It is very easy to make promises in an election campaign, particularly if you are really not expecting to win. Winston Peters has been making electoral promises he had no intention of keeping for decades. But when you unexpectedly find yourself in government and you have promised to completely change the housing market, then you are expected to perform. Thus it was with this hapless government who promised the earth… and then found themselves having to try to actually do it.
The results, as we know, have not been pretty.
Some would argue the Labour-led coalition is getting its just deserts for failing to do its homework but a lot of thinking appears to have gone into the housing policy of which KiwiBuild was a major component.
Instead the programme was mishandled because the incoming Government was desperately wanted to get some runs on the board. It was, simply, in too much of a hurry.
And it didn’t have a clue what it was doing.
The Coalition, perhaps because it had too many interests to please, had another basic problem. It failed to prioritise.
This failure led to a confusion between housing people living in bad conditions, such as two families in a two-bedroom house and a garage, and the less pressing problem of housing affordability.
Both need action but when you only have limited resources to build homes, you devote them to those most in need and focus on areas where they live.
Most of those people are in South Auckland and a targeted, military-style campaign, marshalling land and labour, to build more houses in that problem-heavy locale was needed.
Interestingly, there was a project in South Auckland where 500 houses were to be built as a joint project between Fletcher Building and the local iwi. It was in a place called Ihumātao. Remember that?
Even then the problem would not have gone away. With the private rental stock declining, mainly because many landlords just can’t be bothered any more, the queues for social housing will keep growing. And the harder the Government comes down on landlords, the more bottomless the pit becomes.
The Coalition could have concentrated on Auckland, for a start anyway, and worked out what the obstacles were before promising anything. The easy move was stopping foreign speculators from buying existing property. But land-banking, getting subdivision consents through faster and getting developers on board are far more complex tasks and take more time.
The ban on foreign buyers seems to have made little or no difference to the housing market. So much for that.
KiwiBuild is not unsalvageable and will be better for an injection of realism. But its failure will hurt Labour.
What it has shown is that Labour can do the easy stuff, such as doling out money on a first-year fees-free policy, the Pike River recovery effort, the winter energy payment and the Provincial Growth Fund. But only two years into its term, it has conceded the failure of one of its big transformational programmes. It bit the bullet this year to avoid the humiliation next year.
The Provincial Growth Fund? Do you mean the slush fund to get Shane Jones elected in Northland? The $3 billion that Jones can’t spend because this government doesn’t have a clue how to actually achieve anything?
Another big test is coming. The Coalition has budgeted $1.9b to revamp mental health services. Remember the Wellbeing Budget.
The funding includes a $455 million package to offer frontline services for 325,000 people who need mental health support before they experience major problems.
KiwiBuild was billed as an ambitious project that would “over the coming years transform the way housing is delivered to New Zealanders”.
Much the same was said of the mental health services package.
As sorry as I am for those that need help from the mental health sector, I don’t believe there will be much improvement. Once again, this government is good at throwing money at things, but because it lacks the systems and knowledge to actually get things done, it will inevitably fail. My favourite example was Jacinda being asked by Mike Hosking what she was going to do about cancer. She said they were going to design a ‘Cancer Action Plan’. In the meantime National had already come out and said it would increase funding for cancer drugs. Therein lies the difference. All this government can do is write reports.
Labour can’t afford to squander any more of Jacinda Ardern’s electoral capital on another failure.
Stuff
I’m not at all sure she has much political capital left. Unlike most governments, who get stale and arrogant in their third term, this government seems to have fast tracked everything. They have already reached the stale and arrogant stage, in only 2 years.
At least that proves that Jacinda and her band of thieves are capable of doing something even though it is not what their supporters were hoping for.