BUILDING AT HUTT

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 87, 13 April 1938, Page 15

BUILDING AT HUTT

FIGURES DISPUTED

REPLY TO MR. J. W. ANDREWS

MR. LEE'S REBUTTAL

"In the atmosphere of garden parties with mystery dips and fishing ponds and children under six admitted free, as per advertisement, Mr. J; W. Andrews, National candidate for Hutt, has been quoting some figures in regard to housing which are so erroneous that they call for rebuttal," slated Mr. J. A. Lee, Parliamentary Undersecretary in Charge of Housing, today. "If his statement were made through lack of proper information, it is bad enough, but if what he placed on record were the result of deliberate distortion, what shall we say?

"The figures quoted by Mr. Andrews are used by him in a most unfair and deceptive manner. When assessing the building effort of private enterprise he takes permits issued as the basis. Everyone knows that when the permit is issued the building is not even started, much less finished. Yet in assessing the results of the efforts of the State Housing Deaprtment in Lower Hutt in 1937-38 (the' first year of its active operations)' he gives credit only for completed houses, but not a vestige of credit for numerous other houses started or well on towwards completion, all of which are a long way past the permit stage. "Mr. Andrews mentions 316 permits as the annual average in pre-depres-sion years in the Lower Hutt.' . I am proud to say that my Department alone in the first year of its operations has actually commenced 403 houses in the Lower Hutt,,or 27 per cent, more than the total permits issued annually to all builders (public and private) in the pre-depression years. In addition, the Department has to date another 115 houses past the permit stage.

"I would also point out that Mr. Andrews carefully omits to, quote building permits issued in the Lower Hutt from 1930 onwards. Actually, from 1925-26 until 1932-33.Hutt building permits were as follows:—l92s-26, 191; 1926-27, 395; 1927-28, 368; 1928-29, 293; 1929-30, 410; 1930-31, 247; 1931-32, 41; 1932-33, 37—an average of 248 per year, or without Government houses, 212 per year.

"It is interesting to realise that the 1926-27 figures include 125 Government houses completed in that year, and that the 1927-28 figures include 166-Govern-ment houses completed in that year. Without these two figures the private building record quoted by Mr. Andrews is a long way below what he makes' it appear. \

"It will be seen how utterly misleading Mr. Andrews's figures are. For Mr. Andrews, in a compilation of building permits, deliberately to leave out, as he did, a large number of houses which not only had reached the permit stage but many of which are approaching completion is 'characteristic of Mr. Andrews's usual method's.

"The Government Statistician's figures since 1932-33 for Lower Hutt are as follows, added Mr. Lee:—l 933-34, 54; 1934-35, 85; 1935-36, 126; 1936-37, 154; 1937-38, 454. It will thus be seen that the last year's figures are the highest on record for Lower Hutt since 1926.