Bill English has made a sound start as Prime Minister. He seems to be down-to-earth, and a straight-talker - a welcome change from his predecessor. But, at the same time, he seems to be prone to making statements based on prejudice and anecdote; we have a right to expect better.
He was quick, for example, to rely on allegations apparently made informally to him by employers about their problems in employing young Kiwis on account of their supposed drug use; he preferred this prejudicial evidence rather than look to his own official statistics which tell a very different story.
His preference seems have been to explain away youth unemployment and to make the case for immigration, even at the expense of slandering a whole generation of young Kiwis, rather than to accept that immigrant labour is popular with employers because it is often cheaper as well as plentiful.
He was at it again when trying to explain away the housing crisis and the rising cost and unaffordability of housing. The problem, according to the Prime Minister, is apparently due to the supposed fact that we have been "too keen on the environment".
It would of course be nice if that were true - that we, and especially the Government, had indeed been a little keener on the environment; think clean water and swimmable rivers. His attempted explanation, however, seems to blame rising house prices on local authorities' wish, quite reasonably, to avoid a free-for-all that creates a bonanza for property developers, but also an unlimited urban sprawl and attendant infrastructure problems.
Saddling local authorities with the blame may be politically convenient, but it is well wide of the mark as an explanation of why the cost of housing has risen so far and so fast. An accurate answer to that question is, of course, of special importance to the Bay of Plenty, and Tauranga in particular, in view of the surge in property prices that has recently occurred here.
