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Continued from: Housing; broken promises, families in cars, and ideological idiocy (Part Tahi)

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National’s housing development project: ‘Gateway’ to confusion

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Perhaps nothing better illustrates National’s lack of a coherent housing programme than the ‘circus’ that is their “Gateway” policy. The history of this project has to be seen to be believed. As I reported in November 2012;

October 2010: Gateway Project ON!

On 10 August 2010,  the resignation of  former Labour Pacific Island Affairs Minister, Winnie Laban,  triggered a by-election in the Mana electorate. National stood Hekia Parata, a List MP, as their candidate.

As part of National’s campaign to win Mana from Labour, Housing Minister Phil Heatley announced a new housing programme called the “Gateway Housing Assistance“. According to their press release,

” Housing Minister Phil Heatley has today launched a new programme which will make it easier for first-time buyers and those on lower incomes to build or purchase their own homes.

Gateway Housing Assistance allows purchasers to build or buy a property but defer payment on the land.

“It is important the Government provides opportunities for people to move into home ownership. Affordable homes schemes such as Gateway is another way we can assist more people into a home of their own,” says Mr Heatley.

“Under Gateway full and final payment for the land can be deferred for up to ten years. This ten year period allows people on lower incomes to concentrate on designing and building, or buying, their homes before they assume the additional burden of paying for the land,” says Mr Heatley.”

It was an election stunt, of course. Much like National’s “sudden interest” in upgrading State housing in the Porirua area.

Three months, the by-election was won by  Kris Faafoi.

May 2012: Gateway Project OFF!

Having lost the 2010 Mana by-election, and as National scrambled to cut  state services; close schools; and scrap any  projects it could get away with (avoiding any public backlash in the process)  the “Gateway Housing Assistance” programme became a casualty,

“John Key has defended a decision to cancel sales of affordable housing in an Auckland development, saying low interest rates are making it easier for first-time buyers and people on low incomes to afford their own homes.

The Hobsonville Point development, started in 2009, allocated up to 100 of 3000 houses under the Gateway scheme, a helping hand for lower-income first-home buyers who could not afford to buy in Auckland.

[...]

The Prime Minister defended the decision not to include more of the Hobsonville development in the Gateway scheme.

“The Government has looked at that programme and decided that’s now not the most effective way of going forward”.”

Key added,

“He said one of the positive stories at the moment was that mortgage rates had fallen.

“So we think the capacity for lower income New Zealanders to own their own home is greatly enhanced by the fact interest rates are lower.

“If you have a look at the average home owner in New Zealand, they are paying about $200 a week less in interest than they were under the previous Labour Government”.”

November 2012: Gateway Project ON (again)!

On 18 November, Labour Leader David Shearer delivered a speech to  his Party conference, promising to implement a mass-construction project to build 100,000 homes for desperate families.

Having gotten ‘wind’ of Shearer’s plans for “Kiwi Build”, National scrambled to dust off it’s Gateway Project, three days before the Labour leader’s speech,

“The Government has reinstated plans to allocate a percentage of the houses at Hobsonville Point in Auckland as affordable homes priced under $485,000.”

Then Housing Minister, Phil Heatley, was keen to reassure the voting public that National would “do it’s bit” to help Kiwi “mums and dads” into their own homes – something that has become a distant dream during National’s term.

Even pro-National columnist, John Armstrong, was less than  impressed at the time,

“…when it comes to increasing the housing stock, there is not a lot central government can do unless it is willing to spend big bikkies.”

As was widely reported at the time, the so-called “Gateway Project” was less than a stirling success;

“In 2009, 100 of the 3000 homes at the development were tagged as affordable under the Gateway scheme, giving lower-income first-home buyers a helping hand.

Only 17 were sold, 14 for less that $400,000.”

As I pointed out two years ago – and not much seems to have changed in the interim under this government –

One aspect to Housing Minister Heatley’s press release (Hobsonville Point a boost for Auckland housing) that is painfully evident, is National’s luke-warm approach to the housing problem in this country.  Having read it, one cannot avoid the conclusion that their heart simply isn’t in it, and each word in their press release must have felt like pulling teeth.

