Government-led house building plans set to be announced in the run-up to the Budget later this month will have a nationwide focus, with the greatest pressures in Auckland, Prime Minister Bill English says.
Cabinet Monday was putting the final touches on the 25 May Budget, English told media at his post-Cabinet press conference. He referenced Finance Minister Steven Joyce’s announcement last week of an increase in infrastructure spending.
Joyce had mentioned some of the additional infrastructure funds would go towards building on Housing NZ land. There is also set to be private sector funding for some of the Government’s plans, he said.
English Monday was coy on just how much money would be put towards housing plans, and whether there was yet a set split between public and private funding.
Amy Adams has been given Ministerial responsibility for the Government’s state-house building plans, the building of houses on Housing NZ land that will be sold off, and major projects like Tamaki.
The Government had “always said” it would be embarking on some larger scale building, English said. Plans would unfold on the way through to the Budget, he said. He noted projects were already underway, such as Northcote and Tamaki. “Housing New Zealand’s talked about other projects,” he said.
“It’s required partly because Housing New Zealand owns so much land in Auckland - it’s got the opportunity to densify it - and partly because there’s ahead of us a lot of the housing stock coming to the end of its economic life,” English said.
“There’s certainly more pressure in Auckland, but there’s a need for it right across the country because of the age of the stock,” he said. There were also opportunities for government to provide denser housing in faster growing areas other than Auckland.
35 Comments
Geeez have they NO SHAME.
They've copied UK's Margaret Thatchers policy in the 1980's, of selling AND NOT replacing State housing as a purposeful action to force people into borrowing money to HAVE TO buy a house. And thus helping a Ponzi-fractional reserve lending, money scam.
Does NZ NOT learn ANYTHING from history and the standard right wing (some of us would say Corporate Fascist) parties game-plan?
If this lot get in again, then I honestly believe NZ is royally screwed and 'done for' as a decent, caring and fair society.
So get out and vote Kiwis, that what a democracy is all about.
And yes I will abide by the electorates decision.
Have you looked at the policies of the alternatives? Or has the media just not pushed them enough for you?
And if you think everyone else is terrible then surely you'll run for parliament as your ideas are better than all current politicians, that would make you the next prime minister.
Start here:
http://www.labour.org.nz/announced_policies
https://www.greens.org.nz/policy
http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/policies
http://act.org.nz/policies/
http://www.top.org.nz/policy
http://www.mana.org.nz/policy
etc.
Too little, too late, bye, bye. If you want something other than losing 2 elections years apart to be remembered by, sort out Pike River Mine. English, you were tossed one huge hospital pass by your predecessor, but if you sort Pike River in an appropriate manner, you might get out of this with a bit of respect, you will probably still will get taken out of the game, but at least you'd be able to hold your head high, once you regain consciousness.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Pike River has no real relevance anymore to the public consciousness apart from the odd spasm of media hype. I'd suggest that 90% of new Zealanders think that the families and the rest of us need to simply get on with our lives. Risking further loss of life for some scorched remains simply doesn't register on people's voting priorities. It's like the lefties who keep on bleating about the Springbok tour and who opposed it, 40 years on.
I think it's understandable to want to recover a dead loved one from the scene of a tragedy, or to be angry if you thought you'd been misled about it. I'd like to think that most New Zealanders have empathy. I guess I fall outside your 90% majority. By the way I'm also immensely proud of our antinuclear stance, and of what happened with the Springbok tour. I must really be in the minority.
If Pike river really did no longer have 'real relevance', I doubt we'd be seeing articles from our short attention span MSM, every other day. Note too the way English treads very carefully around the issue. Brutus perhaps forgets that women have the vote in NZ. They relate strongly to the partners and mothers of the lost miners.
Not just lefties who 'bleat' about the springbok tour. Plenty of right wing types like me are proud of the way ordinary kiwis did their little bit to oppose apartheid.
Well, The Pike River families who dare to want to try to recover the bodies of their family members in the face of official hostility and obfuscation,would be entitled to cry Et tu Brute as you knife them in the back. They deserve better.
Those lefties whom you so despise were on the right side of history and those who bleated about not mixing sport and politics were just wilfully ignorant of the evils of apartheid,or worse,couldn't care less as long as they saw their precious rugby.From your post,I suspect you were in the latter camp.
