Promises Labour Cannot Keep!

Andrew Little outlined the Labour Party’s new housing policies by promising to build 100,000 new affordable homes in the next 10 years to be on sold to first home buyers only.

Little said working with the private sector and experts in fields like prefabrication, they can build standalone homes for $500,000-$600,000 in Auckland, with apartments and town houses for less than $500,000.
He commented that housing was an urgent crisis and to deal with it Labour would have to cut through the delays and get cracking on building homes fast.

The 3 questions Andrew Little needs to answer are:

1) How many houses have been built to date in Christchurch since the earthquake? New Zealand’s largest construction company Fletchers are running the project in Christchurch and they are struggling to build a fraction of this number of houses per year!! So how can Labour achieve it?

2) Where are they going to find the land to build these houses on especially in Auckland? It is easy making these promises but almost impossible to actually deliver on them. The truth is that million dollar property owners and rate payers do not want cheap housing next to them reducing the value of their properties, that is why Auckland City Council are reluctant to release land for building on.

3) New Zealand does not have enough builders and trades people to construct this number of houses per year. Where are they coming from? This shortage will result in tradespeople being brought into the country who are not familiar with our building codes and regulations and we will end up with a lot of substandard houses - more leaky homes. And what about everyone else that wants to build homes who are not first home owners, where are they going to find builders?

The Labour Party needs to wake up and stop making election promises they cannot keep. The housing crisis needs to have achievable targets in place if it is going to be resolved. Promises that are unachievable and destined to be broken are only electioneering on Labours behalf.

The common sense approach is to limit or suspend immigration for the next 5 years to allow the building industry to catch up with demand. Extend the ownership period for speculators out to 10 years, if the property is sold prior to then they pay the full tax on it. By doing this it will stop house prices being driven up by these short term speculators and make housing more affordable for ALL home buyers.

ENDS

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