Also, some of the houses will be built outside Auckland…
Very cool that Andrew Little acknowledged David Cunliffe and gave him a special mention. I liked that a lot.
Labour should be promising millions to places like this who cater for those most in need of housing and shelter…I know this is what Mana/Internet ( a real Left Party) would do if it was in power
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201807765/several-whare-closed-at-deathtrap-marae
“A Wellington urban marae built by homeless youth, ex-cons, and gang members is struggling financially after the closure of several of its buildings by the Wellington City Council. The Council says it’s a death trap. Our reporter Daniela Maoate-Cox visited the marae to find out more.”
( This Marae 20+ years ago provided free of charge large native trees for me to plant in our local council owned rough wilderness reserve above Wellington city…Bruce Stewart and whanau have hearts of gold and are real environmentalists and Greenies
…and why is Wellington Council NOT helping them?!…bring them up to standard instead of closing them!!!….utterly heartless and disgraceful!)
…instead of tearing down ‘substandard’ state houses and selling them off to privatising speculators…they should be renovated by unemployed NZ youth who could be taught carpentry and other skills under supervision…this is what a real Labour Government of Micky Savage would do
…Labour should be attacking jonkey nactional on selling off existing housing stock
Looks like Andrew Little’s Labour is a real Labour led Government in waiting, that you are calling for Chooky. Didn’t you read the speech etc?
OK….Lets check the numbers.
$2,000,000,000
$500,000 per house
4000 houses
to meet the target 3334 houses built every 4 month
ie land found, bought, consented, infra structure built and all house constructed finished and sold….in 4 months.
So they can do it all over again, every 4 months for 10 years….really?
Questions:
Where is the initial money coming from?
Where are the builders, electricians, plumbers, painters etc coming from?
Have you told the workers, to keep the price at $500 000, they can’t have a pay rise for 10 years?
So inflation will be ZERO under your plan, for 10 years?
On the money that you will HAVE to borrow initially to fund it, you expect to pay ZERO interest?
Apart from compulsory purchase of PRIVATE land, there will be no price increases of land due to the artificial demand created by the govt.?
Should there be compulsory purchase, you will need to change the law to create the ability for the Govt. to compulsory purchase land. Which was, in my understanding, used for war time purchases to create things like army bases and airstrips.
This new ministry will cost no more to run than the current system (yeah right)?
etc etc
Yep your right John
How will the Natz manage it?
The Natz won’t of course but what they will do is pick massive holes in this plan and try to turn it into just another “game-changer” of Labour
The Gnats have entered their ‘dying swan’ phase – they’re all dying to swan off to Indonesia or Europe like John and stop even pretending to give a shit about New Zealand.
I’d have thought that Labour would have realised that, based of the previous 8 years, that any plan they come up with will be picked apart by National
Again I agree PR. !!!!
NATZ are good at negative BUT not so good a planning themselves.
Heres the thing though, at the moment the only real concern for National is housing affordability, there not really any other issue that could potentially lose the election for National
So what Labour should be doing with housing is making sure that whatever plan they come up with measures up, its not to work out what National will do
Work out what National will say about the plan and then come up with a (credible) answer to Nationals objections
Already doing it!!!
40 houses per day need nearer 50 that is why this number is increasing.
14,600 per year
Need 16000
No need to change the law; we have the Public Works Act which allows govt and councils to buy any land they need.
Only for specific purposes, which don’t include generic housing.
Nope. Read the act. Govt’s power is almost limitless. Any land for any reason they see fit
In that case, I hope it’s your place.
Maybe then you’d see it as draconian over reach of Govt.
In that case I also don’t want National to do it either.
Buy the land from owners at Market rate, IF they will sell it to you.
land is taken all the time when people dont want to sell. Most of Nationals expensive highways would have had land acquired compulsorily or under the threat of compulsion.
I’m not justifying it just educating you on its existence.
It’s unlikely amy of us will encounter it unless someone wants to build a rail tunnel, sewage or water pipe, power line, airport, road, or other government memorial on, over or under your property. If they want to do it beside yours, though, you’re stuffed; you’re not entitled to a cent
Interest costs are never taken into account for the cost of any government spending.
Even when they should be, eg when National borrowed for tax cuts.
Sure they are:
Borrowing paid for infrastructure (roads etc)
Income tax cuts were covered by increase in GST….common labour lie to miss out the fact that the tax take was neutral.
“Income tax cuts were covered by increase in GST….common labour lie to miss out the fact that the tax take was neutral.”
Except that all subsequent budget updates showed that GST tax take was under forecasts, ie, the tax cut was “forecast” to be “neutral”, but in reality never was (and no-one with half a brain believed that tax cuts during a recession, immediately followed by the worst natural disaster in this country’s history, would be “neutral”).
Also, you’ve brought into the lie that the GST increase offset the tax cuts.
