Yeni Zelanda Konut Bakanı Constructive 2026'da Konuştu

Speech to Constructive 2026

Good morning, everyone. It’s absolutely fantastic to be here today at Constructive 2026. I’d like to thank Ankit Sharma, Phil Brosnan and their team at Master Builders for hosting this event. I’d also like to acknowledge my colleagues Leader of the Opposition, Chris Hipkins and MP Arena Williams. Being Housing minister is interesting because it spans so many different domains. It’s the housing theory of everything – which essentially boils down to the idea that restricting urban land and housing cascades into a wide range of national problems. That’s why I’ve been convinced for some time that fixing the fundamentals of our housing system is one of the best things we can do to address so many of New Zealand’s intractable economic, social, and generational challenges. I’m really proud of the massive progress we’ve made over the past three years, and I want to reflect on that with all of you today. To finish, I’ll talk to you about what’s next and what you can expect from a second term with a National-led government. Achievements and highlights So, let’s take it back to the start. Three years ago, I had the enormous privilege of being appointed Minister of Housing. From my time in Opposition, where I’d deliberately consulted widely and worked hard, I knew there was an incredible amount to do. From the early-2000s to 2023, research from the Productivity Commission, Auckland University, Motu, Treasury, the Reserve Bank, the New Zealand Initiative, Statistics New Zealand, the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, and many more showed that New Zealand was creating one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the world. Between 1998 and 2022, inflation adjusted house prices rose by more than 250 per cent – close to four times the OECD average and more than double that of Britian. For over two decades, our housing market has slowly eroded social and economic outcomes. Economically, housing eats up disposable income, meaning less can go toward goods, services, and investment. It ties up wealth and displaces productive investment. A lack of housing in the right place also leaves productivity and agglomeration benefits on the table. Socially, housing plays a large factor in young kiwis deciding to leave New Zealand to find better opportunities. Unaffordable housing also tips more people into situations where they need support. Currently, there are around 19,00 families on the social housing waitlist. Various governments of different stripes have put housing in the too hard basket and failed to make the tough calls required. Not this Government. We are up for the challenge because the future benefits of getting it right are worth it. I am determined to fix housing for three reasons. Boost the economy The first reason to fix housing is to boost the economy. Achieving genuine economic prosperity is the driving ambition of this Government. The only way to do this is to address our decades-long productivity disease. As Paul Krugman so famously observed, “Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run, it's almost everything.” Productivity is what drives peoples’ standard of living and our prosperity as a country. And even though New Zealand is blessed with extraordinary competitive advantages like our natural resources, an abundance of land, and relatively cheap renewable energy – we have fallen behind. We used to make the most of our advantages. In 1900, New Zealand had the highest number of patent applications per capita in the world, and in the 1950s and ‘60s we built innovative, world-leading infrastructure. In the early ‘60s, our productivity was well above Australia’s, but somewhere in the ‘70s our productivity dropped, and the gap kept widening. Now, our productivity is closer to places like Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic than it is to Australia and other western European countries we like to compare ourselves to. In other words, our productivity rates are on par with countries that endured 40 years of communism. The hope or assumption that New Zealand’s advantages will automatically confer prosperity is wrong. Complacency is a blight on progress. It will take sustained effort and difficult trade-offs over many years to really get productivity going again. It isn’t going to be easy. But a good place to start is housing. There is now a mountain of economic evidence that cities are engines of productivity, and the evidence shows bigger is better. In New Zealand, it is estimated that doubling a city’s population could increase output by 3.5 per cent. And, on average, workers in cities earn one third more than their non-urban counterparts. Throughout history, cities have also been the hub of innovation. Think 15th century Florence, 17th century Amsterdam, 18th century London, and arguably Houston today. Competitive housing and land markets that deliver thriving cities, growing productivity, and super-charged industry will do more to create a better future for everyone in this room – and for everyone in New Zealand – than just about anything else we can do. New Zealand can simply raise our productivity by allowing our towns and cities to grow up and out. We need bigger, denser cities and we need more houses. Books back in order The second reason to fix housing is to help get the government’s books back in order. Central government spent over $5 billion last year alone on housing assistance in many different forms. That includes the accommodation supplement, subsidies for income-related rents for people in social housing, emergency housing grants, transitional housing, and initiatives to address homelessness. Each new government programme has begat another government programme; and they have grown like mushrooms. The system is complicated, confusing, and often duplicative. Most importantly, it is extremely expensive. If that $5 billion stays flat over the five-year forecast period, the Government will spend over $25 billion on helping people to be housed. That’s 17 Transmission Gully motorways, four-and-a-half City Rail Links, or around 10 New Dunedin Hospitals – an astonishing amount of money to spend every five years. Every dollar spent on subsidising rents is money that can’t be spent improving education or on fixing our health system. There will always be some people who require housing