National aims to make home ownership affordable

National Party Leader John Key says the party is aiming to make home ownership more affordable again.

His speech to the party’s annual conference in Auckland today outlined a four-part plan to address housing affordability, and he signalled more policy was to come.

“Home ownership is an economic problem, with obvious and important social dimensions. Labour’s economic management, combined with heavy-handed regulation, has seen the dream of many young Kiwis to own their own home dashed,” says Mr Key.

The plan’s four parts are:

ensuring people are in a better financial position to afford a house

freeing up the supply of land

dealing with the compliance issues that drive up building costs, and

allowing state house tenants to buy the houses they live in.

“National will make sure people can afford their mortgage. We will lower personal income taxes, easing the burden of mortgage repayments, and better reward savers.

“Secondly, we will take legislative action to ensure an increased supply of land for housing. Difficulties with the RMA and disagreements between different arms of local government, too often slow release of land. This drives up land prices and development costs.

“We will amend the Building Act to cut red tape and instead drive quality through greater commercial accountability.

“And National will allow Housing NZ tenants who want to purchase the house they live in to do so. We will reinvest the proceeds into replacement houses for needy families on the waiting list.

“Alongside this plan, National will increase trades-training opportunities so New Zealand has more skilled people to build houses. This will start with our trades in schools programme and will also include boosting apprenticeship training.

“National will also be undertaking more policy development.

“We are a party founded on principles that include home ownership, and we intend to deliver on those principles.”

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