HOUSING PROBLEM

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24610, 5 July 1945, Page 4

HOUSING PROBLEM

STATE’S ACTIVITIES DEFENDED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 4. The Government’s rehabilitation policy was well advanced. Even in housing, which would be one of the greatest post-war difficulties the Government would have to solve, the rehabilitation programme was well forward, with 7000 discharged servicemen satisfactorily housed either in State houses, or by loans to buy or build their own houses, said Mr E. P. Meachen (Government, Marlborough), moving the Address-in-Reply in the House of Representatives to-night. The Government intended to push forward with housing construction as rapidly as possible. The only limits were material ones. Money would not stand in the way. Mr Meachen said substitute materials would increase the number.of houses built. To May 31, 24,966 contracts to build State houses had been let, and in the main those houses had been completed. It had been said that housing should be left to private enterprise, but if it had been New Zealand would have had 24,966 fewer houses to-day. How had State housing interfered with private building, he asked. Opposition members; By preventing private builders from getting material. Mr Meachen said it did not matter who built the houses, but if private

enterprise went on at full pressure for the next 10 or 20 years there would still be room for State housing for particular requirements, such as the man who moved from one centre to another and did not want to build a home.