“Today’s HYEFU forecasts a 10.4 per cent increase in house prices next year,” says ACT Deputy Leader and Housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden.
“But hang on to your hat – it could be much more. This year, Treasury forecast house prices to rise by 17.3 per cent, but they went up by 29 per cent.
“Treasury got the numbers so wrong in BEFU, their five-year projection was beaten by house prices in just four months.
“New Zealanders have been let down on housing by successive governments and now we’re set for another year of rising costs. Meagre wage growth means housing is further out of reach for many Kiwis.
“Being a property-owning democracy was an essential part of the New Zealand story. People have come here for generations so that they could become property owners. Now, we're in danger of becoming a neo-feudal society with a property-owning class on the one hand, and the house-nots on the other.
“It's ACT's role to say when things aren't right, to have honest conversations. We said in 2016 that National's bright-line test would not work. We were right about that and we're being proven right about Labour's interest deductibility changes now, too.
“ACT has put forward a package that would solve the underlying problem in housing: the shortage of urban land. We need new ways to fund and build infrastructure, new coordination between central and local government, new rules for consenting land, and new ways of accessing building materials.
“This is the scale of response necessary for the scale of the problem. New Zealanders have been let down by enough gimmicks like KiwiBuild, that built 1,000 houses in three years. We need deep, structural reform that will transform the supply of housing for all New Zealand.
“ACT is proposing a GST-sharing scheme, we’d remove barriers to finance for build-to-rent schemes, and we’d introduce a Public-Private Partnership Agency – the Nation-Building Agency (NBA).
“Every government says it’ll fix housing. None have, but this Government is the worst. Faced with one of the biggest crises in a generation, the Government’s proposed changes to the RMA risk creating a regulatory nightmare rather than being a silver bullet for development. The proposal focuses on central planning and its first priority is to honour the Treaty. That won’t get things built.
“The Government should be asking ‘how do we create an environment for investment and development?’ Instead, this Government has targeted Mum and Dad landlords and investors with new housing taxes. By failing to ask the right question, it has failed to deliver on the very thing New Zealand needs it to - meaningful change so New Zealanders can build more homes.
“The fact is we’re simply not building enough. ACT is the only party that offers real solutions to the housing crisis. We’ve listened to New Zealanders.”
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