- This is Connie from Prosperity Finance,
sharing the best financial tips,
so that you can be more successful
with achieving your financial goals.
Today, I'm going to invite my colleague Alex,
not to talk about anything with finance.
In fact, we like to share with you some housing policy
between a Labor party and National party,
'cause potentially that help you to make the right vote.
And without further ado.
Let's welcome Alex.
Hello Alex.
- Hi Connie.
Thank you for the introduction.
Yeah, I'll probably just do a quick summary,
on the policies from Labor and National party.
Cool so we'll probably start with the simple one from Labor.
Actually almost all of the policy items are,
they are all like the existing ones.
So Labor promised if they are re-elected
in this election.
They will carry on the current policy which they
are calling it a five point plan, to support new housing
during this special time you know, the COVID,
the COVID-19 environment.
So what are these five points policies?
We'll start from first one.
This one, the first one is actually
called a residential development response fund,
which was introduced in August this year,
to combat these economic impact from the COVID-19 pandemic.
So Labor say that they will continuous to support
the construction, through this fund to enable builders
and developers to apply for support,
to help them to get more of these dropdown.
Then for the second point, Labor said that they will develop
an additional 18,000 public and transitional houses,
by year 2024.
So that's in about four years time.
They will add on another 18,000 houses for the public
through public house sector.
Then the third point from Labor is also a continuation
of the current policy that supports first home buyers.
So this includes the first home grants
and first home loans and also the progressive home ownership
and the KiwiBuild scheme.
So this process will be carried out if they are re-elected.
Then the fourth point is actually related to
the Construction Sector Accords,
which was a policy developed in 2019,
between the Labor government and as a major,
the leaders from the construction sector.
So this policy is to improve the productivity,
through the collaboration between the governments
and the sector leaders.
And the Labor promise will carry on, with this work
and to increase the output of the housing industry.
And lastly, the fifth point is a very interesting one.
So the Labor is planning to remove the planning barriers
and to residential construction
which includes replacing the current Resource Management Act
to reduce the costs and the complexity
of the construction process.
And a further note to this point,
is that for existing home owners,
the Labor governments were also scrapping the need
for consents for low risk building works,
such as the slip outs, sheds and carports,
which also will save the homeowners when they decide to
further improve the value of their home.
And also to shorten the building consent process
when homeowners trying to make minor home improvements
and make it more affordable to those people.
Yeah so basically these are the five points that a Labor
party say they will be continuing to implement
if they are re-elected.
Then compared to Labor, National party they have a very
comprehensive policy document,
which contains about 10 pages.
But to summarize, they also have these five key aspects
that they will implement if they are elected.
So to start with the first one,
the first one was actually, what they called immediate,
let me see yeah, they call it a immediate plan.
So this will happen within the first 100 days,
if they are elected.
So they, within the first 100 days.
They will amend the current Resource Management Act,
which is very similar to the first point
of the Labor policy and how are they gonna do this?
They will immediately pass a emergency legislation,
which includes four key aspects.
The first one is to immediately ask all the local council
to open upto 30 years worth of growth and urban development
plans for developers and council to plan for the future
city development and zoning.
Then they also proposed to suspend the appeals process.
So disrupt plan can be completed, right away.
So shorten the disrupt plan, planning process.
And fourthly, this legislation will also suspend
requirements for infrastructure to be built prior
to zoning, which accelerates the zoning process.
And lastly the fourth point is streamline
the resource consenting process, again to shorten the time
needed to develop new housing
and build new houses throughout the country.
So this is a first point, the first policy that the National
party will implement.
And the secondly is the second point,
is that they will repeal the Resource Management Act.
This is more to, this is more like a medium to longterm
policy and they will replace it with two different,
two separate acts, one is called a Planning Act
and other one called a Development Act.
And there's no details to those two Acts yet,
but still this is a very interesting proposal.
And it's also very similar, to the fifth point
that Labor policy mentioned about.
And the third point from National is that they will enable
community housing providers, to build more social houses
by setting aside $1 billion to fund the building process
for more social houses and the fund will come
from the existing housing New Zealand borrowing facility,
for community housing providers to access.
Let's talk about the fourth point.
This is more to do with the first home buyers.
So if you don't have lots of deposits
the National party's proposed to have a new scheme
called rent-to-own or a shared equity scheme,
to allow people with a little or no a deposit to own their
house by gradually paying off
the purchase price of a property,
while they're renting or sharing a house
with other people.
And lastly, National party also proposed,
to address the state housing waiting list
and to shorten the times that people need to wait
if they need a state house.
So how is it gonna do this?
Is they gonna re-instate, the public housing tenancy
review process to identify people that are no longer needed
to stay in a public house to make a weekend.
So that's new people from on the waiting list
can actually move in and to shorten the whole waiting list.
Okay so that's a brief summary of the policies
from both parties and I hope you find it interesting
and also informative.
- Thank you so much Alex, very much.
Yeah, I can see that there there's some different focus
from each variety, but they also some similarity such
as share-to-own a kind of scheme that helped first home
buyer who cannot afford a first home,
under the traditional method,
they can get into the housing market as soon as possible.
And also about the Resource Consent Act
some improvements there.
So it's really welcomed news.
They all help people make it more affordable
make it a faster to own a property.
So, but yeah, definitely some different focus as well.
So hope it's insightful.
Hope that help you make an informative decision
and make the right vote.
Thank you so much.
And thanks again Alex.
- Thank you.
- Bye bye.