Tradespeople should be brought into NZ to boost house building - Judith Collins
Podcast |
Morning Report
Publisher |
Radio New Zealand
Media Type |
audio
Categories Via RSS |
News
Publication Date |
Jan 26, 2021
Episode Duration |
00:09:06
Judith Collins says more tradespeople should be let into New Zealand to help build more houses and ease supply and demand troubles. The National Party says the country is suffering an unfolding housing emergency and wants urgent temporary legislation to reduce barriers to building. Collins has written to the Prime Minister calling for a special select committee to develop legislation giving the Government the power to re-zone council land for development. She told Morning Report she views housing affordability issues as an emergency and more stock must be built. "It is all about supply and demand. There is nothing magical about this, we need more houses, and we need more accommodation." [audio_play] "We've gone from a very difficult housing situation to now what I believe is an emergency." Collins said tradespeople should be brought into NZ to help build the new stock. "It's really important to be able to bring in people to do that work. And of course, it means to go through quarantine."  Demand Measures. Collins wasn't a fan of adding new measures to reduce demand though, saying anything put forward by the government is a punishment. She does not back extending the current bright-line test from five to ten years. "It's very important that we understand that we need to encourage people to build houses, not to discourage them." The Reserve Bank has suggested debt to income ratios, which would restrict how much could be lent to people based on their income, in the past, but Collins doesn't like that idea either. "I don't think that's the point... This is what we're most uncomfortable with at the moment with the Reserve Bank measures, is that we're not seeing the banks themselves, when the Reserve Bank obviously has its own role in relation to the trading banks, we're not seeing them lending to developers to get housing built. "What we're seeing them doing is taking the easy option of just lending on existing houses." Host Corin Dann asked her what she thought about placing restrictions on people owning several homes, such as five or six, but she did not agree with that either. "Well that's a bit pointless if you're asking people to be private landlords and to provide most of the rental housing in the country."

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