Just by comparing the two releases of housing policies, one could easily gauge which Party was more enthusiatic;

National: a press release

Labour: a major policy speech,  given by the Leader of the Labour Party, at the Party annual conference, and released via television, internet, newspapers, etc.

National was not interested in assisting New Zealanders into their own homes. In this instance, National was more interested in trying to up-stage and undermine Labour’s release of  a major policy initiative.

October 2014: Gateway Project –  Status Unknown

As at this point, the status of Housing NZ’s ‘Gate Way‘ assistance project is uncertain, with a previous page on Housing NZ’s website now apparently a dead-link;

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Key’s promise – 25 February

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The sell-down of Air New Zealand, Genesis Energy, Mighty River Power, and Meridian raised approximately  $4.67 billion. This was a far cry from earlier expectations of   between $5 billion and $7 billion – and way below Key’s initial, wildly-optimistic forecast of $7 billion to $10 billion in January 2011,

“If we could do that with those five entities … if we can make some savings in terms of what were looking at in the budget and maybe a little on the upside you’re talking about somewhere in the order of $7 to $10 billion less borrowing that the Government could undertake.”

On 25 February 2014, Key announced an end to National’s asset sales programme,

“The truth is that there aren’t a lot of other assets that would fit in the category where they would be either appealing to take to the market or of a size that would warrant a further programme. Or they sit in the category where they are very large, like Transpower, but are a monopoly asset and so aren’t suited I think.”

He explained,

“Just as we did before the last election we’re making our position on share sales clear to New Zealanders before we go to the polls later this year.

We’ve achieved what we wanted with the share offers in energy companies and Air NZ. We’re now returning to a business-as-usual approach when it comes to [state-owned enterprises].”

Why was Key making such a clear promise to the electorate?

An earlier Roy Morgan Poll on 22 January 2014 – one month before Key announced a cessation of asset sales – would have sent National’s back-room strategists into a screaming tail-spin;

National: 43.5%

Labour: 33.5%

Greens: 12.5%

Those were heady days for National’s opponents, and a change in government seemed inevitable.

By committing National to an end to asset sales, Key was being strategic. He knew state asset sales were deeply unpopular with the public, and National did not want to risk giving opposition parties any further ammunition during what was then considered to be an up-coming, closely-fought election.

The polls (at the time) had forced National’s hand to acquiesce to public pressure. It would prove to be a pre-election promise they would regret later.

National made its panic-driven decision to abandon further asset sales at the same time that Fonterra announced at the end of February this year that it would be boosting it’s payout to dairy farmers,

Fonterra’s 35 cent lift in its milk price for the 2013-14 season to $8.65/kg milk solids means an extra half a billion in revenue for New Zealand.

The new forecast is a record payout from the co-operative and with the 10 cent kg/MS dividend on top, meant potential cash in hand for a fully shared up Fonterra farmer-shareholder of $8.75 kg/MS.

Federated Farmers’ dairy chairperson, Willy Leferink, was ebullient,

”In 2010, the NZIER said a $1 kg/MS rise in Fonterra’s payout makes every New Zealander nearly $300 better off.  Given this latest 35 cent kg/MS uplift, every New Zealander could be $100 better off as a result of what we do.”

It was also no doubt something that National was casting a keen eye over, as an increased Fonterra payout meant more tax revenue. National was ‘banking’ on high dairy prices to get it back to surplus by next year, 2015.

It would be a slim surplus of $372 million.

By 24 September, Fonterra had slashed it’s forecast payout down to $5.30/kg.

Prime Minister John Key was candid in the implications for the economy and the  government’s tax-take;

“It can have some impact because if that’s the final payout, the impact would be as large as NZ$5 billion for the economy overall, and you would expect that to flow through to the tax revenue, both for the 14/15 year and the 15/16 year. My understanding is Treasury is working on those numbers for the incoming Minister of Finance, which fortunately is the same as the outgoing Minister of Finance as well.

