Christopher Luxon, New Zealand Prime Minister 2023

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#3437978 27-Nov-2025 15:20

National, 2023: Labour promised 1000 houses with KiwiSaver and failed. Lol @ making a silly promise there was no way they could keep. Also, we will have 500 more police by November 2025!

New Zealand, 2025: Police being actively recruited by Australia, going on strike for better pay.

National, 2025: Well look it was never about the target and besides we didn't realise we had to improve training and attract applicants and the low pay is Labour's fault, but we will totally hit our target some time soon, trust us.

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#3437986 27-Nov-2025 16:01

Labour promised 1000 houses and while it did not get there 'houses were built' at increasing rate.
Many more starts underway, building companies hiring.
Then we had separate social housing developments too.

My understanding is the scheme also backstopped developers risks.
Larger developments got going on this basis.
Economies of buying materials for larger overall developments.
Having experienced workers moving from project to project rather than gaps in work helped too.

Upon National/ACT/NZF taking over new development stopped and acquired land mothballed or disposed of.
By all accounts work in building slowed down overall.

The economic chill created by National/Act/NZF.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360634680/fletcher-buildings-pre-fab-housing-factory-shuts-shop

""
“It hasn’t happened because messaging and action are two different things. The Government has been strong on its messaging, but not strong on action.

“So, for example, Kāinga Ora was making good progress on its offsite manufacturing strategy, but the Government has dismantled Kāinga Ora and with that the strategy.”
""

How many exiting for Australia are trades going there as 'steady work' dried up and companies being 'tight on pay raises' while recessionary conditions apply ?

Handle9

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#3437988 27-Nov-2025 16:11

Labour promised 100,000 houses. 1000 was the first year target.

SaltyNZ

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#3437989 27-Nov-2025 16:11

Handle9:

Labour promised 100,000 houses. 1000 was the first year target.

Even better!

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GV27

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#3438439 29-Nov-2025 11:30

ezbee:

Labour promised 1000 houses and while it did not get there 'houses were built' at increasing rate.
Many more starts underway, building companies hiring.
Then we had separate social housing developments too.

My understanding is the scheme also backstopped developers risks.
Larger developments got going on this basis.
Economies of buying materials for larger overall developments.
Having experienced workers moving from project to project rather than gaps in work helped too.

Upon National/ACT/NZF taking over new development stopped and acquired land mothballed or disposed of.
By all accounts work in building slowed down overall.

The economic chill created by National/Act/NZF.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360634680/fletcher-buildings-pre-fab-housing-factory-shuts-shop

""
“It hasn’t happened because messaging and action are two different things. The Government has been strong on its messaging, but not strong on action.

“So, for example, Kāinga Ora was making good progress on its offsite manufacturing strategy, but the Government has dismantled Kāinga Ora and with that the strategy.”
""

How many exiting for Australia are trades going there as 'steady work' dried up and companies being 'tight on pay raises' while recessionary conditions apply ?

The only reason housing was being built in the first place is because the previous National government put their finger on the scale when it came to planning.

National strong-armed the Auckland Council into passing a decent unitary plan that unlocked a lot of development that was otherwise not going to happen. Then when Labour swept in promising a huge injection of supply into the affordable end of the market, developers backed off. The entire Northcote development through HLC went on ice while the impact of this was worked through. And then Labour ended up buying complete homes because it became political poison and competing with FHBs at the bottom end of the market for entry level homes that they could slap a Kiwibuild label on.

The economic chill was created by RBNZ and Robertson, who pumped so much money into the system post-Covid that everything overheated and hiking interest rates was the only way to get things back under control. National have, to their credit (and one of the few things they've gotten right) finally bought RBNZ back to the real world and cleared out the senior leadership, which was effectively operating with impunity and showing open hostility to any meaningful scrutiny.

Trying to pin our current economic circumstances on the National government we have today without even mentioning the spend-up that got us into this mess is next-level revisionism.

SaltyNZ

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#3438457 29-Nov-2025 13:26

GV27:

The economic chill was created by RBNZ and Robertson, who pumped so much money into the system post-Covid that everything overheated and hiking interest rates was the only way to get things back under control. National have, to their credit (and one of the few things they've gotten right) finally bought RBNZ back to the real world and cleared out the senior leadership, which was effectively operating with impunity and showing open hostility to any meaningful scrutiny.

Trying to pin our current economic circumstances on the National government we have today without even mentioning the spend-up that got us into this mess is next-level revisionism.

OK, but inflation was already falling before the 2023 election, so the new National government had a tailwind. They also took away the RBNZ mandate to take unemployment into account when choosing economic settings which has contributed to the high unemployment figures we now see.

The Labour government did spend up - but the consequences of not spending up would have simply been the death of many more businesses much earlier as they all folded during COVID. You're not wrong that the spend up had consequences. But there was no solution to COVID that would make it go away without massive economic damage. We put ours off in the hope that the damage would be easier to deal with once COVID itself was over. Was it the right call? I don't know. I do know that at the time, National said the spend up didn't go far enough.

I can't see any economies that breezed through it without any trouble. Every country battled inflation and interest rates after COVID.

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#3438465 29-Nov-2025 13:58

SaltyNZ:

OK, but inflation was already falling before the 2023 election, so the new National government had a tailwind. They also took away the RBNZ mandate to take unemployment into account when choosing economic settings which has contributed to the high unemployment figures we now see.

