Dominick Stephens, Deputy Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser at the Treasury, spoke this morning at the Economic
Policy Centre Workshop on Housing Affordability hosted by the University of Auckland Business School.
In his speech, Dominick Stephens discusses how housing prices are a key issue for the wellbeing of New Zealanders. The
key cause of rising house prices in New Zealand over the past twenty years has been a combination of restricted urban
land supply, a global decline in interest rates, and the tax system. The speech covers the Treasury’s views on the
implications for policy.
A pdf of the speech is attached, and it can also be found on the Treasury website at https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/speech/housing-affordability-aotearoa-new-zealand-importance-urban-land-supply-interest-rates-and-tax