HOUSING SHORTAGE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 31 August 1945, Page 2

HOUSING SHORTAGE

MINISTER’S ASSURANCE j “EVERYTHING BEING DONE TO CATCH UP” (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington. This Day. An assurance that everything was being done to catch up on the shortage of houses in New Zealand was given by the Minister of Works (Mr Semple) in the House of Representatives when he spoke ir the Budget debate. He said that there were still, however, manpower and supply difficulties, and the first essentia! was to obtain the services of more men in the various directions in which they were required. Mr R. M. Algie (National. Remuera)', said the people would give the Min- 1 ister plenty of credit, but they did notj want history: they wanted to know! what was being clone now. “Every extra man that we can get, j every bit of material we can scratch; up we are putting into the housing j scheme.” said Mr Semple. “We are dc-j ing all we possibly can at the moment.” I The Minister added that he was as anxious as anyone to make homes for the people, because he knew what living in slums was like. He had lived with his wife and children when they were babies, in a tent. Homelife was the bulwark of the nation. Individuals, however, could not do impossible things; they were not supermen. Mr W. J. Poison (National. Stratford): While you are relying on private enterprise you must give the millers a chance of a decent tenure in the bush. Mr Semple agreed that the millers had to be looked after, and if there were any difficulties the commonsense thing was to have a conference because the housing problem could not be overcome until all obstacles were removed. The Minister added that had it not been for the war and the drain on manpower and materials the housing shortage would have been made good long before this. There had been times when they had not known where they were going to get the next pound of nails. There were houses even to-day that were held up for lack of baths, or stoves, and because interior decorating had still to be done. An effort had been made to use cement instead of timber but they had run up against the cement problem. LICENSE REFUSED Mr Semple also mentioned a project to provide for extra production of a certain interior building board by an Auckland factory by an extension of its premises, but the Mt. Eden Borough Council had refused a license. He did not know whether the council wanted to embarrass the Government because they were a bunch of Tories. He hoped not. All he knew was that a reasonable request had been made, that a permit had been refused, and the company had talked of taking the council to Court. He understood the company was now going to build a factory in Wellington. Mr Semple added that the Government had been accused of interfering with private enterprise. but it was private enterprise which supplied the timber for the houses, the fittings, and all the other requirements. It was not the fault of private enterprise that sufficient supplies were not available, because, like the Housing Construction Department, private enterprise had also been up against the manpower problem. Nothing could be accomplished without human labour.