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Key questions Labour's housing policy

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Key doubts Labour's housing policy

3News NZ

Prime Minister John Key (file)

Prime Minister John Key (file)

Labour can't build houses in Auckland for $300,000 as promised, Prime Minister John Key says.

Labour leader David Shearer has released a plan to build 100,000 homes to solve a problem of home affordability and says it is possible to build houses in Auckland for $300,000.

The private sector will build the homes, which will be sold to first-home buyers, and bonds will be sold to help fund the scheme.

"He can't do it," Mr Key told programme Q+A today.

The price implied a land cost of $50,000.

"You won't find a section in Auckland for $50,000," Mr Key said.

He said the cost of housing was an issue in New Zealand and in Auckland where prices had been rising.

The release of land would help address the issue as would reform of the Resource Management Act and reform of the building sector.

Mr Shearer said his party was targeting Auckland, Tauranga and Queenstown where home affordability was a real issue.

He said the government had to intervene because not enough homes were being built.

"What we're going to be doing is intervening where there's a market failure. If the homes were going to be built we wouldn't have to intervene," Mr Shearer said.

NZN

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Comments

26/11/2012 11:07:22 p.m.

puzzled wrote:

@Kathy. You are either blinded by the labour light or one of the party faithful. Helen had the helm over the best decade economically since the 50s and what did she do? showed the UN she was a good candidate for the job of putting the UNs one world goverment policy in place by using us as an experiment and saddling us with a beauocracy and welfare system we cant afford. Now we have a labor party acting like a crippled dog and you think they are fit to lead. Get real.

26/11/2012 3:36:44 p.m.

Bruce wrote:

@Eddie, the economic climate in New Zealand has changed dramatically since the previous Labour Government over the past four years, the tiresome tirades from the right, blaming the last Labour government no longer hold up. This National government and their supporters need to take some responsibility of their own. It's been 4 years! As with changing economic changes, government policies and thinking has to change with the changing economic climate or else, you face stagnation. It's a new economic climate, new economic policy is needed. Now.

26/11/2012 12:53:55 p.m.

Mal wrote:

Definitely better than the non existant policy we have in place at the moment.

26/11/2012 10:20:57 a.m.

zac wrote:

Good policy. It will also create jobs. What is John Key and the national party's housing policy again? A rehash of the previous Labour governments policy that they stopped when they came to power Then announced it days before Labour announced theirs at their national conference.Coincidence? I think national got caught with their underpants down again.

26/11/2012 8:19:20 a.m.

alison wrote:

Brilliant idea from Labour but they need a leader that can rebutt and argue the case clearly to put John Key in his place. Its the muddle puddle that shearer conveys as unclear and iffy that creates these problems. In short Labour needs a leader. A strong one.

26/11/2012 8:13:42 a.m.

Mike B wrote:

I think EDDIE sums it up very nicely below. The question really is what did Labour do in the good years? National have done pretty well in a world recession as well as cope with a massive earth quake. We just need to look at the state of some other much larger countries around the world to know we are in a fairly good position. Labour continues to make noises, but where the money is going to come from, no one knows. The last two weeks have said it all about Labour and should be a warning to any person thinking of voting Labour. They cannot even run a conference- let alone the country!

26/11/2012 7:34:32 a.m.

eddie wrote:

@ Bruce, and what did Labour do in the 9yrs of globally boom years about housing?...once again Labours policy is going to cost billions over their 'budget' for it...another slap in the face policy that has dodgy figures that don't stand up to scrutiny.

26/11/2012 1:39:45 a.m.

CG wrote:

Great very doable idea, Labour. I like the idea of issuing bonds, getting cheaper land with the help of the councils, generating skills and jobs, and selling the house at a small premium to give interest to the bond holders, using the capital from buyers to increase further capital. An ever increasing perpetual fund catering to the FIRST home buyers. Exciting, smart and well done. National, Key and English are just useless, clueless talkers who do things to primarily look after the wealthy. Bring on the next election!

26/11/2012 12:00:56 a.m.

Kathy wrote:

@Puzzled, what absolute twaddle. Helen Clark oversaw 9 sucessive surpluses and the money was reinvested into government assets. Left the coffers dry my backside, what absolute twaddle. Some guy calling himself Mike comes on here saying Labour handed over 29 Billion dollars to Bernard Madoff just because the mans name is negative he hopes by associating labour with it that everyone will buy his twaddle too. What is it with people and telling fairy tales?. Apparently National cant win the next election with truth so resorts to acting like John Key and starts to lie and misrepresent the truth. People need to look closely as some of the rubbish being posted. The right apparently only has misrepresentations to share and no truth, just like John Key. What really happened to the recording at the GCSB john?. A spy agency has camera's operating in every room 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They do this naturally because they are scared of being infiltrated by foreign spies or protestors etc, so they monitor every single part of the building at all times. So how can there be no tape?. How about National tell the country the truth.. just once, Key seems incapable of it as do his followers.

25/11/2012 8:00:16 p.m.

Bruce wrote:

At least labour want to do something about the high cost of housing in New Zealand. National have been in government for the past 4 years and done absolutely nothing.