They are giving him (English) a bit of an assessment of what impact that might have. There’s a lot of different factors that go into that surplus. We expect it to have some impact and it’s a very narrow surplus. That doesn’t mean that we won’t achieve surplus. It means the Government will have to think through all of the issues here. There may be other options we choose to take.”

Bill English was already working on those “other options“. He needed to find $5 billion dollars to fill a hole left by collapsing international dairy prices.

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National’s pre-election policy: 2014

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National’s housing policies for the 20 September  election were ‘divvied’ up between first home buyers and ‘social’ housing. Note that throughout National’s policy document, they refer to “social housing” and “state housing” is referred to as “state houses”  only in terms of properties, not as a policy term.

For first home buyers, National was prepared to allow Kiwisaver investors to effectively ‘raid’ their savings and use the funds for a deposit for a house purchase. Aside from further pushing up the price of a limited availability of properties, this is hardly what Dr Michael Cullen had in mind when he set up Kiwisaver in July 2007. Saving for home ownership and saving for retirement are not necessarily the same thing.

On 24 August 2014, Key stated in a speech,

“The policy will help tens of thousands more first home buyers achieve their dream of home ownership. It will get young families started building what for most will be their biggest asset.

National backs young Kiwis who are disciplined, save up and want to put a deposit down on a house.  National values home ownership.  That’s because it provides stability for families, strength for communities and security in retirement.”

However, not all New Zealanders  are fortunate enough to be in high-paying jobs where they can afford to “save up and want to put a deposit down on a house” – and pay high rent whilst doing so in rented accomodation.

Whether the houses are actually there to buy is also a moot point.

To date, this country has been woefully short of supplying new, mid-priced homes, to meet demand. Instead, ” the majority of new homes today are upmarket affairs“, as Rebecca Macfie reported for ‘The Listener‘ in July 2012.

The problem, simply, is insufficient supply to meet demand – especially of affordable properties. According to National’s policy, they need to find “ 90,000 lower and middle income first home buyers into their own home over the next five years” – a policy sounding remarkably similar to Labour’s 100,000 new homes over a space of ten years.

National’s social housing policy was more vague, with passing reference only to social housing providers other than Housing NZ;

What we will do next…

Continue helping those in most need

Support a growing role for community housing providers in delivering social housing through the social housing fund and Housing New Zealand.

In case the page mysteriously disappears (as have other National Party policy releases), the relevent section of the  Social Housing page   is posted here;

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There was  no mention of things to come once the election was over. Certainly no mention of a mass housing sell-off,  which could also be described as  a partial asset-sale of Housing NZ.

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English Blames Everyone Else

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On 7 October, as the National government faced increasing pressure over New Zealand’s growing economic and housing problems, Finance Minister Bill English made this bizarre accusation against local bodies;

“The growth in housing costs over time, to the point where you’re seeing families spending 50 or 60 percent of their income on housing – that’s pretty devastating at the low end.

So councils need to understand that when they run these policies that restrict the availability of land and the opportunity for lower value housing they are causing poverty.”

It was an accusation that startled city leaders from one end of the country to the other, from Auckland to Christchurch.

Green co-leader Metiria Turei was speaking for hundreds of local body elected leaders when she quite rightly pointed out,

“Nowhere in any report from any non-government organisation or Government department has urban planning been blamed for child poverty.

What I think is happening is Bill English is trying to divert attention from the fact that the solutions are obvious and within the power of the Government to implement, but they don’t want to.”

Interestingly, as reported in the same Radio NZ story,

ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie said restrictions around the availability of land had affected housing affordability but it wasn’t the only factor to blame for poverty.

He said there were a lot of other challenges behind the scenes, and there was no one-size-fits-all solution to make houses more affordable.

Mr Bagrie said housing unaffordability was possibly due to wages being too low.

In essence, if workers’ remuneration is too low, they cannot purchase the consumer goods and services their society produces.

English, though, was not blaming Councils simply because he was having on “off day”. His diatribe was part of a carefully-calculated agenda, and National’s attack on Local Bodies was  part of a slowly unfolding plan.

