Are you pleased with the budget? It does nothing to counter the crazy rise of house prices, most notably in Auckland. It does nothing to make more houses affordable, though at least National has been putting some thinking into the issue. What National’s plan amounts to is to allow in immigrants at the current rate (which is escalating) despite evidence that immigration is one of the primary factors in pushing up house prices, while also keeping the pressure on house availability, which is constrained. Why? Because rich people own houses, and they stand to gain from this. Meanwhile, National is changing the rules for state housing: a state house used to be for life, in a contract signed with the Crown. The contract changed a few years ago, to be with the government, and went to a three-year term … except nobody ever saw one of these contracts. Certainly, nobody was told about these contracts – not even the tenants of state houses.
Glen Innes and other poor Auckland suburbs are currently having their state houses moved off, to make the land available to developers. This is the other part of National’s brilliant plan. Contrary to the Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan, which aims to keep Auckland within its bounds and make it denser, National’s brilliant idea is to scrape the state houses off their sites, getting rid of the tenants in the process. Fifteen families in Glen Innes got their marching orders last week – 90 days to get out. This process, largely kept out of the papers, allows developers to build those godawful suburbs you see everywhere. Simultaneously, National intends opening up land on the verges of Auckland to developers. In other words, so Auckland can sprawl more.
If you think Auckland has problems with traffic congestion and a pretty crap public transport system, it’s because of that very sprawl. At least the council is trying to deal with this, by improving public transport and trying to institute denser housing developments. This is why the council is at odds with National – letting Auckland sprawl more only suits one group. You guessed it: the rich. They get to make huge profits from the houses and land. And yes, the rich vote National (or worse). The greedy always want more – with National, they get it.
National working for the average New Zealander? Not bloody likely. Your government is evicting poor families to add to Auckland’s problems by contributing to sprawl for the benefit of one of the lower forms of life: property developers.