Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern "would be surprised" if National seeks to change its housing intensification deal with Labour given "their new deputy leader was a part of the discussions".
In a rare display of bipartisanship, Labour and National in October jointly announced a law change to speed up the process of forcing councils to allow more apartment blocks throughout the biggest cities in New Zealand.
It includes new intensification rules allowing up to three homes three storeys high to be built on most sites without a resource consent - a change from current district plans, which typically only allow for one home of up to two storeys.
National's new deputy leader Nicola Willis helped orchestrate the deal behind closed doors as housing spokesperson. But both Willis and new leader Christopher Luxon have hinted at their intention to seek changes to the legislation.
"We want to make some amendments to the Bill and we'll be talking with the Government about that, because I think if they can come on board with those amendments, great, but if not, we'll revisit it," Luxon told The AM Show last week.
The law change went through a sped-up parliamentary process. Legislation can often spend six months at a select committee where changes can be made. But the Bill was put under urgency to get it passed before Christmas, meaning it only had six weeks of scrutiny.
Parliament's Environment Select Committee failed to make any changes given the tight deadline, but it reported back with recommendations, including a minimum 20 percent space for planting, grass, or tree canopy, and a greater say for councils to allow exemptions for the likes of historic heritage neighbourhoods and ancestral lands.
"If the Bill failed to address the recommendations made by the committee and the concerns that we have raised, then we would regretfully have to walk away," Willis told Newsroom.
Ardern said it would surprise her if National wants to make changes.
"That would be interesting to me because of course at the core of the development of those discussions was their new deputy leader Nicola Willis, so I would be surprised if there were significant changes to those plans. But look, we'll be talking about it again this week," she told The AM Show on Monday.
"I note though that from the National Party, basically the only thing I've heard that they've suggested around addressing the housing crisis has been RMA [Resource Management Act] reform. We've been working on that for some time and I would've expected that if that continues to be the thing that they think is the most significant around the housing crisis, I would expect that they would continue to support it.
"I'm saying I would be surprised by that given their new deputy leader was a part of the discussions when we were putting those proposals together in the first place."
Solving a housing crisis
It comes as new poll results from data insights firm Kantar show two out of five Kiwis want the Government to forcibly bring down house prices. It reflects the latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor findings which show housing is the top issue for Kiwis despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
It's not hard to see why. The national average asking price rose 3.4 percent to a record $969,604 in November, from the previous month. Recent figures from Quotable Value showed a jump of 60.4 percent in average residential house values across Wellington since 2018. Every suburb in the capital is now worth more than $1 million.
The Government announced a suite of policies in March to try and help first-home buyers into the market. It included the controversial move to end tax deductions on interest costs for rental properties, after it was revealed investors made up the biggest share of buyers in the housing market.
Since becoming leader, Luxon's property portfolio - including three investment properties and a Remuera home worth more than $7 million - has come under the spotlight.
"You can attack me for being successful. I can't defend that," he told Newshub.
Ardern said the status quo cannot continue.
"If we are all focussed on making sure that we see first-home buyers able to enter the market, and if we want to see investment in our productive economy, rather than sometimes speculative investment, then we do want to change up the playing field in housing," she told The AM Show.
"We have made a number of changes to do that and we do expect that it will start to make a difference in our housing environment. It is taking time, but that has been about trying to reorientate investors away from the housing market into productive parts of the economy.
"We need to get people away from just seeing the housing market as the only investment option for them because that for too long we think has contributed to what we're seeing in the housing market."
The good news is supply is increasing. In the year to October, 47,715 new homes were consented, up 26 percent.
ASB Bank expects house prices will fall in the second half of 2022 as supply meets demand, interest rates increase and credit conditions tighten.