He was looking for $5 billion, and there was precious little loose change behind the sofa cushions in the Beehive. Also, as Key had promised on 25 February 2014, National’s asset sales programme had been completed, and there would be no further full-scale privatisation of SOEs.

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Key’s promise – 6 October

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On 6 October, both Key and English made public statements that, on the face of things, seemed to be at variance with each other.

Key said that the government would not “you know, go crazy” selling Housing New Zealand homes

Yet, at the same time, he made clear what his interest in Housing NZ was;

“Housing’s a big issue, I think, for the Government; it’s a big issue for New Zealand and there’s specific parts to that.

So what we’ve done there is to have Bill English as the Minister of Finance responsible for what is a very big asset now in the Government’s balance sheet: Housing New Zealand. About NZ$15 billion worth of assets there.”

Now, in theory, with the income related rents there is a cash flow there that should allow them to actually go and build their housing stock. That is at way too slow a rate than what the government would like to see. So if you think NZ$15.5 billion sitting there for Housing New Zealand and NZ$100 million sitting in social housing, that mix is wrong and I think there is a real opportunity here to potentially change that dynamic and I want to see a lot more work done in that area.”

Part of National’s new agenda was Key’s intention to create a ministerial team compromising of Bill English, Paula Bennett and Nick Smith. The three ministers “would work together on housing issues”.  But the crucial, critical appointment was Bill English, who would take responsibility for Housing New Zealand.

Bill English; Finance Minister and now also Minister Responsible for HNZC (Housing New Zealand Corporation)?  What was the connection between the two portfolios?

As well as eying up the multi-billion asset that is Housing NZ and the additional millions in cash-flow, Key padded his speech with a litany of alleged “faults” with the Corporation;

• too slow “ to actually go and build their housing stock”
• “the mix is wrong”
• “the asset is often in the wrong place“
• governments of “successive persuasions have struggled with”  State housing flexibility
• there was too much ” capital tied up in Housing New Zealand stock“
• “they are not always terribly flexible“
• “the previous government completely ignored the upkeep of those homes“

The implications from repeated rhetoric is clear; Housing NZ has allegedly “mis-managed” their stock, and the State “struggles” with being a suitable landlord.

In his speech, Key failed to mention that National (and previous governments) have been using Housing NZ as a “cash cow”, demanding huge cash dividends from the corporation. As Nick Smith admitted in Parliament on 8 May,

“The average dividend under the 5 years so far of this Government has been $88 million. The dividend this year is $90 million.”

Sucking an average $88 million per year from Housing NZ – a government body charged with assisting the poorest people in our communities – was bound to have negative consequences. Key’s “litany of faults” was wholly predictable – a result of government self-interest to balance their books, at the expense of Housing NZ tenants.

It is not the first time National has used a SOE as a cash cow – or perhaps more akin to a lethal parasitic organism – to the  SOE’s eventual detriment (see: Solid Energy – A solid drama of facts, fibs, and fall-guys).

At any rate, Key’s 6 October speech was laying the groundwork for National’s new State housing policy – which Bill English was making public the very same day. After all, as Tom Scott so astutely pointed out in 2012, Key was renowned as “the Great Salesman” for good reason;

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Who better to “pitch the deal” to the public, than the most trusted, popular, apolitical  Prime Minister since perhaps David Lange?

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Real Reason for sell-off?

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Meanwhile, Bill English was outlining National’s true agenda, whilst Key was putting on his benign face to the New Zealand public.  As TV3’s Brook Sabin reported,

“A big state-house sell-off is on the way, and up to $5 billion-worth of homes could be put on the block.

The shake-up of the Government’s housing stock will be a key focus for the next three years, with Finance Minister Bill English to lead it.

On the block is everything from a tiny 75 square metre two-bedroom state house in Auckland’s Remuera, on the market for $740,000, to a three-bedroom home in Taumarunui for just $38,000. Thousands more properties will soon hit the market.”

The reason for putting up to  $5 billion-worth of homes  on the block?

