Brooke van Velden
ACT Housing spokesperson
Treasury’s fantasy forecast of flatlining house prices are already out of date. In fact, house prices reached levels Treasury predicted in three years after just three months.
The CoreLogic House Price Index shows house prices have outstripped Treasury’s forecasts.
“At Budget 2021, Treasury predicted a slowdown in house price inflation, but that hasn’t happened. The average value of a New Zealand home is now $922,421. That price wasn’t expected by Treasury until March 2025.
“On Morning Report today, Jacinda Ardern repeated Treasury’s claim that house price growth would slow. The Prime Minister is in La La Land.
“Treasury and Labour are relying on fantasy forecasts. In the real world, the Government’s housing policies aren’t working and Kiwis are being locked out of the housing market.
“Labour was elected to fix housing because National failed. Now they have failed as well. The real problem is not just that young New Zealanders cannot afford homes, the whole Kiwi dream no longer works.
“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.
“We have proposed 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.
“ACT is the only party that offers real solutions to the housing crisis. We are listening to New Zealanders.”
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