9 long yrs of "opportunity time" for this sad directionless National government of hypocrisy
Bill English puts on his usual supercilious smile as he reads his speech of lies .
Lies like ..... we are going to fix housing nationwide ! Why does he say nationwide ? Elections are nationwide
There aren't enough words I could write to explain my complete disappointment with John Key and Bill English
If there's such an under supply of new housing why is there a developement company in rolleston gone bust and a house builder in Auckland bust at the top of the Herald and Stuff sites?
As to the there is no alternative to these fools, fact is there never is, the opposition never look likely because most have never been tried in portfolios. But if you look back they invariably grow into the job, labour has tended to herald changes and slightly out of the box(compared with national) thinking while national has always bought steady as she goes make cuts in spending.
I guess some people fear change and that's ALL they see.
Christchurch is a market completely opposite to Auckland: oversupply everywhere, as evidenced by:
- Stagnant house selling prices
- Falling rents
- Land supply in excess of 10 years needs
- Section prices starting with a '1'
- New house/plot prices starting with a '3'
Or, one could say, a properly functioning system cf Awkland.....
Did you Know ?
The UK introduced something called a Landlords Levy ( this is not some sort of joke) and according to Bloombergs it has overshot its collect target by an eye-watering GBP 1,3 Billion
See Article on Bloombergs By Sharon R Smyth DATED 28 APRIL :- HERES AN EXTRACT
" A levy on landlords and second-home owners that roiled sales of property rentals is becoming increasingly important for U.K. government coffers as home sales fall.
The tax raised 1.64 billion pounds ($2.1 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 31, figures published Friday show, a billion pounds more than the Treasury estimated............."
Now that's not Chump Change for the Government coffers
Add this to the basket of possible measures.
Something is seriously out of kilter when we have a pension system that's based on the idea most people will own their own home mortgage free by the time they retire, and a government of property investors telling young people "don't worry, renting for life is a good option" (really saying "my own portfolio is growing nicely"), followed shortly with "btw you need to pay us a pension in retirement despite our millions. Thanks, LOL."
What a nice, well-balanced shafting of young Kiwis they're arranging.
the best thing young kiwis can do is debt binge ... do not, i repeat, do not attempt to build a future. Ignore the barbs about recklessness .. the debt binge is actually what the oldies need to keep their pensions & investments rolling ... & its as good as its going to get for the young.
When the debt proves impossible to service, we all go down together.
There is a lot of ongoing interest in the disaster at Pike River and here are some questions that people think should be answered:
Were there unsafe practices that led to the disaster?
Is there evidence of this lying behind the barrier?
Who would be culpable if this was discovered?
Would any lessons be learned for the future to protect workers?
If one was your family member wouldn't you wish to farewell them appropriately?
It's not about "harassing the govt.", it's about doing the right thing. Another broken promise from JK.
Everyone wants to go home safe from work and if unsafe practices prevents them, 29 of them, from ever going home there should be accountability. What went wrong that day?
What went wrong? try a smorgasbord from this buffet of facts:
- Mine was all uphill, from the entrance through the stone drive, into the upwards-sloping coal seam
- Coal was gassy (same as Buller, 65 deaths back in the day http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/coal-and-coal-mining/page-7, and Strongman, 19 deaths in 1967)
- Methane rises (it's lighter than air)
- Ventilation was behind the workings, and fan was sited underground. Motor was not flame-proofed. http://pikeriver.royalcommission.govt.nz/vwluResources/Final-Report-Vol…
- Coal seam outcropped at the uphill end into a National Park (Paparoa) so zero chance of running ventilation up and out and ensure proper flow, and above the mine was conservation estate: zero chance of more 'oles up and out
- Likely source of ignition methane was a fall within the Hydro Panel goaf - volume 6000 cubic metres and probably full of methane. http://pikeriver.royalcommission.govt.nz/vwluResources/Final-Report-Vol…
- The likely source of ignition was harmonic earth currents induced by variable-speed drive soft starts (a few seconds before the main detonation), causing arcing.
So to sum up: design constraints imposed by the terrain and the land-controlling authorities, forcing a less than optimal design overall (underground fan, in particular, was focussed on by the RC as extremely unusual) plus the maintenance and operational issues identified in the RC report.
Take yer pick of villains - there are several.....
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