OPINION
Bob Jones
In our desire to build state rental homes we’re instead largely creating Coronation Street style future slums which hardly fit the bill for family homes.
When the first Labour government embarked on this programme back in the late 1930s they built homes, each different from their neighbours and all sitting on large plots allowing space for front and back lawns plus decent sized vegetable gardens. I know as I grew up in one.
In line with its highly desirable expressed policy of building a “home-owning democracy” the first National government in 1949, in return for tenants raking up deposit of a few hundred pounds, effectively converted the previous rental to interest and principal repayments, thereby allowing the occupants to buy their first homes. This was a highly desirable social action in creating communities in which the occupants as owners felt an involvement in their well-being. We have a unique opportunity to repeat this right now.
That is to design those sorts of suburbs we once built then offer them to Chinese construction companies to build.
Currently, grossly over-built China’s huge construction industry is wallowing in deep trouble, lacking any work. They could fly in thousands of workers who will gladly work 60 or more hour weeks and construct those houses at a fraction of the cost should we do it, not that we have the manpower to do so anyway. This will knock the top of the demand-supply problem.
Our housing crisis is unnecessary given this unique opportunity.
And having done this we should continue with National’s original scheme and allow the occupants, in return for mustering up a down payment, to covert their rent to interest and principal payments.
In other words, achieve the social stability implicit in their original goal of a home-owning democracy.
This is the same principle I out-lined a few months back re the backlog and waiting time for diverse medical operations. That was to fly plane-loads of patients to the countries such as Thailand, the Philippines and India that have created a surplus of surgeons as a foreign exchange earner and who offer such operations at a fraction of the cost we’d incur, trying in vain to catch up with the backlog demand.
Iran is doing this, targeting European nations and the pioneer in this exercise, Cuba, has been doing in for decades. This way we can in rapid time eliminate the backlog in our public hospital waiting lists and restore some balance in demand and supply.
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