The Government needs to decide whether it wants to make meaningful change on housing or if it just wants to get re-elected, Felix Desmarais says. Photo / Getty Images
The Government needs to decide whether it wants to make meaningful change on housing or if it just wants to get re-elected, Felix Desmarais says. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
Something many people say of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern - including some of her critics - is that she is good in a crisis.
True in the case of the Christchurch terrorist attack, the White Island tragedy and so far, through the pandemic.
What about the housing crisis?
I'mfailing to see how this Government is doing anything on that wee chestnut other than wringing hands and fluffing around the edges, all the while prices keep climbing.
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I'm a would-be first home buyer. I don't want to buy a flash house. I don't want a quarter acre. I don't care if I make money on it. I want to secure my future as best I can, with a roof over my head that is mine.
I have a chunk of parental help for my deposit, as well as my own savings and Kiwisaver.
Rotorua. Photo / Andrew Warner
The First Home Buyer's Grant is free money, as they say, to help wannabe home-owners. For an existing home, it's a maximum of $5000.
Not to be ungrateful, but that makes about as much of a difference as nipple pasties on a naked mole rat in Siberia.
I can only get that $5000 if I buy a house under the regional cap, so I have to find one with a price tag of $400,000 or under. Good luck with that, even in Rotorua. I found an absolutely darling dingy two bedder riddled with damp for high fours.
Should I, by some miracle, manage to find one at the right price, I'm also competing against investors who know my final offer is $400,000.
I may yet be able to buy a house, but it's getting more unlikely every month. My deposit cannot keep pace with the increase in house prices. If it is hard for me, it is impossible for most people my age and everyone younger.
A capital gains tax would probably cool the market and at the very least, seems to me a fair price to pay. You earn income, you pay tax, just like everyone else. There's no property ladder if it's already been pulled up.
Rotorua Daily Post journalist Felix Desmarais. Photo / File
I've chatted with Government MPs who say they support a capital gains tax but fear the electoral consequences. Woosh, I believe was the word one used, to describe how quickly they could lose the next election over a capital gains tax.
The Prime Minister has said she supports capital gains tax explicitly, before ruling it out while she is in the job. I believe this is to placate the very voters who would swiftly turn heel back to the National Party - provided Christopher Luxon's leadership manages to restore it.
In my view, Labour is playing to win elections, not make the changes it believes in.
It is true there is no power in opposition, but what is the point of power if Labour doesn't use it?
It's not about a capital gains tax or the First Home Buyer's Grant. It's about whether or not the Government is prepared to actually use its power to make that so-called "transformational" change.
This Government needs to decide whether it wants to make meaningful change on housing or if it just wants to get re-elected so it can do more of the same window dressing for another three years.
I suggest a New Year's resolution of doing what needs to be done, even if it risks losing some popularity.
