Source: New Zealand Parliament – Hansard
NICOLA WILLIS (National): This Labour Government is failing an entire generation of young New Zealanders, a generation who were promised so much by Prime Minister Ardern and who have been failed so badly. They are a generation of young New Zealanders who have now given up hope of buying the home Labour promised them. They are now paying more for their rent than ever in New Zealand’s history. They watched that rent go up on average $50 a week in the past year alone. They are a generation of young New Zealanders who are facing a growing cost of living that hits them in the pocket every time they go to fill up at the pump, every time they go to put groceries in their supermarket trolley.
This Government is failing a generation of young New Zealanders whose wages are not keeping up with those increasing costs and who have less money in their bank accounts now than they did last year. They have given up on the hope of being able to save the deposit to buy a home. This Government has failed a generation of young New Zealanders who under this Government can’t see how it’s going to get better. They have watched their friends in London, in Sydney, in Melbourne who wanted to come home for a family funeral, to see their friends, denied that opportunity. They are a generation of young New Zealanders who look overseas and see young people like them getting ahead, earning more, and getting better jobs.
I don’t want the future for young New Zealanders to be that they look overseas to see where success is. I want them to see success here in New Zealand. But this Labour Government just can’t deliver. Here we have a Prime Minister who in the Speech from the Throne said that this would be the Government that would solve the housing crisis. That’s what Labour campaigned on in 2017. They said—and there he is right now: Phil Twyford, the man who promised 100,000 KiwiBuild homes. Well, how’s that going, Mr Twyford? Last time I checked, you’d only built just over a thousand KiwiBuild homes. So for the hundreds of thousands of young New Zealanders out there who had the good faith to believe you, to believe the Prime Minister, to believe Labour when they said they were serious about housing, about having 100,000 homes, they now know that was wrong, that was misleading, that was a broken promise.
This is the same Government that said they’d make life better for renters. Well, how’s that going? Tell the renters of New Zealand that when they have experienced under this Government, on average, a weekly increase in their rent of $140. The members opposite are looking at me and nodding their heads—no?—because they’re getting the emails from their constituents, saying, “I thought you said you were going to make it easier for me, but you have made it so much harder.” I want to remind the members opposite because I’m not sure that Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern are being completely honest with these backbenchers. Under National, rents didn’t increase like that, my friends. Under National, the increases were far, far lower, because we took a careful, prudent approach before adding costs.
This is a Government that in the Speech from the Throne said it would introduce a rent-to-own scheme, and renters in New Zealand pricked up their ears and thought, “Great. I’m going to have the chance to pay rent and get myself my own home.” And how did that go? How’s that going for Labour? Well, 54 people got into a home through their rent-to-buy scheme—54 families. You would have more chance in this country of winning the lottery that getting a house through Labour’s rent-to-own scheme.
Then Labour said they’d be putting homes within reach of all first-home buyers. What’s happened since then? Under National the ratio of house prices to incomes was 1:6. So what’s it now under Labour—because they were going to make it more affordable. Is it 1:5? Is it 1:4? Is it 1:3? No. It is 1:9. It is demonstrably, statistically, by every measure, harder to buy a home in this country under Labour than it was under National, and young New Zealanders know it. They feel betrayed, they feel let down, and every member opposite is responsible for that, because they promised KiwiBuild when what Bill English was saying, what National was saying, was, “Do you know what you have to do? You have to increase the supply of houses, and, actually, the best way to do that would be to reform the Resource Management Act so that we get rid of the barriers.”
So what did Labour do last year? Wee, after four years of mucking around with policies that didn’t work, they came to National and they said, “Could we steal your homework? Actually, it turns out you were right all along.” And they did the one really good thing they’ve done for housing, which is, with us, introduce a bipartisan housing supply bill. Well, it shouldn’t have taken four years, Labour. That’s too little, too late.
Then, what did they promise to vulnerable New Zealanders? They said, “We’re going to reduce homelessness.” So how’s that going, Labour? Why is it today that there are four times as many New Zealanders in such housing deprivation and at so much risk that they’re on the State house waiting list? That is 25,000 New Zealanders who used to be able to afford a home in the private rental market but are now squeezed out, pushed out, onto the State house waiting list—and how long do people on the State house waiting list wait for a home under Labour?
Chris Bishop: How long?
NICOLA WILLIS: They wait for more than six months. And how long did they wait under National? Fewer than two months. So are things better or worse for people in need of State housing under Labour? The numbers don’t lie.
How are we going with the motels? I remember, and Phil Twyford will remember that he got up in Parliament and said, “It is outrageous, it’s appalling, that we’re spending $79,000 a day on motel bills for people without a home.” Well, what’s that bill today? Is it $100,000? Is it $120,000?
Chris Bishop: What is it?
NICOLA WILLIS: It is $1.2 million. And if anyone wants to tell me that that is the best way to solve the housing crisis, spending $1.2 million a day, paying the bill for motel rooms, then there is something very wrong in this country, and I will tell you who it is most wrong for. It is wrong for the 4,000 children who are now being raised by their families in a motel room, living week to week with gang members next door, drug dealers on the other side, seeing violence, intimidation, and threatening behaviour, and it’s happening on this Government’s watch—the same Government that said they would make things better. The truth is that what they’ve actually done is they’ve made things worse.
Last year it got politically uncomfortable for them, didn’t it? Everyone was saying, “I’ve given up hope in New Zealand of buying a home. What’s the point of working hard under a Labour Government when I can’t even buy a home?” So the Government said, “Don’t worry. We’ve found someone new to blame. We’ll blame speculators. Actually, it’s the fault of awful, awful landlords providing a housing service.” So the Government said it had a very clever plan to throw some extra taxes on them, remove their interest deductibility, and extend the brightline test, and then, they said, by doing that crushing punitive stuff and being big tough guys, it will all get better. Well, what has happened since then?
Hon Mark Mitchell: What’s happened?
NICOLA WILLIS: Since then, Mark Mitchell, housing prices in New Zealand have increased an additional $160,000. So the big talk that this was going to put pressure on house prices—that didn’t work. I can tell you what else happened, and Labour were warned about this. There’s a pile of Cabinet papers this high, warning them. They were warned that that would make it harder for renters, particularly vulnerable, low-income renters. And so it has proved. We have seen the figures—the biggest annual rent rises in New Zealand’s history. We have seen more vulnerable New Zealanders turfed out of their homes because they can’t afford the rent anymore and there aren’t enough rentals on offer. The thing that makes me sick about that is Labour were warned and they were told, and they went ahead anyway because they thought they could pull the wool over New Zealanders’ eyes and say, “Don’t blame the Government. Blame the landlords.” Well, the landlords were never to blame.
So this is a Government that has promised so much to New Zealanders, and I would say to every young New Zealander in this country, “Never forget that that Prime Minister was prepared to stand up in an election campaign and promise that she would solve the housing crisis and get you an affordable home.”, when she had no real plan to deliver that. And the result of that—
Dr Duncan Webb: What’s your plan?
NICOLA WILLIS: Her plan was called KiwiBuild, Duncan Webb, and you campaigned on it too and it was an utter shambles and disaster, and the consequence now is that things are worse than ever. It’s time for a National-led Government to put action into this issue and actually resolve it with substantive policy.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I understand this is a split call. I call the Hon Phil Twyford.
