“The Prime Minister cannot be telling us the big response of a transformational Labour Government to the shortage of houses being built in New Zealand is which regions will get the new state houses announced in last year’s Budget,” says ACT Housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden.

“New Zealanders can’t live in a reannouncement.

“The solution to housing supply is freeing up land for development, fixing infrastructure funding to incentivise new development, and reforming the crippling system of consenting that stifles not just the housing sector but business growth generally.

“The 900-page Resource Management Act is the single biggest obstacle to housing affordability in New Zealand.

“While the Government’s commitment to reforming it is welcomed, it must be overhauled in a way and at a pace that doesn’t see yet another generation of young Kiwis locked out of home ownership.

“The main cause of income inequality and poverty in New Zealand is the fact that the poorest households, which spent 27 per cent of their income on housing costs when the RMA was passed in 1991, now spend 54 per cent of their income on housing.

“How and when the Government will fix that should be the focus of today’s big announcement, not patching up the social housing sector, regardless of how worthy that might be.”

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