SUGGESTIONS OFFERED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 77, 8 September 1947, Page 7

SUGGESTIONS OFFERED

RELIEVING HOUSING SHORTAGE MR W. SULLIVAN’S VIEWS Several suggestions for alleviating the housing problem were put forward by Mr W. -Sullivan (National, Bay of Plenty) speaking in the Budget debate in the House of Representatives. Mr Sullivan said the Government should overhaul the whole system governing the supply of materials, it should ease up on import control for necessary materials and look over the whole supply position at home and abroad. The Government should approach the building and allied trades with a view to making available the things urgently needed by the industry; and it should also come to some arrangement under which the men engaged in those industries should work longer hours and should be paid extra for so doing. Transport should be speeded up—shipping and railway services—so that when commodities were available they would be delivered more quickly. The Housing Department should build homes of a more permanent nature so that when the home was paid for it would still be a durable, permanent home and the subsequent tenant would not have to undertake heavy expenditure or repairs and renewals. A scheme should also be devised by which owners of large properties should be encouraged to subdivide them into flats, and the Fair Rents Act should not apply to such flats. Many owners of large homes would be prepared to subdivide them if they could be sure that they could require a tenant to vacate the premises if circumstances warranted it. A bonus system should also be introduced.

According to Government statements the country was still short r thousands of houses. Houses built during 1946-47 totalled 9463, of which the State built 2595, and private enterprise 6863; so the State v built a little over 25 per cent, of the total. He was not complaining about that. The Government stated that applications for State houses numbered about 53,000, and Mr Sullivan suggested that the lists of applicants should be purged. The Gov-' ernment target of 12,000 houses a year—both State and private, could and should be achieved because 75 per cent, of the building effort was being directed towards the building of homes. Commenting on increased building costs over the last few years, Mr Sullivan said the cost of building homes had increased since 1936 by something like 300 per cent.; since 1938-39, by 100 per cent., and since stabilisation was introduced in 1942 by 20 per cent. Recent Arbitration Court award increases, when their full effect on costs became apparent, would probably increase the cost of building by about 2s a square

foot. Building costs today were about 40s or 45s 'a square foot—far too much. The removal of the sales tax did not have very much effect because increases in prices came al-

most simultaneously. The trouble in the building industry today was the shortage of materials. The cement shortage was due to coal and labour; but mainly shipping. There was also a shortage of wallboard, but all those difficulties could be overcome if shipping could be speeded up. Mr Sullivan also ci’iticised the shortage of roofing materials, and said the Government’s failure to issue a licence was one instance showing how the Government was responsible itself for many shortages. The. Commissioner of State Forests must be pleased with the remarkably good job accomplished by the sawmillers. In the past 12 months 470 million feet of timber had been produced. If the people associated with other industries were doing as much work as those in the sawmills were doing there would be production. Wire, wire nails, plumbing material and everything else in the industry were short. It was interesting to turn back to the Walsh report, which said: “We shall never rest until we have provided the people of this country with housing, even though this means working extended hours, provided the men doing the extended work are compensated for it.” “That was written 15 months ago,” commented Mr Sullivan. “What has been done about it? Nothing.”