Is the housing crisis over?
A report from ANZ suggests we're short of houses again while 24,081 people sit on the social housing wait list. Unified by crisis, National and Labour now won't budge on their approaches to housing
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Wednesday, May 31, by Anna Rawhiti-Connell. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Jan Tinetti referred to Privileges Committee for possible contempt; Auckland mayor condemns ‘Labour MPs in waiting’ over Auckland airport share sales; surrogacy law to be fast-tracked; but first, crisis? What crisis?
(Image: Tina Tiller)
Willing to work together but will not budge
Just look at this opening line from RNZ’s report last night on where we got to on Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) yesterday: “The main parties both say they are willing to work together on policies to build more housing, but neither seems likely to budge over their approach.” That’s a far cry from the “consensus-required-to-deal-with-a-crisis” mindset that drove the bipartisan housing accord in the first place. Crisis is a handy word at times. It can help promote unity. With the National and Labour no longer unified in their approach to building more houses, can we say we’re no longer in a crisis?
Housing market to rebound in second quarter
Based on a humble fact check, I’d say no? At the end of April, the median house price in Auckland was just a jot under a million at $995,000. In March, Auckland was ranked as the seventh least affordable housing market in the world. Stuff has been tracking how much a median-income household needs for a deposit and what home loan repayments will cost since December 2020. For April, they estimated you’d need to save for 243 weeks for a deposit and that fortnightly home loan repayments were up by $94. We’re all aware that house prices have fallen, but ANZ bank economists were out yesterday saying they are picking the housing market may start to rebound in the second half of the year.
New Zealand has widening housing deficit, rents increase
ANZ’s latest property report released yesterday says “once again, New Zealand has a widening housing deficit” with “new demand for housing now outstripping new supply”. Taking net migration numbers at face value while acknowledging the difficulty of forecasting that, the bank says the shortfall between new housing supply and demand has come in at around 5500 dwellings. New home consents in April were down by more than a quarter on last year (paywalled). National median weekly rent to the 12 months to the end of March increased by $15 a week. Auckland continued to escape that trend and it is with some irony that the “radical move in 2016 to liberalise zoning laws in New Zealand’s largest city” was cited by Michael Read in the Australian Financial Review yesterday as one of the reasons the city has avoided ongoing rent increases. Read holds Auckland up as an example for Australia to follow.
Social housing likely to become “political plaything”
National’s housing policy released on Sunday talks about supercharging social housing but as Rebecca Macfie writes in this excellent report from a major social housing conference over the weekend, “it seems more likely that the ChiP [colloquial acronym for community housing provider] sector itself will become a political plaything in the run-up to the election.” At the end of March there were 24,081 applicants waiting for social housing. That’s a decrease of 10.4% from the same time last year but you only need to look at the graph dating back to March 2018 to see it’s still not a number worth popping corks over.
The number of applicants on the Housing Register (Source: Ministry of Social Development)
To end, a “dream come true” story in The Post (paywalled) as one woman moves into a warm, dry, house enabled by a rent-to-buy scheme run by Habitat for Humanity. A good reminder of what we’re aiming for amid the scrapping.
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Jan Tinetti referred to Privileges Committee for possible contempt
Parliament's Privileges Committee will consider whether the time it took for education minister Jan Tinetti to correct an inaccurate statement in the House amounts to contempt. On February 22, National’s education spokesperson Erica Stanford asked Tinetti if she “could categorically state that she played no part in delaying the release of Term 3 2022 attendance data.” In response, Tinetti said “I can categorically tell that member that the Ministry of Education is responsible for the data. I have no say over that.” Newshub revealed later that month that Tinett’s office had instructed officials to delay the release of the information so it could timed with a government announcement on school attendance. Tinetti would be the first MP in 15 years to be found in contempt of parliament. The most recent was Winston Peters who was censured in 2008 after the Privileges Committee found he did have knowledge of a donation from Owen Glenn in 2005 and should have declared it as a gift.
Mayor of Auckland condemns ‘Labour MPs in waiting’
As the Herald’s Bernard Orsman reports (paywalled), Auckland mayor Wayne Brown is presenting his final budget proposal today and a vote will be held next week. Brown has condemned other Auckland councillors for not supporting the sale of Auckland airport shares calling them “Labour MPs in waiting”. Auckland councillor Mike Lee has a counter argument this morning, writing in the Herald (paywalled) that “privatising the airport was never mentioned in the 40 or so mayoral campaign debates during last year’s election, nor in any campaign advertising,” and that he believes “the present council finance “deficit” crisis has been hyped to force the sale of airport shares.”
Madeleine Sami on how to create more creatives
She seems to have mastered acting, writing and directing after two decades creating film and TV, but what's next for Madeleine Sami? She joins host of The Fold, Duncan Greive to talk about the institutions which made her and her two new original series airing in June.
Surrogacy law changes to be fast-tracked
The government has decided to adopt a bill from Labour MP Tamati Coffey to streamline surrogacy law. As RNZ reports, New Zealand's surrogacy laws do not currently recognise the intended parents of a child as the legal parents, meaning they must adopt the baby. Justice minister Kiritapu Allan called the current process “discriminatory”, saying it “causes unnecessary harm and stress and reflects how outdated the system is.” The proposed changes include removing the need for parents to adopt their child born by surrogacy, establishing a register for babies so they can access more information about their birth origins later on in life, and clarity over payments surrogates can receive from parents.
Click and collect
Councillors lodge vote of no confidence in Let’s Get Wellington Moving
Could there be action on congestion charging before the election? (paywalled)
New offer on the table for primary school teachers
Timeframe set for open banking in New Zealand
The most complained about ads last year
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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