But it didn’t – it covered about 80-90% of the loss in revenue, but the remainder was covered up by “greater macroeconomic effects”. In other words, the government “forecast” that because of their “amazing economic management” and the tax cuts, that the economy would grow faster than it otherwise would have, and that that extra growth would make up the remainder of the lost revenue from the tax cuts.
There is no detail or justification for how they arrived at the figures that they did. In other words, for all we know, is the government said to treasury “we need to make up a hole of about $300M a year, can you make up some bullshit to justify that?”.
But the economy is growing, inflation is VERY low….therefore they were right and proven to be so by subsequent events.
Would the economy be growing by as much without the tax cuts they implemented?
I would argue yes, on the basis that the current growth is driven almost entirely by immigration, eg GDP per capita is staying about the same, even if the total GDP is going up.
I don’t think the previously higher tax rates would have made any real impact on our current rate of immigration, and therefore growth.
Furthermore, the current low level of inflation is a concern for the economy, which is why the RBNZ has kept trying to increase it by cutting rates.
You can argue all you like, the facts are that taxes are an impediment to growth and always have been everywhere.
No, that’s not true at all.
Taxes pay for infrastructure like roads and electricity networks, and services like police and healthcare.
If you want to see a country without any taxes or government at all, go look at Somalia and see how a country without taxes has no impediments to growth at all.
I didn’t say no taxes, I said they are an impediment to growth.
The higher and more taxes the govt. takes, the lower the growth.
There is a minimum and any govt. should strive to reach it.
After all it is the people who earn the money and the govt. that takes it, in the proportion that they decide (sounds like an extortion racket, doesn’t it).
Businesses:
1. Find the customers/supply the service.
2. source the product/service the customer wants.
3. sets the price the customer will/can pay over and above costs.
No mention of govt. here in the process of earning money whether by wages or profits.
Taxes are TAKEN from this process for reasons determined by the govt.
I am saying, that the govt. should limit the justifications it uses to TAKE that money from the very people who earn it and VOTE for them.
“I didn’t say no taxes, I said they are an impediment to growth.
The higher and more taxes the govt. takes, the lower the growth.”
Again, not true. If a government took in $1 in taxes (which is not “no taxes”), then they would not be able to achieve much in the way of public infrastructure with it. But if they took in $1B in taxes, then they could. That infrastructure enabled by that tax take would promote growth.
So clearly we have a case where “higher taxes = higher growth”, so your statement is false.
“There is a minimum and any govt. should strive to reach it.”
Yes. Can you tell me what the ideal minimum is for New Zealand? Do you have any evidence that shows that National has put our taxes at the optimum level? Given that we have huge backlogs in our health system, cuts in funding for police and other social services – funding per capita has decreased in real dollar terms since National has been in power.
The rest of your comment is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Labour has made some good strides in its intentions to push for a decent warrant of fitness scheme for houses, and it would be good to see way more focus on it.
Let’s face it, while the anti-Labour carping on this site does get tiresome, it’s true that this kind of tinkering will not achieve much in a comprehensively fucked market.
A WOF works two ways – it renegotiates the relationship between tenant and landlord to improve the standard of homes and, especially if combined with rent and other controls, deters speculators from ‘investing’.
The thing is, Labour’s plan is not mere tinkering, and it will achieve a lot. It’s a far cry from what we have now under the key regime. Funny you should say that “anti-Labour carping on this site does get tiresome” when you did just that yourself !!
This might be a bit nuanced for ya leftie, but it’s reasonable to constructively criticise, while at the very same time being annoyed by the Labour is completely fucked and evil carping brigade!
But then, it’s a dynamic that you must be rather fond of, given you seem to get into long exacerbating arguments with its antagonists.
Andrew little is on fire at last a real leader ,a prime minster in waiting
Who are the losers ?
Over leveraged property investors
Those who have bought recently
Land lords who going pay there rents
Developers
Overseas buyers
Real estate companies
House building industry won’t be able compeat with mass produced homes
Baby boomers
Between now and the election who will buy I think labour has just savataged the housing market
Winners
Society
Fletchers
Those yet to buy
Banks ?????sudject to mortgage defaulters
“Working with the private sector and experts in fields like prefabrication, we can build standalone homes for $500,000-$600,000 in Auckland, with apartments and town houses for less than $500,000”
Will Labour force private building companies to do this work? Where is the evidence that private companies want to work for government. So many questions . Why so little answers?
too many questions for people like yourself who can’t count to 2.
Some companies don’t want government contracts? You need to get out more.
This kitset, ( ie all materials from timber to windows to fittings) is $110k ex rotorua, its 96m2 house. A 150m2 house is $150k
http://lockwood.co.nz/ModernHomeBuildingPlans/tabid/103/agentType/View/ID/290/Quartz-kitset.aspx
labour and land and consents are more , but they can be standardised.