First debate Dunne anddusted
Wellington’s Ohariu is proving to be an electorate to watch, and didn’t disappoint as it served up its first candidates’ debate.
Starting on Wednesday night with the announcement of an 11th-hour contender in Greens’ Tane Woodley, the departure of incumbent MP Peter Dunne barely got a mention as candidates tackled topics from the housing crisis to immigration.
In front of a crowd of about 150, National candidate Brett Hudson used his opening address to talk about an economy that, in his eyes, was ‘‘going gang busters’’.
‘‘180,000 jobs have been created in the last two years, the average wage has risen,’’ he said.
Labour’s Greg O’Connor, who led the poll which triggered Dunne’s retirement, said while Hudson might boast of a ‘‘rock star economy’’, many Kiwis ‘‘don’t feel welcome at the concert where the rock star is playing.’’
‘‘They can’t afford to be there. Just today I was in the Newlands Bus Depot, and just as the surplus was announced they are looking at pay cuts – people who earn an hourly wage which most of us wouldn’t even contemplate living on,’’ he said.
The housing crisis was a hot topic, and Hudson was quick to place the blame on town planners and councils, saying they had imposed ‘‘artificial constraints’’ on the availability of land for development, causing land prices to skyrocket.
Polls might suggest Ohariu is a two-horse race, but it didn’t seem anyone had told TOP candidate Jessica Hammond Doube that.
Arguably the most combative of the bunch, Doube rejected Hudson’s statements, saying an $11 billion property tax loophole was to blame for fuelling speculation and pushing prices up.
‘‘If you have money in New Zealand and you invest it in land, you invest it in property, you are sitting on a goldmine!
‘‘It’s not that there aren’t enough houses, it’s that there isn’t enough tax on this asset,’’ she said.
‘‘People aren’t buying houses for shelter, they are buying them to make money.’’
Woodley said Hudson was passing the buck by blaming councils, and cities had to grow up, not out, as they did in Europe.
Woodley also criticised Hudson’s reasoning, after the National candidate claimed a capital gains tax would not work in discouraging speculation, because it would only bring gains from property into parity with other taxable earnings.
Woodley called Hudson’s statements ‘‘a logical fallacy’’, pointing out that any taxation would be more effective than none.
New Zealand First candidate Lisa Close echoed the party’s line on immigration throughout the debate, and said the 72,000 immigrants arriving each year was fuelling house price rises.
No other candidates were present.