Tired Rant of Housing

Labour launches housing policy, oh sorry the Green's housing policy, and HYSTERIA breaks out. You'd think they were in the back of an Invercargill taxi cab.

1. Where is the god damn data? Do we not need that any more? If you're going to draw up policy surely you need that pesky thing known as facts and justification. GSCB, I'm also looking at you. But one potentially incredibly biased report from the people whose livelihood depends on fat commissions, does not data make. 

2. Yes, Labour should have the figures. But lets not forget that the CURRENT GOVERNMENT should also! There have been articles and reports coming up suggesting that the current housing situation could threaten our entire economy, yet not ONE investigation has been launched into patterns of house buying and where the heat in the market is actually coming from. No, instead, they're going to wrest control from councils (I'm surprised we're still allowed to have them) so that land can be released, because this is a supply-side government of fail.

As another twitterer mentioned, the current government, bless them, shut down funding for the Centre of Housing Research who compiled independent data.  That is truly boggling to the nth degree: http://www.chranz.co.nz/who.html. John Key says that foreign ownership is not a problem, an easy thing to say when you've made sure that any evidence to the contrary has been stopped from being compiled. How tragic is it that all Labour had to use was from the IRD: http://www.smh.com.au/business/nz-labour-plans-curbs-on-foreign-home-buyers-20130728-2qsng.html?skin=text-only

3. We are not alone in this, we are not the first Invercargill cab off the block. There are a raft of countries that have restrictions on non-residents from buying property. Every single one of those countries are probably just xenophobic though. I'm sure there aren't reasons beyond that.

4. Now that I think of it having immigration policies or having citizens/non-citizens is probably xenophobic as well. Yeah, that'll be it.

5. Did anybody read that this was only one policy out of a raft of things. No? Shall we discuss them? No? Okay. No more factsies for you, New Zealand.