Free Press

Welcome to the first ever edition of Free Press, ACT’s new regular bulletin. If you’re wondering why you’ve received this, we’ve used the same mailing list as Richard Prebble’s classic The Letter, and hope we can stimulate you in the same way. Otherwise, feel free to exercise your freedom of association and click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the page.

Victory for Sound Economics
Demographia has said New Zealand’s housing is unaffordable since 2006. Former Prime Minister Clark used to say they just needed to add Europe to the report and we’d look better. Now even the Greens accept the issue is real. The war of ideas can be won.

Victory for ACT
The Productivity Commission (formed as a condition of ACT’s 2008 confidence and supply agreement) made the difference. Its comprehensive reports showed that it is a shortage of land that makes housing unaffordable. They showed Auckland’s Rural Urban Boundary makes land 8.65 times more expensive by banning development on the fringe. In 1974 we built 28,000 homes, last year 14,000.

Dopey Alternatives
Some parties say the government should build housing, but where? Even builders working for the government cannot build houses without land. Others want to give first homebuyers money – completely counterproductive. If the government showed up at an auction and gave every bidder $10,000, what would happen to the final price?

And Dopier
The capital gains tax is worse still. All the other unaffordable housing markets (Sydney, Vancouver, LA) have CGTs. Only the left would try to stimulate home building by taxing the sale of homes. But what about the speculators? Well, who would speculate in a market where new homes keep getting built?

Not Greedy
Some say the problem is ungrateful kids drinking too many lattes. Hardly. Home prices have gone from 3x income to 8x since 1990. We dream of buying a house for $27,000 and having the mortgage eaten by 17 per cent inflation. What was that like?

Ending Child Poverty
The Listener reports that 130,000 New Zealand children live in poverty, not counting housing costs. Then it rises to 285,000. Solving housing affordability could halve child poverty.

Neo Feudalism
We have always been a frontier society where home ownership is the Kiwi dream. More and more young New Zealanders are dependent on help courtesy of their parents’ housing gains to get on the ladder. Helen Clark’s dream of us turning into Europe probably didn’t include hereditary property ownership, but we’re half way there.

Cost of Living
Visitors to New Zealand noticed how much everything costs even before the dollar’s surge in recent years. Epsom electorate shopkeepers tell us rents are through the roof. The RMA is not only a plague on developing houses, we speculate that it has driven up the price of everything.

Green Dream
The only thing the Green Party is trying to save in the housing debate is the Red Herring. New Zealand is 0.7 per cent urbanised. We drove from Auckland to Hawkes Bay recently and the only thing we didn’t see was a shortage of land. “Sprawl” is a green godsend. Most Kiwis with a back yard like to plant native plants to attract native birds. This has got to be better for the environment than dairy farming.

NIMBYs, us?
Epsom electors are wary of intensification. We say not in our back yard for a very good reason. There’s already a house there. The Epsom electorate has been infilling since the 1960s. It had the highest population density in the country even before the Electoral Commission took the Domain off us and put it into Auckland Central. If all of Auckland was as dense as Epsom, it could accommodate 13 million people.

The RMA is Surreal
If you are sitting down, try reading the RMA. “Persons acting under this act must have particular regard to the intrinsic values of ecosystems.” By definition that is impossible. Who decides an intrinsic value? You can’t blame the meddling classes for exploiting such vagueness. Try it here for free:http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0069/latest/DLM231910.html

Where Next?
ACT will be pushing National to do RMA reform properly. If Hon Peter Dunne wants to wallow in intransigence, let him. Hon Dr Nick Smith should cut a swath through the vagueness and put property rights and housing supply front and centre in the RMA. We will be working hard over the coming months.

Freedom isn’t Free
If it were legal, ACT Leader David Seymour would sell blood to fundraise for ACT. All you need is a credit card. www.act.org/donate

Come to the Farm
We are hosting our conference on February 21. The theme is New Zealand the Way You Want It. Rob Muldoon won 55 seats on this slogan, and we have better policies. The line-up is first class; the $50 ticket price is economy. Read more here: http://www.act.org.nz/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=171

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