Restoring the ability of young New Zealanders to buy a home is being tipped as a defining issue of the upcoming general election.
Nowhere is New Zealand's increasing inequality as manifest as in house prices which have reached ten times the median household income in Auckland, according to the latest Demographia survey.
Its author Hugh Pavletich, who damns high property prices as a gross breach of young New Zealanders' human rights, predicted spiralling house prices could be John Key's "Waterloo" at the election to be held in September.
With Key now gone, it's Bill English who has to sell National's housing policy to the public, and combat an increasingly vocal opposition highlighting the extraordinary rise in house prices during National's three terms in power.
Speaking in 2007 Key when he was bidding for power, Key told the electorate: "Housing affordability is a big deal. It used to be the Kiwi dream that every New Zealander would be able to buy the house, the quarter acre pavlova paradise and that dream is diminishing."
Key was "very optimistic" that National, if voted into power, could make a difference. Then the median house in Auckland was selling for just over six times the median household income.
Ten years later progress has been "by and large, extremely muddled and slow", says Pavletich.
"In many ways Labour is more advanced than the government on these issues."
Not only did it take a lead by saying it would remove the Auckland urban limit, which has caused the price of land within the limit to spiral up, Pavletich says, Labour also led the way with policy on funding infrastructure with bond issues.
Keeping tabs on policies is tough. "They are shifting all the time," Pavletich said.
"What we are experiencing is the political process lagging, not moving fast enough on these issues," he says.
Not everyone is convinced that smashing Auckland's urban limit will free the market to deliver affordable housing.
Professor John Tookey, head of the Department of Built Environment at AUT, says the market cannot fix high house prices itself.
In a recent "briefing paper", he wrote: "We cannot leave matters to the free market and then continue to be stunned by the inconvenient fact that the market will act in its own best interests: land banking; rationing land release to keep prices high; and building large and expensive homes whilst ignoring demand at the bottom end of the market."
"Developers, builders, house buyers and the public all act for their own best interests. All of these stakeholders will not act as charities pro bono publico. To think otherwise is naïve in the extreme."
He says the solution that would bring down the price of homes is probably a hybrid one, including many elements including making much more land available, and changing tax laws.
But, he adds: "Doing nothing is actually a credible proposition in terms of allowing the solution to work itself out."
That could mean a messy bust, or slow "stagflation", where wages rise, and house prices creep up at a slower rate, dropping them in real terms.
"The question will come down to the ballot box," Tookey says.
NATIONAL
Under John Key National's housing minister Nick Smith wanted to build more homes, but spoke about keeping price rises to single digits each year, rather than bringing them down.
One of the first acts of Bill English as prime minister was to do away with the position of Housing Minister.
But he used his speech at the opening of Parliament to outline his housing vision, though it didn't rate a mention until page four. English outlined a continuation of the Government's current policy direction.
"Housing will remain a key focus for the Government this year, and work will continue to increase the supply of land for housing," he said.
"Legislation to reform the Resource Management Act will be progressed, to reduce costs and delays for homeowners and businesses, and the Government will also proceed with reform of the Building Act."
The Government would work with Auckland Council to ensure the successful implementation of the city's unitary plan.
More special housing areas, which ACT leader David Seymour called islands of fantasy in a dysfunctional market, be established in Auckland, and more underutilised Crown land would be made available for homes.
The Government would also build and fund additional social and emergency housing, he said.
LABOUR
Its policy is to bankroll a "Kiwibuild" state house building boom like the one in the 1940s and 50s which left solid-as bungalows dotted throughout towns and cities. Over ten years, it is pledging to build 100,000 of them.
It would establish an Affordable Housing Authority, and would rapidly increase the number of apprentices to boost the building workforce.
Labour says it would remove the Auckland urban growth boundary and free up density controls. "This will give Auckland more options to grow, as well as stopping landbankers profiteering and holding up development."
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