The political parties are fighting over how to build more houses and whether landlords or renters should be protected. Photo / Alex Burton
The Herald’s political and specialist reporters examine the big issues facing New Zealand and how the main political parties plan to deal with them. Today, Ben Leahy looks at housing.
Housing is back as a key election battleground - with the political parties dividing along old battle lines about how to build more houses to drive down prices and to balance landlord, first home buyers and renters’ rights.
Labour and the Greens, as in past elections, are seeking to portray themselves as giving the have-nots a fair go.
They say they are helping build cities of the future with new apartments close to public transport and providing more social housing and protections for renters.
National and Act say the best solution is to leave the housing market alone so it can naturally find the best solutions. They want landlords to be free to do good business and for more houses to be built in the suburbs.
Minor parties Te Pāti Māori and TOP, meanwhile, have put forward policies they say will boost home ownership, especially among Māori, while NZ First is looking to support older Kiwis who are stuck renting.
Broadly, it means the election is being fought on a few familiar themes: house prices and affordability, housing supply and construction, and investor versus first home buyer and renter rights.
House prices have been subject to bold political calls in past elections.
Yet, this election most parties have stayed away from claiming they have the ability to control prices and prevent them from skyrocketing.
Perhaps that’s because such claims have proven false in the past.
Most property pundits instead agree interest rates are more important drivers of whether prices rise or not.
Interest rates, for instance, have spent most of the last 15 years falling. Over the same period, house prices have skyrocketed, both during National’s 2008 to 2017 terms in government and then again in Labour’s period in charge from 2020 to 2021.
Then when interest rates rose in the past two years, house prices crashed.
Yet despite this lack of control, some Labour supporters - and critics - say it has had mild success in dampening demand and thus house prices by tinkering around the edges of the market.
It’s done that partly by taking away tax breaks for property investors and forcing them to spend more money upgrading the quality of the rentals they provide to tenants.
Landlord lobbies say these changes have made it less profitable for property investors and so have had an impact on buying demand.
There was also a period in which other home buyers were subject to new laws that made it harder for them to be approved for mortgages, which also softened demand.
However, these tougher lending laws coincided with a period of high interest rates and high cost of living that meant it hasn’t been easier for most Kiwi renters and first home buyers to afford to purchase their first house – even with falling prices.
Labour has presided over a period of booming construction with the number of new homes being approved for construction hitting record highs – although high building costs and falling house prices mean most expect this activity to fall in coming years.
Labour has also pushed through a national housing plan that aims to boost housing supply by encouraging more apartment blocks to be built close to public transport, rather than in new suburbs.
It has also passed two new laws to replace the widely criticised planning legislation the Resource Management Act.
The Greens would like to go further in some cases by allowing developers to build even higher than under Labour in some circumstances where new apartments meet higher energy efficiency and sustainability standards.
However, critics argue Labour’s housing plan tries to foist apartment living and public transport use on everyone, even those who don’t want it.
And that it could change the character of city suburbs and put an overload of traffic and people on to neighbourhood infrastructure.
National, meanwhile, appears to be looking to have a bob-each-way by supporting intensive housing but also siding with home owners in wealthier suburbs, who don’t want taller developments near them.
It had earlier stood with Labour in bi-partisan support of the Government’s plans to force greater housing intensification on all major cities.
It’s now walking that back.
It said it still wants to see more apartment blocks, but argues it can boost housing supply faster by also pushing councils to free up more land along city edges.
That policy would require most city councils to make sure they immediately zone enough land ready for construction as to be able to build as many houses as are estimated to be needed over the next 30 years.
It also wants to give residents more opportunity to object to intensive apartment developments near them.
Critics argue National is pursuing an outdated vision of what a city looks like.
Councils have long battled to pay for infrastructure to support sporadic developments springing up on city fringes, and critics say this policy is potentially a green light for developers to make money at a cost to taxpayers.
They argue it allows wealthy inner city residents to remain unbothered by new development, but pushes the less wealthy into traffic jams and long commutes from distant, poorly-planned suburbs.
Act, meanwhile, also plans to reshape the planning framework.
It argues councils have become risk averse in approving new construction because they may be held liable if a development or new building technology is found defective in the future.
To fix that it wants to have all builders take out a building insurance.
It would also pay 50 per cent of GST raised from new construction to councils to incentivise them to help build more homes.
Insurers competing for customers would be more incentivised to approve more construction, Act argues, and thus boost housing supply.
Labour has brought in stronger protections for renters during its time in Government and embarked on a major plan to build more social houses through Kāinga Ora.
Labour argues more people are renting for longer and deserve to be living in healthier homes and with greater rights.
This is to the benefit of society with stable housing having greater health and education outcomes for families, it says.
The Greens would like to take this further with new protections, such as a rental warrant of fitness and a goal to build 35,000 affordable homes in five years.
Te Pāti Māori, meanwhile, would like to build 2000 homes on Māori ancestral lands and have half of all social housing made available for Māori.
NZ First said it aims to develop a new policy to support seniors, who are still renting.
National and Act also said they aim to build more social houses, with National saying it would look to a wide range of community groups to build the homes, not just Kāinga Ora.
Both National and Act would look to strip away many of the renters’ rights brought in by Labour, however.
They argue landlords supply the bulk of rentals and letting them do good business keeps the rental market competitive and thus rents down.
They would minimise or abolish the tax home sellers pay on capital gains, while also giving tax breaks to property investors so they can claim deductions on their interest payments.
They would also allow landlords to evict tenants without giving a reason as long as there is 90 days’ notice.
Another change would allow foreign buyers to purchase houses worth $2 million or more if they pay a 15 per cent tax.
But critics say the calculations behind the foreign buyer tax appear misleading and have not been supported by any major economists.
They argue the breaks for foreign buyers and landlords could once again drive house prices up and appear to be a case of scratching the backs of their mates.
HOUSING: THE POLICIES
Labour
National
Greens
Act
Te Pāti Māori
· Te Pāti Māori has previously campaigned to tax homes that remain unoccupied.
· Build 2000 houses on Māori ancestral lands.
NZ First
Ben Leahy is an Auckland-based journalist covering property. He has worked as a journalist for more than a decade in India, Australia and New Zealand.
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