Opposition parties condemn housing package

Opposition parties today criticised the Government's $187 million funding housing package for low income people for creating state dependency and doing little to ease housing pressure in Auckland.

Housing Minister Mark Gosche and his associate Tariana Turia said in a joint statement the $186.8m funding, being announced ahead of the May 23 budget, was spread over the next four years.

They said:

* $71.99m would be spent over the next four years to build 360 state houses, mainly in Auckland. The 360 homes were additional to the 2169 state houses the Government had already planned to build during that period.

Of this, $21.11m would be spent in the 2002/03 financial year, $16.8m in 2003/04, $16.96m in 2004/05 and $17.12m the year after.

* $53.34m would be spent providing 500 affordable rental homes for families living in derelict or makeshift dwellings in Northland, East Cape and the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

In the first year, $7.84m would be spent, with $12.41m allocated in 2003/04, $19.07m in 2004/05 and $14.03m in 2005/06.

* $29.98m would go to the "healthy housing" programme that was aimed at reducing overcrowding in Housing New Zealand homes in South Auckland to reduce the spread of infectious diseases such as meningococcal disease.

The spending across the four years was $4.02m in 2002/03, $8.58m in 2003/04, $8.66m in 2004/05 and $8.73m in 2005/06.

* $20.53m was for Housing New Zealand to buy and modify community homes for residents of Nelson's Braemar Hospital and Levin's Kimberley Centre.

This spending was across three years -- $7.14m in 2002/03, $6.92m in 2003/04 and $6.47m in 2004/05.

* $11m would go towards providing another 50 community houses for vulnerable people -- including women and children seeking refuge, people with physical or intellectual disabilities and those with a mental illness.

Some $2.75m would be spent each of the four years to do this.

Green MP Sue Bradford told NZPA that while the money was not enough and there were people who needed housing now, "it's certainly going in the right direction".

She was pleased the funding was mostly going to Auckland and areas on the East Coast of the North Island where housing needs were most critical.

The Council of Christian Social Services said the funding injection was "very positive" and necessary given the problems caused by unaffordable housing.

However, National's housing spokesman Murray McCully said spending $71 million on 360 new state houses over the next four years would do very little to ease the growing housing pressure in Auckland.

"By focusing government support towards those in state houses, the Government has already created large waiting lists," he said.

"If the Government has more money to spend, it should be allocated on the basis of need, not on the basis that the Government's name is on the title to the house."

He said the state already owned $6 billion worth of houses and that had not solved the problem.

ACT housing spokeswoman Muriel Newman said the extra funding would create more state dependency.

Official figures showed more than 1000 people had been living in state housing for more than 40 years and the average duration of Housing NZ tenancies was nearly seven years.

There would never be enough state homes because there was no mechanism for getting people into their own homes, she said.

United Future leader Peter Dunne said the programme was simply a bribe to low income New Zealanders to switch their votes from the tatters of the Alliance to Labour.

"The current system is grossly unfair because it means once in a state house it is nigh impossible to be forced to move on, which means that those lucky enough to get a state house are well looked after while the rest suffer."

United Future favoured a five-year term for all new state house tenancies.

- NZPA

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