Original article from the NZ Herald – SEP 2016. We fear our children won’t own homes, say the nation’s business leaders. Housing is one of the biggest issues in New Zealand at the moment — that was the response from CEOs in this year’s Mood of the Boardroom survey.
Cathy Quinn, chair of law firm Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, says “New Zealand is a comparatively good place in the world and our economy is doing well. But like many New Zealanders, I worry about housing affordability in Auckland for our staff and our children.”
When asked whether the Government should be doing more to dampen house price inflation, 70 per cent of CEOs agreed, while 18 per cent think the Government is doing enough, and 12 per cent are unsure.
Chris Gudgeon, chief executive of Kiwi Property, says the Government has been “lazy, naive, and negligent”.
He thinks it has lost sight of the crucial societal role that affordable housing plays.
“The Government has allowed housing to move from becoming a social good (when affordable) to a tax-effective investment that has only served to enrich investors at the expense of the next generation of talent we need to retain and attract,” he says.
The Government’s refusal to use both the demand lever as well as the supply lever has exacerbated the problem, Gudgeon says.
“The continued labelling of the problem as purely a supply issue is disingenuous, and blaming the Reserve Bank and Auckland Council is pure politics.
“Government should be imposing restrictions on non-resident investors until supply issue is resolved, and imposing a stamp duty on domestic investors to raise revenue to fund the infrastructure investment needed to support new supply and to disincentivise speculation,” he says.
Original article on the NZ Herald.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/mood-of-the-boardroom-2016/news/article.cfm?c_id=1504161&objectid=11716804