The Labour government did spend up - but the consequences of not spending up would have simply been the death of many more businesses much earlier as they all folded during COVID. You're not wrong that the spend up had consequences. But there was no solution to COVID that would make it go away without massive economic damage. We put ours off in the hope that the damage would be easier to deal with once COVID itself was over. Was it the right call? I don't know. I do know that at the time, National said the spend up didn't go far enough.

I can't see any economies that breezed through it without any trouble. Every country battled inflation and interest rates after COVID.

The dual mandates from RBNZ put monetary policy completely at odds with itself. It was sound-bites-as-policy and the usual outcomes ensued. You want maximum employment (loose spending) but you want deference to house price rises? So... tightening? Went about as well as many expected to. Again, there's a difference between the specific interventions for business support which we needed during lockdowns, and the literal billions of unrelated-to-covid-at-all spending that Labour continued on with when the economy was already over-heating.

Also, a complete failure to reign in, or even review the actions of RBNZ, which was actively lending money to banks to spend on housing at discounted rates when the housing market was already pumping - and which carried on 12 months after inflation was over the PTA threshold. To this date, there has been no actual independent review of RBNZ actions during the Covid era - only the odd internal review which is very good at acting like hindsight is the only way we could have known some of these things, and ignoring prominent commentators who were pulling their hair out over some of RBNZ's decision-making.

There's a difference between 'breezing through covid with no trouble' which is completely unrealistic and not at all what I'm saying, and not absent-mindedly pouring fuel on a fire while you wait for the fire service to show up and making your situation much, much worse than it needs to be. But it's funny how the global situation during the Covid period and immediately after apparently gives Labour a free pass for the issues they actively caused within our own economy during the recovery period, yet we're going to ignore the global trade war and severe economic situation that was unfolded over the last 12 month when it comes to our local economy because reasons.

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#3438517 29-Nov-2025 14:12

GV27:

Also, a complete failure to reign in, or even review the actions of RBNZ, which was actively lending money to banks to spend on housing at discounted rates when the housing market was already pumping - and which carried on 12 months after inflation was over the PTA threshold. To this date, there has been no actual independent review of RBNZ actions during the Covid era - only the odd internal review which is very good at acting like hindsight is the only way we could have known some of these things, and ignoring prominent commentators who were pulling their hair out over some of RBNZ's decision-making.

Completely agree the lending for housing needed to be reigned in. We do not want another economic "recovery" lead by spiraling prices on existing houses. We need house prices to go down. We need people to invest in something productive.

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#3438750 30-Nov-2025 14:12

Is there a problem ? Yep.

Are we going to do anything about it ? Nope.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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#3438850 30-Nov-2025 20:27

SaltyNZ:

Completely agree the lending for housing needed to be reigned in. We do not want another economic "recovery" lead by spiraling prices on existing houses. We need house prices to go down. We need people to invest in something productive.

You can't really have house prices go 'down' though. The effect of house prices falling on things like spending and investing is chilling. It would also strand a generation of home-owners who have been forced to pay through the nose for housing in the first place. What we should do is find a way to make house prices stay flat in nominal terms so that they decline in real terms, and the debt attached to them inflates away relative to the cost of everything else.

At some point the population question will need to be addressed, as will the 'how much should a four bedroom home cost' and 'should we actually pay tax on Kiwisaver at all?'. Until we're prepared to do that, we're just fiddling around the edges.

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#3438887 1-Dec-2025 08:56

GV27:

You can't really have house prices go 'down' though. The effect of house prices falling on things like spending and investing is chilling. It would also strand a generation of home-owners who have been forced to pay through the nose for housing in the first place. What we should do is find a way to make house prices stay flat in nominal terms so that they decline in real terms, and the debt attached to them inflates away relative to the cost of everything else.

Yes, 100%. We have gotten ourselves in a real bind. We can either strand a couple of generations (at this point) to never be able to buy a home, or strand a generation who already did with a falling asset value. We clearly don't want them to drop 50% overnight, but we also don't want them to just stay flat because it will take decades for wage inflation to make up the difference. Those of us who do own property are going to have to take on some pain in order to make it easier for the kids.

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#3439058 1-Dec-2025 16:12

It’s taken decades to get into this situation and it’ll take decades to get out of it. The only way it doesn’t is an economic collapse which will mean no one will really care about house prices because of the other massive social disruption.

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#3439075 1-Dec-2025 17:46

Seymour school lunches, trying to kill kids.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360905207/christchurch-school-says-it-was-given-rancid-lunches-covered-mould

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#3439078 1-Dec-2025 17:53

Handle9: It’s taken decades to get into this situation and it’ll take decades to get out of it. The only way it doesn’t is an economic collapse [snip]

The best way out is super efficient dense apartment building.

Existing owner occupied property is likely to hold it's value to a large extent while apartments grow the housing base. Rents are likely to fall making the mom and pop type rental ownership less attractive for newcomers to the field, eventually.

Super-efficient dense apartment building is a very easy thing to say, of course. Imo NZ residential building sector is extremely inefficient for many reasons. Under-investment in related manufacturing being key.

Edit: To a large extent this density process is under way in Auckland with hopefully the proximity to transport plan enabling better design than living around the edges of a giant carpark or above one

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#3439129 1-Dec-2025 19:40

freitasm:

Seymour school lunches, trying to kill kids.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360905207/christchurch-school-says-it-was-given-rancid-lunches-covered-mould

I can't wait for their stupid budget school lunch hackjob to be shut down and replaced with school lunches that are, well, palatable.

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