Housing holocaust seen in N.Z.

Press, 9 April 1981, Page 12

Housing holocaust seen in N.Z.

PA Wellington House and flat, hunters face a “housing holocaust” in which they have become guinea pigs for the Government’s experiment with the disastrous monetary polices which have all but brought Britain to its knees, according to the Labour Party’s spokesman on housing, Mr M, K. Moore. He was commenting on the latest Reserve Bank mortgage statistics which show that the average interest rate of all mortgages climbed to 13.31 per cent in December, 1980, the highest average interest rate recorded in New Zealand’s history. He said that less than six years ago under a Labour government the average mortgage interest rate had been only 8.61 per cent, with near full employment and a healthy building industry. Fewer than one in every six mortgages had been at rates

above 10.5 per cent. Now three in every four mortgages were above this level. If the basic right of all New Zealanders to a decent house at a cost they could afford was to be restored selective interest-rate reductions in priority fields such as housing had to be made. “Taxpayers in this country' do not warit to be lumbered with the inevitable costs the present Minister of Housing’s Friedman and Thatcher-type policies towards housing will bring in their wake: ever higher unemployment, savage rent increases, spiralling mortgage repayments, record forced home sales, and company collapses,” said Mr Moore. 1 “Last year’s $5O million reduction in Government housing investment on top of the 39 per cent fall in the number of permits issued for the construction of flats over • the past two years has already created a rental hous-

ing holocaust in main centres.” Mr Moore said that recent reports from South Auckland confirmed that of a total of 6500 State rental units available only five were now vacant and waiting lists were growing. Yet the Government had reduced total State rental-housing construction from an annual rate of 3000 to 200 and intended to sell off another 1500 State houses this year. In the private rental market a recent survey of Auckland landlords had shown that more than half of them might sell off their properties in the next two years rather than keep them in the rental market. “The National Housing Commission has been warning of the looming rentalhousing crisis for at least the last 18 months yet the Minister of Housing denies the existence of such a crisis,” said Mr Moore.