How Ardern’s coalition is doing
How Ardern’s coalition is doing
Is it ever possible to win at health? Noone can stop people dying. In fact, the longer people live, the sicker they get, and the more costly their care becomes. At worst, the health portfolio is a hospital pass. That said, it is possible to ‘‘win’’ at health: Helen Clark,
Annette King, Jenny Shipley, and Bill English survived the portfolio and went on to bigger and better things. Will current minister David Clark be able to say the same?
The good news stories come from the Budget. Enormous capital investment – more than $2 billion – has been approved in the last two Budgets to build more hospital and healthcare facilities.
New Zealand is getting some new hospital assets, including a new hospital in Dunedin. Mental health is getting money too. After a long inquiry, which was subject to some well-deserved criticism, the Government accepted most of the recommendations, which mainly revolved around funding and new services. After years of agitation from the sector, and in broader society, it looks like mental health is being taken seriously by the Government.
But there are some dark spots too, and big ones. National’s Michael Woodhouse argues, with validity, that National was on track to spend more than Labour on health this term. The measles outbreak is also a damning stain on the Government’s record in health. It has led to calls for the reinstatement of more rigorous health targets. There’s also the looming problem of district health board deficits, which rose to $1 billion this year. It’s no secret that DHBs have a massive funding problem. The Government has a friend in Heather Simpson, Helen Clark’s former chief of staff, who is reviewing the health system and will make recommendations next year on fixing it. It will take these changes to the next election, meaning the 2020 election campaign could focus on how much change – and money – Kiwis want to see in their troubled health system. Thomas Coughlan
Two years into the Government’s term, housing is far from Labour’s strong point, but it is not a total area of failure. The huge shining failure is KiwiBuild, the promise from Labour to build 100,000 affordable homes in 10 years. After months of backdowns and embarrassment over the policy, the Government has significantly scaled it back: getting rid of the 100,000 target, buying back many of the homes to sell on the private market because no-one wanted them, and allowing a small proportion of the homes to sell above the ‘‘affordability’’ cap – which the Government also raised in Auckland.
KiwiBuild is the only policy failure of this Government thus far to lead to a minister losing their job, with Phil Twyford being swapped out of housing and Megan Woods taking over. There are some happy families living in what look to be well-built KiwiBuild developments. But nowhere near enough of them.
The Government has found frustration elsewhere in the portfolio. Labour did not persuade NZ First to support a capital gains tax, one of the larger changes it had been keen on to douse down the property investment market. It did manage to extend the ‘‘bright line test’’ and close negative gearing loopholes, although some economists suggest that will drive up rents.
More concretely the Government has passed an effective foreign buyers’ ban on residential property, something all three parties agreed on.
So what effect has this had on the market? According to the Real Estate Insitute, median house prices have continued to cool after a peak in 2016, dropping from $1.21m in September of 2017 to $1.14m last month.
Media house prices in Wellington have grown significantly, however, from $756,000 in that period, and this has helped keep the median price for the entire country on its upwards trajectory, from $541,000 in the month of the election to $615,000 last month.
In the rental space things have moved very slowly. The largest intervention from the Government has been its Healthy Homes Standards, which set much higher standards for rental properties, but aren’t yet in effect. (That insulation change actually comes from a 2016 law.)
Labour also promised a much more radical reform of tenancy laws to give tenants more power with an end to nocause terminations, limits and transparency on rent rises, and the banning of letting fees.
In the end, it sliced off the letting fees ban and has pushed all the others out for consultation. A year after that consultation ended we are yet to see an actual bill, although new minister Kris Faafoi promises us something is coming ahead of next year.
Rents have continued a steady rise, particularly in Wellington. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment figures for Auckland have average rent rising from $494 a week for new tenancies in September 2017 to $523 in September 2019 – a bump of $29 a week. For comparison, in the previous two years it rose $26 a week.
Finally, Labour promised to do more to support those worst hit by housing costs, by stopping state-home sales and rebuilding the state housing stock. It has definitely stopped large-scale state-home selloffs and has dramatically increased the overall stock of state homes. There were 61,437 state homes in June 2017 and 61,084 two years later, along with increases in emergency/transitional housing and community group housing too.
State house building had been ramping up after National reduced the net stock in its early years in government, giving Labour a bit of a running start. In mid-2019 there were roughly nine times as many public houses being built as there were in 2016. – Henry Cooke