29 May 2016

Govt must stop blaming and start building

Auckland's housing crisis will never be fixed unless the Government stops blaming the Council and starts taking the steps it can to solve it, the Green Party says.

Finance Minister Bill English has ramped up his attacks on the Auckland Council this weekend, putting the sole blame for Auckland's housing crisis on the Council's difficulties freeing up land.

"The Finance Minister's attacks on Auckland Council this weekend are an excuse not to take responsibility for his own Governments failures," Green Party Co leader James Shaw said.

"Government has enormous powers to fix the Auckland housing crisis and should start using them. It can fix the tax system so it doesn't incentivise property over investments in the productive economy; its got the resources to build thousands of new state homes. And it has the money to pay for the infrastructure Auckland needs before the city can build new ones.

"The truth is, the National Government has no intention of doing anything to slow the Auckland housing market, because its key strategy for staying in Government is to keep existing property owners happy.

"Aucklanders need homes. By taking even one step and committing to building thousands of modern, warm homes the Government could transform Auckland and start to solve one of the biggest challenges of our time," Mr Shaw said.

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