Grant Robertson has said that the Government has no plans for rent controls, despite the Housing Minister, Megan Woods, asking Treasury for advice on rent controls:
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has this afternoon moved to end speculation his Government is gearing up to introduce a rent control policy.
Although he poured cold water on the scheme being introduced any time soon, he has left the door open for the policy to be adopted at a later date.
It comes after Treasury documents last month revealed Housing Minister Megan Woods has requested advice on rent control from officials.
Robertson has previously refused to rule out such a policy, saying it was “not on our agenda at the moment, but we will keep an eye on what happens”.
But asked about rent control today at a post-Budget speech, Robertson moved to “disavow” the questioner of the idea that such a scheme would be implemented.
“We have no plans to do that.”
Speaking to media after his speech, Robertson again said the Government was not planning on adopting this policy but caveated it with “at this time”.
NZ Herald
This is the same Grant Robertson who explicitly ruled out any extensions to the bright-line test for housing, and then massively extended it, effectively bringing in a capital gains tax. When confronted by his previous statements he blithely batted it way by saying he’d been “too definitive”.
If you believe a word of his statement that Labour won’t bring in rent controls then you are exceedingly naïve.
“However, as we have said numerous times, we will keep an eye on the situation – but there is no evidence we will need to put them in place.”
There was some concern yesterday’s announcement benefits will increase by up to $55 a week would lead to rent increase.
But Robertson said he was confident this was not the case.
Grant Robertson again shows how lacking in basic economic theory he is. Which isn’t really surprising as he learned everything he knows about economics and accounting on the knee of his convicted fraudster father.
If you throw money into an economic system, and then pile costs onto rental providers like increased interest costs, an effective capital gains tax, warm and dry homes rules, and landlords paying letting fees, rents WILL go up. When the rents do go up then he will exclaim his frustration that the markets didn’t behave like he stupidly thought they would, and then do a Muldoon and bring in rent controls. We all know how that ended up, but like all retarded socialists he will say that, this time, they’ll get it right.
The only thing more bizarre than that statement is Robertson believing that house prices will only rise by 0.9% this year according to his budget statement.
Mark my words, the hollow promises delivered in the budget will be shown up for their mendaciousness inside a year. Labour will be going into an election a year after that with every economic indicator worse rather than better for their mad tinkering and economic sabotage.
These guys are going to make Sir Robert Muldoon look like an economic wizard.
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