National’s back to the future on housing sell-off

new-zealand-labour-party

Thu Jan 29 2015 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

National’s back to the future on housing sell-off

Thursday, 29 January 2015, 2:51 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party

National’s newly announced state housing policy is simply a re-run of its failed ideologically-driven 1990s experiment, Labour Leader Andrew Little says.

“News articles from the mid-1990s uncovered by Labour shows this is just more of the same.

“National justified its last state housing sell-off by claiming it would increase social housing in Auckland.

“However, what we saw was a wholesale sell down and no increase in Auckland’s social housing. In fact there are more than 3000 families on the waiting list for a state home.

“This proves National can’t be trusted on this issue.

“Data compiled by the Parliamentary Library shows these new sales are a mere repeat of the 1990s when the state housing stock was reduced from around 68,000 to about 60,000*.

“These are exactly the same targets John Key released yesterday, only this time it will be a rushed three year fire sale.

“Social housing providers have already said they don’t have the capital or capacity to manage thousands of additional houses. National’s plan will not create any new houses and will only lead to greater need.

“New Zealanders clearly don’t want this sell-off to happen. Since the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday, Labour’s state housing petition has attracted 6000 new signatures,” Andrew Little says.

* The number of state houses in 1990 was 67,753 and fell to 60,233 by 1999.

http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1501/McCully_state_housing_article_1995.pdf

Labour's petition against the sell-off can be found at http://action.labour.org.nz/

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