support no matter how affordable the general market is. But my wider point is that improving housing affordability will mean more people can afford housing without government support and that we can invest that money elsewhere, including on the people who really need it. Close the intergenerational gap The third reason to fix housing is the intergenerational gap. I’m so proud to say that under this Government we have seen first home buyers dominating the housing market. In July this year, had a new monthly high of 29 per cent market share, the highest in more than 20 years. But even accounting for this good progress, young people just don’t have the same opportunity to get into the housing market as their parents or grandparents did. Something has gone wrong when the average age of a first home buyer is 36 and when homeownership rates are near record-lows. I think many of us – but not enough – have woken up and realised that we have a generation of young people ready to leave a country that did not make room for them. This costs all of us. Fundamentally it is an issue of intergenerational inequity. So – economic, fiscal, and intergenerational – that’s the case for changing housing in New Zealand. But no one had a credible long-term plan to fix the fundamentals. This is not what Kiwis deserve from government, and it is my strong view that we need to do better. I had five priorities coming to office: I’m proud we’ve made significant progress on all of these priorities. An enormous amount of work has been done in just three years. But before I get into those six, I just want to touch on a few highlights. Since we came into Government – Rents have been flat to falling. Both housing deposits and mortgage serviceability are more affordable. First home purchases have been at record highs. The social housing waitlist is down by over 6,300 applicants. We have delivered 8,500 net new social homes. And, we have successfully turned Kāinga Ora (KO) around. Through strong governance by the new Board and financial discipline, KO has reduced its peak debt by $10 billion so far – all while lowering their build costs and increasing tenancy satisfaction. Just on build costs, when we came into Government, KO were building state homes for up to eight, nine, ten thousand per square metre. In late 2023, the average cost per square metre was about $3,400. In the year to June 2026, the average cost had fallen to around $2,700 per square metre, and KO tells me that they are now contracting for as low as $2,600 per square metre. This reduction in cost means that Government can provide and renew more social homes for those in need within the same funding envelope. That is the power of value for money – it gives us the ability to do more with what we have. Those are some of my highlights, now let’s get into the five housing priorities I started with in 2023. Five housing priorities delivered Going For Housing Growth The first is Going for Housing Growth. This policy is about fixing the fundamentals and is focused on three pillars: I’ll quickly run through where we are at on each. Pillar One is being implemented through the Resource Management Act reforms. The key components are the goal of competitive urban land markets, an independent Urban Land Market Officer, and strong National Policy Direction on Housing and Development. Our new planning system will deliver the most significant pro-housing reforms in a generation. A specific goal of the new Planning Bill is for the system to “enable competitive urban land markets by making land available to create abundant development opportunities for residential and business use.” This creates a statutory obligation on councils to ensure that the supply of urban land is responsive to demand such that land prices do not materially or persistently reflect scarcity premiums. In other words, councils will be put on notice. They will need to be conscious that their planning rules do not create an artificial scarcity of developable land, which in turn pushes up land prices. To ensure councils actually do this, Cabinet has agreed to establish a new Urban Land Market Officer – an independent economic umpire to ensure councils achieve competitive urban land markets through the new planning system. I want to get out of the business of watching councils like a hawk and let the experts do the work. I want the Officer to tell government whether councils have competitive urban land markets or not. And if not, how bad is it? The Officer will focus on monitoring and advising on urban land market competitiveness. If the Officer makes a determination that a local authority’s actions under the Planning Act have contributed to a non-competitive urban land market, then the local authority will need to take action to address this, such as by progressing a plan change to enable more capacity for housing. Monitoring in other markets that have monopolistic characteristics drives better outcomes for New Zealanders – like the Commerce Commission and regulated utilities. Urban land markets are similar as a council effectively controls the supply of urban land and development capacity in an urban market. The Independent Officer is what gives Pillar One teeth. It is a strong mechanism that will ensure that every council is zoning abundant land for housing. Pillar One also includes polices that make it easier for our cities to grow up and out: The first three are already reflected in the recently released Illustrative National Direction. The work on standardised zones will be done through National Standards and tie into Regional Spatial Plans. I have thrown the kitchen sink at sorting out the fundamentals of housing supply. It’s been suggested to be that we are the first country in the world to have an independent referee for competitive urban land markets. Similar to how we were the first country in the world to adopt an explicit inflation-targeting regime backed by an operationally independent central bank. I am incredibly proud of the work officials, urban nerds, and others have done to achieve this. It will make a huge difference for the prosperity of New Zealand. Resource Management Act Reform Just taking a step back, the biggest improvement the Government is making to housing is reforming the RMA. We are not just improving but are fundamentally transforming the consenting framework by replacing the RMA with two new pieces of legislation: The Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill. Both Bills have now been through the Committee of the Whole House and will soon become law. Our new system will be effects-based, embrace standardised zoning backed by Regional Spatial Plans, and will be far more permissive and enabling while also protecting the environment. I know that many people in this room are deeply frustrated with the culture of “no” and pervasive micromanagement that has festered under the RMA. But under the New planning system there are a range of out-of-scope effects including internal site matters, visual appearance, business competition, project finances, and subjective character. There will be no more litigating which way the door faces. No more four-month argument with the council about why you picked a particular design for your garage. No more discussion on the internal configuration of living rooms and where the TV goes. No more delaying social housing builds because the “grass colour is too similar to the footpath colour”. And no more saying no to 11-storey, wooden office buildings on gravel pits right next to a multi-billion-dollar public transport investment just because of: “scale” and bad vibes. That’s enough on Pillar One. Let’s move onto Pillar Two. When it comes to infrastructure funding and financing to support housing growth, we have also pulled multiple levers. In July, the Infrastructure Funding and Financing (IFF) Amendment Bill passed into law, making it easier for developers, councils, and other infrastructure providers to use the Act to deliver projects free from local authority funding and financing constraints. The updated IFF Act now also allows New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to use Levies to fund projects like highways and rapid transit. We have also made significant progress replacing the broken Development Contributions regime with Development Levies, which is a new flexible funding and financing tool to match our new flexible planning system. Councils will be far better enabled to recover the costs of growth, no matter where it occurs. To ensure they use this new flexibility appropriately, the Government has also agreed to the Commerce Commission becoming the regulator for Development Levies. I’ve spent a lot of time on Development Levies, because it is both fiendishly complicated and incredibly important. We need to get it right. Decision on this will be announce shortly. On Pillar Three, in Budget 2026 we set up the $400 million Incentives for Growth Fund. Under the Fund all councils are rewarded for every single home consented. The aim of the fund is to help change the political economy of housing by providing direct financial incentives to local councils and communities that welcome new housing development. Payments will commence from 1 April 2027 for consents granted in the year to January 31, 2027. Auckland is expected to get $32.4 million. Christchurch City is expected to get $9.1 million Selwyn District is expected to get $8.4 million Waimakariri District is expected to get $1.8 million. Councils have been asking for new funding and financing tools for a long time, and we have delivered improved IFF Act Levies, the Incentives for Growth Fund, and – shortly – Development Levies. Improvements to the rental market That brings me to improvements to the rental market. The previous Government’s war on landlords caused worse outcomes for tenants. Rents went up $180 per week from 2017 to 2023, the social housing waitlist increased by about 20,000 households, and thousands of families were living in emergency housing motels. In 2024, we introduced a suite of sensible pro-tenant and pro-landlord changes. This included reintroducing 90-day notice ‘no cause’ terminations for periodic tenancies, reducing landlords’ notice periods for ending a periodic tenancy to 42 days in specific circumstances, reducing tenants’ notice periods for ending a periodic tenancy from 28 to 21 days, and allowing landlords to require a pet bond alongside the introduction of new pet consent and damage liability rules. We also fully restored interest deductibility for residential property – and I can promise you that we won’t be changing that! Together, these changes have been giving landlords confidence to re-enter the market and tenants more ability to secure a rental home, including for their beloved household pet. In fact, around 12,500 pet bonds have been lodged to date, which is fantastic! Since coming into Government, rents for new tenancies have been flat, and even falling in some places. The latest CPI data release also shows rents for new and existing tenancies rose at their slowest rate in 25 years. To further improve the rental market, we also passed the Overseas Investment (Build to Rent and Similar Rental Developments) Amendment Bill, which facilitates increased foreign investment in the Build to Rent housing sector. We signalled to the world that we are open for business and open for Build to Rent investment. Research from Property Council New Zealand indicates that, with supportive legislation, developers could deliver 25,000 Build to Rent homes in the next decade. And, using their tracker, you can see there are now around 2,500 units in the country with 1,400 under construction and a further 4,400 in the pipeline. Building and construction changes Now, this isn’t in my area, but I think it’s really important to touch on the building and construction changes we progressed this term. We can’t build houses and we can’t rebuild the economy without our builders. Right now, it’s around 50per cent more expensive to build a house here than in Australia, so we have taken action to save builders time, money, and hassle. This includes: These changes will make a huge difference in reducing costs and cutting red tape. It’s incredibly promising to see that more than 41,000 new homes were consented in the year to July 2026, up 21per cent on the last year. This is a significant turnaround for a sector that has faced some challenging conditions over recent years following a decline in building activity that began in 2022. More consents mean more building, more jobs and more opportunities for economic growth. Fantastic. Better social housing Now, we are onto the last of my five priorities: better social housing. As a Minister, there are some things I don’t like to do, and there are many long hours and late nights