Crashing dairy prices had left a gaping hole in the National Government’s books, and their much-vaunted Budget surplus next year was under threat. Remember that  Key was candid in the implications for the economy and the  government’s tax-take; when he stated – also on 6 October;

“It can have some impact because if that’s the final payout, the impact would be as large as NZ$5 billion for the economy overall, and you would expect that to flow through to the tax revenue, both for the 14/15 year and the 15/16 year. My understanding is Treasury is working on those numbers for the incoming Minister of Finance, which fortunately is the same as the outgoing Minister of Finance as well.

A day later, on 7 October, Fairfax’s Vernon Small reported on English reiterating the government’s parlous fiscal position;

The Government has posted a Budget deficit of $2.9 billion in the year to June 30, $338m worse than forecast in the pre-election opening of the books.

Finance Minister Bill English said the result was the third consecutive narrowing of the deficit before gains and losses (Obegal) and was further evidence careful fiscal management was producing consistent gains over time.

However it compared with the forecast deficit of $2b in the 2013 Budget.

The major changes since the pre-election picture were a decline in tax revenue, an increase in treaty settlement costs and an increase in earthquake rebuild expenses.

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English said the economy faced some headwinds, including lower dairy prices, uncertain tax revenue, global risks in China and Europe and the impact of the Auckland housing market.

“There will be state house sales because we need to move a lot faster if we’re going to provide enough houses for low-income families,” says Mr English.

English’s planned $5 billion sale of State houses is a panic-driven measure by the National Government to plug the gap left by falling dairy prices and concomitant falling taxation revenue.

National’s re-election on 20 September was predicated on it’s undeserved reputation for being a “prudent fiscal manager” of the country’s economy. It was not just their surplus that was at risk – it was their carefully cultivated public perception at being better at managing the economy than Labour.

If National could not deliver a surplus – as it had promised – what good was it as a fiscal steward? It would prove to be a major mill-stone around their neck for the 2017 election.

In the meantime;

• Housing NZ waiting lists continue to grow,

Housing New Zealand figures show that at the end of March 5563 people were on the waiting list, compared with 4495 at the same time last year and 4637 the year before.

• According to the previous referenced Otago University study, a  quarter  of New Zealand’s homeless were children, with “most living temporarily with friends or family, squeezed into living-rooms or garages, rather than on the streets“.
• Unsurprisingly, transience was impacting on children’s development and education, as families were  forced to live in garages; over-crowded rooms; and in cars,

Our poorest schools are swapping nearly half their pupils a year, as transient families chase work or flee debt.

Some schools say they have taught 7-year-olds who have been through eight schools in their first two years.

Many transient children also have learning difficulties but are often uprooted before schools can bring in extra support.

A decile 1 school will, on average, have twice the student “churn” of a decile 10 school, according to Ministry of Education figures. During the 2013 school year, a typical school in a highly deprived area would have lost and gained the equivalent of nearly half its roll.

A decile 10 school typically has a much more stable roll, with about a quarter coming or going last year. This does not include pupils starting or finishing their schooling.

The transience was even worse in primary schools, hitting children at a time when experts say moving schools is the most harmful.

The figures, released under the Official Information Act, show Russell School, a decile 1 primary in Porirua, had the highest level of pupil turnover in the Wellington region two years ago.

Principal Sose Annandale said a Housing New Zealand shake-up was probably partly responsible for the high turnover that year, but transient families continued to be a big problem.

[...]

The higher level of transience in low-decile schools was not surprising, as deprived families were more likely to move for housing or work.

“Many of these transient families do not have a fixed abode. They are just staying with whanau for a while, until they have to move on again.

As  the Salvation Army’s  Major Campbell Roberts, stated with matter-of-fact bluntness;

“We, at the present in New Zealand, don’t have enough social housing, so to reduce that number further would be a major problem. What there needs to be is an increase in the numbers of social houses.”

In his story, TV3’s Brooke Sabin raised the question,

“So a big cull of state houses is about to get underway, but the crucial question is: Will all that money make its way back into social housing or will some be pocketed by the Government? The official response is that hasn’t been worked out yet.”

Yes, it has, Mr Sabin.

The money will indeed be “pocketed by the government”.

For no other reason than their re-election in 2017 depends on it.