Phil Twyford – 
Prime Minister John Key said recently that there is no housing crisis in Auckland.
He said that Auckland house prices are not over-valued.
I know that the public expect politicians on occasion to argue that black is white, but this is surely a challenge too great even for the Prime Minister.
Frustrated buyers
You can hardly turn on the television or open a newspaper these days without seeing stories of frustrated first homebuyers, run down shacks selling for half a million dollars, and families living in cars and garages.
It used to be considered part of the Kiwi Dream that if you were willing to work and save you would have the chance to own your own home.
But home ownership is dropping rapidly. It is now below 65%, the lowest in 60 years, and is much lower for younger people and Aucklanders, especially for people from ethnic minority communities and new migrants.
Hitting the roof
It is not hard to see why. House prices are going through the roof. The average house price in Auckland is now more than $800,000. Prices have been going up $1000 a day in recent months. Even the cheaper houses (the most affordable 25% of the market) went up by $32,000 on average in just one month according to a recent report.
It now takes 50 years on average to pay off the average Auckland home.
Thousands of young families are left frustrated, and feeling locked out of the Kiwi dream.
A full one-third of all households are now renters. News is not good for them either.
Rising rent
According to TradeMe, rents in Auckland went up 10% last year as property owners tried to get a return on their investment in increasingly expensive houses.
Whether you are paying off the mortgage or paying rent, there are just a few, whose incomes are keeping up with rising housing costs.
Whether you call it a crisis, it is affecting almost everyone. Even baby boomers who own their homes feel bad when they realise that their children and grandchildren will never be able to own their own homes in Auckland.
Unhealthy trend
High costs are pushing homebuyers out onto the edges of the city where they can get cheaper sections but then they have to put up with hours in the traffic every day.
Overcrowding is getting worse and worse. And when you put overcrowding together with houses that are cold and damp, you can see why so many of our children are being hospitalised with infectious and respiratory diseases.
Bold policies
Labour has big and bold policies to fix these problems.
We will crack down on speculators who are making a killing buying and selling houses at the expense of Generation Rent.
Our Kiwibuild programme, over ten years, will help 100,000 young families into their first homes.
We will reform the planning rules so that industry can build more homes, more affordable homes, and give people more choices about the style and size of homes.
Unfortunately, National only seems to be tinkering around the edges.
The Special Housing Areas in Auckland have only built 170 new homes in 18 months.
Auckland needs 13,000 new homes every year just to keep up with population growth. There is already a short fall of 20,000 homes that has built up under National.
National errors
The Government recently increased subsidies for first homebuyers, a move their own officials told them was likely to stoke an already overheated market and push prices up even higher.
It is a bit like an alcoholic who does not recognise that he has a drinking problem. Until the Government admits that Auckland has a housing crisis, it will not be able to come up with solutions that are bold and far-reaching enough to make a difference.
Phil Twyford is an elected Member of Labour Party in Parliament from Te Atatu Constituency and the Party’s Spokesperson for Housing.
