Solutions more valuable than sympathy

I agree, David. Vehemently.

The Reserve Bank this week had to make a trade-off between interest rates coming down, and the housing market in Auckland going bananas. They chose Auckland. It shows how bad things have got, and that it’s affecting other parts of the country.

But while we agree there’s a problem, we need solutions.

Yes, the urban growth boundary needs to go, but we need to replace it with a smarter approach to making room for growth. That means allowing more medium density in town centres and on transport routes, protecting areas of special value, and investment bonds to fund infrastructure that will make sure the ratepayer is not subsidising development in places where it is uneconomic.

But even that isn’t enough. The scale of the building programme we need will only be achieved if the Government instigates it. We have done it before, and we need to do it again.

And while that responds to our supply issues, we can also do something about demand. Nothing says to me that we have reached a tipping point than three of our major banks announcing that they will no longer lend to offshore buyers. The banks have done what our Government wouldn’t.

Meanwhile, we also need a determined emergency response on homelessness.

You call it a basket case, Steven Joyce calls it a ‘‘shortage in some areas.’’ Let’s call it what it is – a crisis – and deal with it that way. It’s time to start rolling out solutions. That’s the only way people will know that politicians are truly sorry.