Watching the 2023 election campaign in New Zealand, one of Labour’s challenges appears to be that it has failed to manage voters’ expectations over the last six years. Recalling the election campaign in 2017, Jacinda Ardern gave people hope that politics could be different. However government is about handling problems – like building at scale and pandemics.
Critics have dismissed the Jacinda Ardern government as being one of style over substance. This is unfair given the challenges this government has faced and the policy achievements it has had. However, it is a government that has much work to do if it wins a second term. And its over-reliance on Jacinda as party leader is a huge strategic risk, especially when the governments front bench is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be lightweight.
Today in distractions: David Carter is covering for Simon Bridges’ polling results by upsetting the whole idea of non-partisan accountability of the Government to Parliament in select comittees, I give some free advice to the National Party comms team knowing they won’t pull it off, and Mallard has lost patience with non-answers
The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?
Simon Bridges has claimed that Labour’s Kiwisaver fund is $18 billion short of the amount needed to meet the Government’s goals of constructing ten thousand Kiwibuild houses a year. The claim has as much credibility as National’s claim that Labour’s budget figures had an $11.5 billion hole in them.
More than that, it needs to be torn down before it makes a serious bid at flight.
Judith Collins has landed herself in trouble for publicising details of a young couple who just bought a Kiwibuild home.
One of the dafter myths about the current burgeoning immigration industry is that we need skilled immigrants for the construction industry. As usual the talkback idiots are wrong. We don’t get many. We need more. We need to get rid of the migrant dross to get them. A Kiwibuild quota is a good idea.
More good news for the political left in the fine print of yesterday’s Newshub-Reid Research poll.
In some kind of panic over Labour’s housing policy package, Steven Joyce was writing Nat policy on Twitter yesterday. The promise to forego 2 years of HNZ dividend appears to have been made up on the fly.
The housing bubble is inflating faster than ever, and Key is visibly panicking. His political problem is insoluble and his electoral problem is about to get worse.
As Nick Smith flounders about uselessly, here are extracts from Phil Twyford’s speech on solutions to the housing crisis in Auckland.
The “Kiwi dream” is over – the housing crisis just gets worse and worse.
Houses are seriously unaffordable, especially for first-time buyers. Labour’s policy settings will help first-time buyers, the Reserve Bank under the current government is proposing tougher requirements that will make matters worse for them. Parties of the Left need to take this issue and run hard!
KiwiBuild has already been a success, scaring the Nats in to producing, in conjunction with Len Brown’s Auckland, a more significant housing policy. The “Unitary Plan” is woefully short on detail, but it concedes that KiwiBuild’s target of 10,000 new homes a year is easily achievable (I guess it’s only impossible when Labour propose it).
While Labour flounders around talking about 4 bedroom houses for $485,000 (who wants a four bedroom house, anyway), Metiria Turei cut to the quick in a question to Key: “has he never visited his own electorate and taken a look at homes such as those on Hobsonville Road, Cyril Crescent, and Mona Vale that are stand-alone family homes costing around $300,000?”
With a 10% increase in the median house price last year, we’re firmly back on a damaging house price binge. Labour has policies that address the issue. Where is National?
KiwiBuild has the Nats rattled. It’s difficult to oppose a program that creates both affordable housing and jobs, but they’re doing their best. One of their lines is that NZ can’t build houses that quickly. They’re wrong – here’s why.
The Auckland property market is back through the roof again, as well covered in The Herald this weekend. Labour’s solution is to build more houses. National’s “solution” is to complain about Labour’s solution.
Media reaction to KiwiBuild has been largely positive, the policy is described as “bold”, “brave”, and (just as important!) – “do able”. I’m sticking with my first reaction, this is a historic policy.
KiwiBuild is an excellent policy that would make a real difference to housing, jobs, and the economy in NZ. John Key’s critique had all the credibility you’d expect from the man whose major economic policy was a cycleway.
100,000 new entry level homes. The biggest public building programme in over fifty years. Hope for young families and households. A massive boost to jobs and the economy.
This is a historic policy.
