Labour would hold rents unless wages rose— M.P.

Press, 3 May 1984, Page 8

Labour would hold rents unless wages rose— M.P.

Residential rent controls will almost certainly be continued under a Labour Government unless a wage fixing system is in place before this year’s General Election.

Labour’s spokesman on housing, Mr P. B. Goff, told a meeting of the Canterbuury Property Investors’ Association in Christchurch yesterday that if people’s incomes were “frozen solid” it would be unfair to allow their outgoings to be increased. He had earlier indicated in an interview, however, that the regulations governing commercial properties might be lifted.

Mr Goff said that he did not support the rent freeze “per se” because it had created some “impossible anomalies.” Not the least of those being that those land-

lords who had been charging below market rates when it had been imposed had been worst hit. However, he said that until New Zealand returned to “free wage bargaining with the sanity of having institutions to prevent inflationary increases” some restraints would be needed.

Labour’s longer term policy was to let the market set rents but to keep them down by ensuring that the supply of accommodation met demand.

The party did not want to push landlords out of business, he said. Instead it wanted them to “continue to flourish" and to build more flats.

It hoped to achieve this by encouraging lenders to invest in housing and by “keeping interests rates down to a reasonable level.”

Asked if this meant that mortgage controls would be kept in place, Mr Goff said that he was not authorised to comment.

At the meeting he outlined Labour’s proposals to reform tenancy law. They include:

© The establishment of a tribunal to hold bond money and resolve landlord-tenant Sutes quickly, cheaply flexibly.

© Th? preparation of a standard tenancy agreement outlining the rights and responsibilities of each party. © Provisions to guarantee security of tenure. While the principles behind the changes were “set in concrete,” the detail and shape the legislation would take was still “relatively open,” he said. He invited suggestions from the floor. A lively debate followed

in which it emerged that Mr Goffs ideas found little favour with the 33 members of the association present. Mr Goff said that the reforms he was putting forward had already been introduced in Australia and that surveys there had shown that they had wide support among both landlords and tenants.

The president of the association, Mr Jim Glass, thanked Mr Goff for coming from Wellington to attend the meeting. Mr Glass said that while he had not been “completely reassured” by what Mr Goff had told the meeting, it had been “a big help to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.” Mr Goff then went to speak to members of the Christchurch Tenants’ Protection Association about the rent thaw regulations.