Hi EZ - I do agree - Nationals current housing policy is a sad joke. What we need is more sustainable supply, but what we get is just fuel for additional house price inflation (using Kiwisaver savings to further blow up property prices).
Let me however clarify as well, that the previous Labour government did still less to keep house price inflation under control than the current National government. Under Helens reign did NZ house prices basically double in 9 years: The index went up from roughly 1500 in the year 2000 to roughly 3000 in the year 2009 - check
https://www.reinz.co.nz/shadomx/apps...siteName=reinz
This equals to an average annual house price inflation of 8% under Labour's rule. Quite a stiff increase for a party which now claims that they know better than National how to control house price inflations - isn't it?
Just compare that to Nationals outcome: House price index went up from 3000 (in 2009) to 4300 (in 2015) - this equates to an annual house price rise of just 6.2% during the reign of the recent National government. Isn't it amazing that even Nationals quite ridiculous housing policies achieve better results than what Labour's policies did for us? :p
So I guess - looking at this you can only conclude that neither Labour nor National have a clue how to resolve the housing crisis. Blind trying to lead the nearly blind. And I think this is one of NZ's problems - we have too many people holding the flag of their respective parties instead of using the grey matter in their back head to think by themselves.
Again - the only effective (and palatable) solutions for the (mainly) Auckland housing crisis would be:
a) increase supply by moving into (high quality) denser housing options. No rocket science, but obviously not invented here - so it can't be good.
b) move jobs into other parts of the country
c) do both of the above.
If you can point me to a credible and achievable Labour policy supporting a, b and c, than you might be even able to get my vote;). Think however the risk that I need based on this to change my voting pattern is low ...