Chris Hipkins
MP for Rimutaka

Education Spokesperson

MEDIA STATEMENT

19 July 2016

Teacher salaries no match for rampant house prices

With house prices rising more than 100 times faster than teachers’ salaries in Auckland, it’s hardly surprising there’s a severe shortage of teachers in our biggest city, Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins says.

“Home owners in Auckland have seen the value of their houses soar by $367,648 since 2013. Teachers’ pay packets, on the other hand, have only increased between $1,569 and $2,560.

“In fact the situation has become so bad that a teacher on the highest salary band in Auckland has gone from requiring 63 per cent of their net income to service a mortgage to now requiring 93 per cent.

“That’s not only putting home ownership completely out of reach for teachers, it’s putting schools in a dire situation, with some already forced to resort to extreme measures to fill the gaps.

Parents must also be concerned - if schools can’t attract the teachers they need then their children’s learning will suffer.

“The blame lies squarely with National. It is proposing radical changes to school funding that will see increased class sizes and more money going to private schools, yet has no plan to fix the housing crisis and is not willing to do anything about the situation for our schools and teachers in Auckland,” Chris Hipkins says.

ends

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