12. PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) Link to this
to the Minister for Land Information
What progress has been made in reviewing public landholdings in Auckland to identify what new land “might be made available for significant housing developments”, and what work still needs to be done?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Land Information) Link to this
Last week the Prime Minister announced a comprehensive package of measures to improve housing affordability. Land Information New Zealand has already commenced work on one of the measures announced—the review of public landholdings in Auckland.
When asked late last year for “work done to identify public land available for affordable housing”, why did the Government itself supply a list of properties including the Auckland Zoo, the Auckland libraries, and 16,000 hectares of dockland; does it simply indicate how poorly thought out and ill-advanced this latest idea was?
The list to which the member refers is different from the list that is being prepared now. The list last time was not comprehensive. The current list being prepared will identify all public land held in Auckland. It will consider its suitability for housing developments. This will include looking at factors such as current and proposed uses of the land, its size, and its location. Obviously, not all public land is suitable for residential development. We have to reserve land for schools, etc.
Why, then, was the Prime Minister’s statement so bold about providing public land for affordable housing, when the background work was so ill-advanced and so much in its infancy that the paperwork the Government supplied still listed the zoo, libraries, and 16,000 hectares of dockland?
The member misrepresents the list to which he refers. There is no doubt that the stocktake of public lands will actually identify some lands that will be suitable for public housing.
Darien FentonNo, it will not. There is no need to abandon proper urban planning and environmental protections, which, I would note, seems to be the simplistic solution proposed by National.
When does the Minister expect that this new list of suitable public land, to be identified by Land Information New Zealand, will be available, and when does he expect that this land will be made available for housing, so that first home buyers can have a sense of when this latest promise is to be fulfilled?
This promise will be fulfilled in the same reliable way that we have already assisted the 3,000-plus first home buyers who have secured mortgages through the Government’s Welcome Home Loan scheme, and, of course, more than 400,000 people are in KiwiSaver, many of whom will receive up to $10,000 to assist them to buy their first home. I have no doubt that this stocktake of public lands will be helpful.
I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I specially asked when the Minister expected the public land schedule, which is being done now, to be finished and the land to be available. I was not interested in Welcome Home Loans—
Madam SPEAKERI understand the member’s point. I listened very carefully. The Minister did address the question in the first part of his answer.
Why was the Prime Minister’s promise to release public land heralded as a bold action plan, when such land may not surface for years; why, after all this time, are all the Prime Minister’s solutions still in the pipeline? No shared-equity homes are available today; the planned homes for first home buyers in Hobsonville are not built yet, and when they are built, a person would have to be on $70,000 a year to afford one; and now we know that the public land list is so much in its infancy that we may not see it for years. How does all this help first home buyers today?
All of the numerous steps that are being taken will assist. The likes of the Hobsonville development will assist, as will identification of other public lands. In terms of this misapprehension that we are somehow proposing to build houses on zoo land, it has always been a nonsense argument.