I have seen the light: a former property investor
We are going to have a housing crisis in New Zealand as long as property investors find it an easy way to make money.
With rising house prices and no capital gains tax some people have made themselves very rich over the last 20 years. Over that period the number of people per house has remained stable at 2.7, however home ownership has dropped to 63%.
We have enough houses, it is just that now some people own lots of them. Property investors do not provide housing for people. When they go to an auction there will be people living in that dwelling and whether they buy it or not there will still be people living in it.
It’s all about who owns the property. They will outbid all the first home buyers and other investors and ensure themselves of tenants and in the process pushing up the price of houses.
One of the quickest roads to poverty in New Zealand is to not own a house, so the Labour Party has tried to make it more difficult to be a property investor, I am guessing with some success. The National Party wants to go back to almost square one.
Home ownership needs to rise and property investors need to naff off. Don’t take this personally because I have been one myself. Unfortunately too many of us have been.
Growth and stuff
Bob Lloyd’s letter (ODT, 25.9.23), asserting the misconception that economic growth and escalating climate change disasters are fatally linked and inseverable, suggests surrender to the sceptics. Stating today’s science proves this is just wrong; stating it will lead to a climate disaster defeatist conjecture.
Lindsay Brown’s approval (ODT, 30.9.23), claiming that continual growth is crazy and impossible, depreciates earth and human ability. Wind turbines do not release emissions that pollute. Hydropower development does emit greenhouse gases, though emissions per unit are much lower than fossil fuel. During operation, nuclear power plants produce almost no greenhouse gas emissions, with nuclear reactions containing enormous available energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, precious metals can be made and "rubbish" merely another utilisable resource.
We have ample untapped energy, enough reusable resources and the technology for minimal environmental impact. Our goal must be efficiency and purity, a circular economy which promotes economic growth, not a capitulation back to the dark ages, denying people useful "stuff".
More tax please
I believe the two most important issues facing New Zealand at this time are domestically, the state of our health system, and internationally, climate change. There are a number of other important issues that should be addressed but I will restrict myself to these two.
The health system requires a major injection of funding and, even if received, it will take several years to make a significant impact. I hear arguments that New Zealand emits such a small percentage of global emissions we can afford to be "lazy" about reducing our climate change policy. I reject that argument emphatically.
In my opinion government has to increase its tax revenue significantly: the question is how best to do that. I was disappointed that the current government rejected a capital gains tax and wealth tax. I would add stamp duty on property transactions and would welcome an informed discussion on these alternatives.
‘Woke’ far preferable to sexism or racism
Like Jim Sullivan (ODT 26.9.23) I do not like the term "woke". But I prefer it to the sexism and racism which it serves to replace.
Those who like to call women "bags", or use worse racist terms, should wake up, or like the dinosaurs they resemble, die out.
Words matter
John Bell (Letters, 26.9.23) appeals to proper construction of Te Tiriti. Agreed. But he may have overlooked that in supposedly ceding sovereignty to the British Crown, Māori were doing so to a person — Queen Victoria, the Monarch. There is no evidence that Māori ever intended to hand over sovereignty to a system of parliamentary democracy or that such a system would be the covenanting party at all.
If we are to talk about honouring the Treaty let us be careful not to conflate constitutionally discrete entities. And we should be very cautious about going down the road of exercising Pākehā numerical superiority in a system the Māori never signed up for, to their disadvantage. I suggest this would be dishonourable.
Not going to end well
Making the poorest people pay the price while the wealthy get all the gains is never going to end well. Our children will pay the highest price living in even more extreme poverty.
The National Party should be ashamed. And as under the Key government housing will again get further out of reach for first home buyers. Stopping foreign buyers from investing in our property market is the only way to make housing prices come down along with building more housing stock
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