away from home. But one of the best parts of my job is attending openings of life changing homes across the country and meeting the people who are receiving support – seeing the difference it makes. You’ve heard me say this before: the Government backs affordable housing and social housing. But – like many New Zealanders – we also think the current system is broken. The Government can do a much better job at supporting those in most need and being more ambitious for people. That’s why we’re creating an entirely new Housing Investment System centred on three principles: building the right types of homes, in the right places, for the right people. We’re also progressing a broader Review of the Social Housing (ROSH), which I’m not pretending will be easy, but I believe is the right thing to do. I’ll just quickly go over our investment in social housing, the new Flexible Fund, and the new Housing Investment Plans. Across Budgets 24, 25, and 26 we have built a genuine, long-term social housing and affordable housing pipeline of opportunities for the CHP sector and other providers. This is something that the sector has been asking for, and that no government has really delivered – until now. I’ll break down the pipeline. In Budgets 24 and 25, we funded at least 2,050 places to be delivered by June 2027. Doe to better value for money we have got that up to 2,200 places. Of these places, 85 per cent will be one or two bedrooms. These smaller homes are what the vast majority of people on the waitlist actually need. In Budget 2025, the Government also established the Flexible Fund, which funded 820 places for delivery from July 2027 to the end of 2029 through its first tranche of investment. The Flexible Fund collapses and combines previous housing programmes. Until recently, the status quo was a confusing alphabet soup of tightly defined, duplicative programmes where providers are forced to mould their models to rigid criteria or be left out. We aren’t doing that anymore. We are moving to a future state with one flexible pot of money that can be deployed to all types of interventions – including affordable rentals and new, innovative solutions – that best meet housing need and represent good value for money. Budget 2026 then topped up the Flexible Fund to support the delivery of an additional 1,800 to 2,250 homes over three years starting from July 2028. I’m really proud of building a credible, deliverable, and long-term pipeline of around 5,000 social and affordable homes. I don’t want to get ahead of the Budget process, but my intention is to keep topping up the Flexible Fund and building the long-term pipeline. Now, a key differentiating factor of the Flexible Fund is how places are allocated. In the past, governments have invested in social housing without a clear understanding of what is needed, where it is needed, and who is best placed to deliver it. But now we have a Housing Investment Plan, which will be updated every year and/or funding round. The first Plan was published in 2025 and uses detailed data and local insights to identify where housing need is highest and which types of homes are required. In other words, we want to ensure future investment reflects the real-world needs of communities. The first Plan had a large focus of need in locations – like Far North, South Auckland, Eastern Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hastings, and the main centres. That’s where those 820 Flexible Fund places funded in Budget 2025 are going! This is a good first step. But my vision is for the Housing Investment Plan to use high-quality data to identify and target investment into priority cohorts. Cohorts that, if we invested in them, would deliver the greatest benefits to households, to government, and to society. A real social investment approach. I have a hypothesis that some of these cohorts are recently released prisoners, families doing it tough with young children, and kiwis with mental health challenges or disabilities. Here’s one statistic that has stuck with me – NZ longitudinal research following people post release shows a 4.6 times higher reimprisonment risk for those with unstable housing. On a more personal note, I have been exercised about stories of people falling through the cracks. Now, I don’t want to guess what the cohorts are, I want to get it right. That’s why I’ve asked the Social Investment Agency to do the analysis with the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions, and Transport; and the Ministry of Social Development using IDI and other rich data. This analysis will get more sophisticated overtime and will feed into future Housing Investment Plans. I could keep on going… including on ROSH. But I think to sum up – I have a clear vision. I want to provide the right house, in the right place, for the people who need it most. There’s a long way to go but we are making progress. Now all of this work in housing from social housing to intensification has required difficult trade-offs and tough choices. However, these are the choices that will set New Zealand up for years and years of prosperity into the 2030s and beyond. If that’s my legacy as Minister of Housing, I’ll be happy. However, I am hungry to do more for New Zealand. What’s next To finish, I’ll talk to you about what you can expect from a second term with a National-led government. First things first – what is in train is significant. We need to keep doing what we are doing: There’s also so much more. If I can impress anything on you all here today, it’s that these work programmes are critical to achieving genuine prosperity in New Zealand. National will keep the momentum going. Conclusion I’d like to thank all of you in this room for coming along the journey with me for the past three years as Housing Minister. Housing is my great passion. If we can fix housing there is nothing, nothing that we can’t fix together as a country. My dream is of a market which is affordable for people to rent, but most importantly is affordable for young kiwis to get into a home they can call their own. I also want Kiwis to be free, ambitious, and have access to abundant opportunities – knowing they are backed by an equally enterprising nation. If we make good, bold choices, we can all enjoy better lives. Our country, at the bottom of the world, can choose to be wealthy, and modern, and prosperous. That’s why I’m in politics. Thank you.