Political cut and thrust over Auckland real estate

Even allowing for the persuasive patter of your average Auckland real estate agent, he or she would be hard-pressed to flog a house which had a large electricity substation humming like a deranged choir on the other side of the back fence.

Maybe not, however, given the pressure-cooker residential property market.

Whatever, Labour came to Parliament yesterday with the intent of painting Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith as ever more desperate to find answers to Auckland's housing crisis.

Labour's evidence was a Smith-ordered audit of surplus Crown land which could potentially be turned into housing developments but which in some cases already housed a cemetery, a fire station, and school playing fields, along with the substation.

Labour leader Andrew Little began by asking the Prime Minister whether anyone in the Government had bothered to check with Transpower over why it had a buffer of land around its substation and high-voltage power pylons.

But John Key was ready and waiting. He responded by holding up a photograph which he said showed there were already houses on the other side of the substation's boundary.

"They are just there, you see? If you can build them there, I guess you can build them on the other side, I suppose."

Key had to be taken at his word. The photograph was too small for anyone to tell.

Little struck back, asking Key if he had been advised that there had been an explosion at the substation in question which had cut power to much of west Auckland.

Little then sought a categorical denial that the Mangere Lawn Cemetery was on any of the lists identified by the Government as residential land.

But - to no-one's great surprise - Key did not have the relevant list in his possession.

But Key had a point of his own to make. Or rather "a bit of logic".

If Labour was saying there was no land available for housing, how on earth would it have been able to fulfill its election promise to construct 100,000 homes over ten years?