John Key ridicules Greens' housing policy

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Key ridicules Greens' housing policy

3News NZ

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei at Ratana

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei at Ratana

There was one clear instance of dissent at Ratana today - the Greens announced their new housing policy.

It was instantly dismissed by Prime Minister John Key who said it reminded him of the board game Monopoly.

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei is one of just four women who have ever been allowed to speak at Ratana. She began by divulging a little too much information.

“Just behind this stand is where I had my first kiss - it was just a kiss.”

She then announced the Green Party’s new housing policy. The Greens believe they can sell Government-owned homes worth $300,000 without any need for a mortgage.

Each week tenants would pay $200 to meet Crown costs, $100 towards their share of the home and $50 for any extra costs - that's $350 dollars a week to own a home outright in 25 years.

But Mr Key did not approve of the idea.

“The Greens haven't announced a housing policy, they have just announced the next version of Monopoly. I mean, now they want to print money, they want to build houses, they want zero percent loans, what's next?”

But Ms Turei stood behind the policy.

“There are $300,000 houses available in Auckland right now, just not enough to meet demand,” she said. “We've talked to builders in Christchurch they say they can build a house for $170,000, and then you add on land costs after that.”

Labour's not completely sold on the idea either, saying it is basically a more expensive version of its own housing policy to build and sell 100,000 affordable homes in 10 years.

“They're taking our policy and taking it a bit further, and there's some good ideas there but for us, whether we can do it economically and is it financially responsible for us, is the big question for us,” Labour leader David Shearer says.

Despite Mr Key's best attempts to laugh off the opposition's housing plans, housing is an Achilles' heel for National and he knows it.

Labour and the Greens have created complimentary policies that will be popular - but until they can prove they'll work, Mr Key's jibes could stick.

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Comments

14/02/2013 4:27:21 p.m.

Paul wrote:

Key talks of monopoly, hmmmm...fonterra, foodstuffs and progressive, telecom before the loop was unbundled,...NZ is the game Monopoly and has been for a very long while. Key, stop the lip service and actually do something about this cliff we are in danger of collectively jumping off. At least the Greens are coming up with new ideas, still waiting for anything other than the same old rubbish spilled by this lot of greedy blue boys.

7/02/2013 2:47:15 p.m.

cmg wrote:

Key isn't thinking straight! If he knew anything about the game Monopoly he would realize that NZ is like one huge game of monopoly right now with overseas investors able to buy our properties!

31/01/2013 2:02:48 p.m.

jan.. wrote:

The Green and Labour are correct' you can sell houses without a deposit and that includes rules and regulation of it security and proposal. $200 to $350 minimum weekly payments toward morgages of $300,00- $400,000 over 25 years is amble of time to pay it off unless you come in to some luck than you can pay it off.

28/01/2013 1:06:30 p.m.

eddie wrote:

"She then announced the Green Party’s new housing policy. The Greens believe they can sell Government-owned homes worth $300,000 without any need for a mortgage"....once again Green/Labour policy looks great on paper...lets drill down a wee bit eh?...forgetting the fact that 300K home must be a shoe box size...what if they cannot pay the mortgage due to employment change, another 2 kids they have not budgeted for...no matter the reason, would Labour/Greens do a mortagee sale on their home to let another family move in?...Tui ad inserted here please....see how the devil is in the detail, as a bank will/does when mortgage cannot be maintained, mortgagee sale!! but Govt as the 'banker', what you lefties think should happen to a defaulter...i'm interested, not a trick question.

Each week tenants would pay $200 to meet Crown costs, $100 towards their share of the home and $50 for any extra costs - that's $350 dollars a week to own a home outright in 25 years



27/01/2013 9:08:44 a.m.

Mike wrote:

If the Green Party said pollution was good, the ordinary Green voter would approve.

Oh wait, we already have that with the Green Party supporting carbon polluters like Germany over Clean/Green NZ to a factor over 18:1 in carbon emissions per sq km! We have had the Green Party publicly claim NZ not doing as much as their polluting funds contributer when we are over 18x cleaner! We can see some overseas influence there helping set Green Party policy. They even reched accross the Tasman to find a propper puppet as a leader.

This Green policy is not addressing the housing problems of Labour/Greens RMA, and Councils stalling the development process. Now by chance, would some Labour lead councils be doing the stalling deliberately? Labour wouldn't stoop to stalling in local councils to push up house price for ordinary Kiwis? Yeah, Right!

25/01/2013 8:32:54 a.m.

Kathy wrote:

NOraml hard working kiwis arent being helped by National infact all National has done for normal hard working kiwis is make life more expensive. Lets look at upcoming changes for workers. Increased Kiwisaver contributions. Increased student loan repayments. Increased petrol tax's These three things alone will destroy any wage increase that an kiwi worker will get from their employer this year. Misinformation from Nationals spokespeople again in the form of chris?. Nationals own housing policies have been an abysmal failure, hence heatley's replacement with a total incompetent.

25/01/2013 8:31:28 a.m.

Mike wrote:

The NZ housing problem is the result of two things:

- Labour/Greens RMA slowing new housing development and adding red tape that makes low cost homes unaffordable to build.
- Housing shortage due to increased population. For all the talk of NZrs leaving NZ, the stats show in 4 years of National, immigration exceeded those leaving in 3 of 4 years, ie net immigration.

So how does the opposition tackle this? They dont.

Only by pruning back some of the RMA and removing the red tape to make building low and middle cost homes will that be fixed. We could look at longer term population controls, but really, building more homes simpler and NZ not really have a high population problem anyway.

If conventional building too expensive, how about less conventional? Eg Businessess been using containers as offices for years. More recently a proposal to use containers for prison space was looked at. Maybe some converted containers could be looked at as an alternative being cheaper and still give quality housing. Could even make a container park of them! Make better use of increasing cost of land.

25/01/2013 3:17:18 a.m.

marcus wrote:

@Terry,Ratana is a Maori religious movement not a political party.Are we to assume that Maori should be discriminated against having their own religion?Who's next?Muslims?,Hindus?,Jews?Christians?. @Christopher,if Labour and Greens are a joke then what is National? Pathetic? Look at the stats Unemployment highest levels in 13 years,debts unseen since Muldoon days,so thank goodness for what?

24/01/2013 10:33:49 p.m.

tom wrote:

maybe the Nats have no policy becuase it keeps the housing market high.

24/01/2013 10:16:12 p.m.

Christopher wrote:

The Green and Labour are joke. Thank goodness we have a Nat. Govt. Labour ruined NZ over 10 years. They are corrupt and evil beyond belief. Good to see the last polls showing National increasing and Labour going down. [again]. Normal hard working Kiwis must never vote a left leaning Gov.T in ever again.