Key claims under National twice as many homes have been built in Auckland than under Labour. The opposition fires back with its own statistics. Both ignore the elephant in the room.
The Morgan Foundation published an interesting chart today (below) as part of its bid to fact-check Prime Minister John Key's assertion that, under National, twice as many homes have been built in Auckland than under Labour.
Labour hit back at Mr Key on Twitter, saying its average (2015 consents a year) tops National's (1382).
The Morgan Foundation's Geoff Simmons says Mr Key is right "but only if you squint up your eyes and look at the chart on a funny angle." The PM has taken Labour's worst year as his starting point.
Geoff's article goes on to cover the policy and red tape arguments, which I won't relitigate here.
My main takeaway is how housing consents were thumped by the GFC (roughly, 2007 to 2011). They fell below 1000 and stayed there for four years. They were already on the way down, thanks to the leaky homes crisis and associated law changes from 2004.
The paralysing effect of that recession spanned both Labour and National governments and it led to dramatically fewer homes being built at a time when New Zealand was about to have a flood of new immigrants (topped up by those on their OE who lost their job and decided to hightail it home).
It's easy to have perfect hindsight. But between 2007 and 2012, amid recession and a net outflow of NZ migrants to Australia (the Lucky Country having escaped the GFC), it was hard to see a pressing need to encourage more house building in Auckland.
So, while everyone's got their favourite culprit (the government, the council, immigration policy, poor planning, the city limit, capital gains tax – or lack of, the consent process, Nick Smith being caught like a rabbit in the headlights, etc etc), it's worth remembering the GFC has played a starring role in shaping the Auckland housing market as it stands today.
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