Shame on those that let housing crisis happen - Duncan Garner

  • 18/09/2017

The AM Show host Duncan Garner delivered an impassioned speech on Monday morning in response to the housing crisis - and said to own a home now in Auckland was a "complete luxury for the very few".

"This was National's biggest weakness five years ago and it continues today. Under National the dream of home ownership disappeared."

"We didn't plan, we didn't build. We didn't release land. I'm not just going at this Government, the last one was useless too."

Responding to CEO of the Real Estate Institute Bindi Norwell's claim that the results of Sunday night's auction on The Block reflected a slowing of the housing market, Garner said both local and central government had failed to act in time.

Auckland Council had also been "useless", Garner said.

He said houses had become a "crude, brutal tool in a market of vampires, pimps and investors running wild overseen by central and local government who were out to lunch."

"We didn't tax to slow the market down - it was an out of control bonfire".

Home ownership had only once been lower than it is now - in 1955.

Ms Nowall told The AM Show that the Auckland market had been stabilising for a few months.

But Garner said to own a home now in Auckland, "is a complete luxury for the very few".

"House prices in Auckland when National came to office were half a million dollars, now it's $1.03m. Wages never kept up with that."

He said teachers have fled Auckland for the regions, and at present there were 200 teaching jobs available in Auckland.

The Government had denied there was a crisis for far too long, Garner said.

"There is a crisis, a crisis of affordability. It has been a complete disaster, a bonfire, and shame on those authorities that oversaw this and let it happen"

"We left the market to solve affordable housing and the market said 'stick it'. Find somebody else to build them.

"There was no one around until now - Election Day".

He said first home buyers were the biggest losers.

"Those who won big in this housing market won really big. They became overnight accidental millionaires. Others got smashed. Others got burned, others got uninvited, and others got locked out."

"It no longer mattered how hard you worked. It mattered how much you earned, and how much mum and dad could flick you."

Newshub.