National’s state house sell-off will drive up all rents

new-zealand-labour-party

Wed Jan 28 2015 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

National’s state house sell-off will drive up all rents

Wednesday, 28 January 2015, 1:32 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party

Andrew Little
Labour Leader

28 January 2015

National’s state house sell-off will drive up all rents

National’s plan to sell-off state houses and subsidise landlords will drive up rents for all renters, says Labour Leader Andrew Little.

“John Key’s announcement of 3000 additional income-related subsidises and the sale of up to 8000 state homes signals the Government is getting out of state housing and setting up a windfall for property developers.

“The Prime Minister is sending thousands of state housing tenants out into the private rental market with a taxpayer-funded subsidy in their pockets. This will just push rents up for all renters.

“This is a lose-lose. State housing tenants lose the security of dedicated social housing. They will now be competing with the million other Kiwis battling it out in the already overheated private rental market.

“The Government will end up shelling out more and more in subsidies to landlords.

“Because National refuses to build more houses, throwing subsidies at the housing shortage will make housing more unaffordable.

“National is trying to sugar coat its state house sell-off by talking about selling homes to the Salvation Army and other community groups. But John Key has admitted the Government will sell to landlords and property developers.

“This will be a massive transfer of resources from the taxpayer to landlords; which is exactly what happened in the United Kingdom when state housing was sold off and replaced with a voucher system.

“John Key is someone who should understand the importance of stable state housing to give even the poorest Kiwi kids a decent start in life. He got that benefit but now he is going to deny today’s state house kids that opportunity because of ideology,” Andrew Little says.

ENDS

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