Q+A: Finance Minister Bill English interviewed by Corin Dann

Finance Minister Bill English: ‘the market hasn’t failed.’

CORIN So you’ve had a couple of years now to get on top of this supply issue, but you still can’t. The market has failed, hasn’t it? You need to intervene.

BILL No, the market hasn’t failed. What we’ve got is a perfect storm of demand.

Finance Minister Bill English told TV One’s Q+A programme that the National Policy Statement on Urban Development will be released for consultation in the new few weeks.

‘..for the first time it will introduce the idea of measuring the impact of planning by looking at the house prices.’

CORIN So can we expect to see a national policy statement for Auckland that says – what is it? – five, six, seven times income house prices that they have to open up land?

BILL I wouldn’t want to prejudge the statement, but I’m sure that’s the kind of discussion we’ll have. The national policy statement is an appropriate vehicle for that kind of direction to council. So let’s see where the discussion takes us.

Bill English told Q+A, right now we do need investors in the housing market because they’re among the people, one of the influences, on how many houses get built.’

CORIN Do you want New Zealanders to be property owners?

BILL Yes, we do. And a lot of those investors are New Zealanders owning multiple properties.

Bill English told Q+A, ‘nothing can happen in Auckland without the consent of the Auckland City Council. The media carry on as if there’s some magic solution where government can bypass the law of the land, produce a whole lot of houses out of nowhere, built by robots, not humans, and somehow magic up a whole lot of supply.’

Bill English reiterated that the government would step in if supply isn’t stepped up under the Unitary Plan.

‘There is no silver bullet. What is needed here is where Auckland is completing 40 houses a working day. That number probably needs to get closer to 50 to 60.’

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live atwww.tvnz.co.nz
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