Budget 2015: Four hundred and thirty hectares? How about 27 million

“After all the fuss over property speculation and land banking, it turns out the biggest land banker is the government,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“The move to free up Crown land for housing development is sensible and long-overdue. But again, this is only a short term fix – we will soon use up the available 430 hectares.

“The good news is there is approximately another 27 million hectares in New Zealand, and only 0.7% of that is developed.

“We can free up this land by removing the anti-development bias of the Resource Management Act and encouraging councils to ease damaging land supply restrictions.

“The consequences of these restrictions are dire, as shown by the huge disparity of land prices inside compared with outside the Auckland rural-urban boundary.

“We need strong action in this area if we are to avoid locking an entire generation out of home ownership.”

ENDS

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