Occasionally Erudite: Please, Labour, stop trying to link everything to the housing crisis

• notices and features
• 10 years ago
• Categories: election 2014, housing, labour, minimum wage, Politics
• Tags: memes, mixed messages, occasionally erudite

Jono at Occasionally Erudite has this advice to offer the strategy team at Labour. Reposted with permission.

This morning, David Cunliffe’s Facebook account posted the above graphic with the following caption:

Part of fixing the housing crisis is increasing peoples’ incomes. That’s why I’ll raise the minimum wage within 100 days of taking office – then I’ll raise it again in 2015.

Now, I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of lifting the minimum wage. Instead, the question that came to mind for me was, “What has the minimum wage got to do with the supposed housing crisis?” At the risk of sounding elitist, are people currently earning minimum wage really likely to be even close to getting into the Auckland, Christchurch or Wellington housing markets? Raising the minimum wage will help pay weekly bills, not get people a 20% house deposit.

I know Labour’s seized on the idea of a housing crisis as an election year issue, but trying to tie everything to the housing crisis will only end up undermining their message.