MR SEMPLE ANSWERS OPPOSITION ON BUILDING CONTROLS

Grey River Argus, 26 May 1947, Page 5

MR SEMPLE ANSWERS OPPOSITION ON BUILDING CONTROLS

CHRISTCHURCH, May 25.

In his desk at Wellington there were £15,000,000 worth of applications for building permits which he had rejected, or postponed, said the Minister of Works, Hon. R. Semple, addressing Avon electors at Linwood on Saturday.

Some were from breweries for public houses; some were for luxury thratres, and some were for eight and ten-roomed houses.

If building controls were lifted, he asked, how could the private builder, the ordinary man, or the returned soldier compete in the supply and demand market with the millions which the breweriees had to spend? The war had left New Zealand short of all building materials. Enough timber had been used in the Pacific to build 37,000 homes for the workers. It was a matter for pride that New Zeaeland had been able to break all records for house building in the last two years. Mr Semple attacked the claim, which, he said, had heen made by the Leader of the‘ Opposition, Mr Holland, that it would be in the interests of the country if all of the building restrictions were wiped out. Under the present building control regulations, the floor area of homes was related to a man’s family responsibilities. The effect of these was that a man without a family could not build a palatial residence, and they ensured that a man with children was given a nopportunity to build sufficient living accommodation.

Discussing criticism made by Mr W. Sullivan, M.P., during the byelection, Mr Semple said that it had never been the Government’s policy to monopolise house building. Nor was it true to say that the import licensing system was hampering home building. The difficulty was to obtain building materials from the overseas countries, which were loth to export materials that were needed for their own housing. In the United States it had been stated, there were 4,000,000 former servicemen who were homeless. After building control had been removed in the United States the prices had sky-rocketed there.