Whānau Build

“Ko te whare e tū ana ki te pārae he kai nā te ahi, ko te whare e tū ana ki te pātūwatawata koina te tohu o te rangatira”

Executive Summary

Our Rights

All whānau have a right to a constant, warm, leak-free secure home.

All tāmariki have a right to a warm, safe home with the same health, welfare and support systems wrapped around them that non-Māori take for granted.

Our Injustices

New Zealanders all know there is a housing crisis, even non-Maori live in cars, garages and under hedges. However, it is only when non-Māori also suffer in a housing crisis that the Government then decide to do something.

A Māori voice and position has never been heard, we suffer in silence as second-class citizens in our own land. We are an afterthought, not a forethought.

The Maori Party will;

1. Build 2000 houses on our ancestral lands and we will do this in the next two years.

2. Ensure fifty percent of all new social housing allocated to Māori to give our Whānau and tamariki a fair go in education, health and welfare.

3. Ensure immigration to New Zealand is curbed until the supply side of housing meets the demand side.

4. Stop all sales of freehold land to offshore foreign interests.

5. Place a 2% tax on the capital value of a vacant or empty house if they remain unoccupied for 3 months or longer in any one year.

6. The Overseas Investment Act must apply to all residential housing purchases as many of these ghost/vacant houses are owned by foreign interests.

7. Add a Capital Gains Tax on all property set at 2% of the appreciation per annum – other than on the whānau home.

8. Ensures the Government re-enter the housing market to develop and build state housing stock.

Context

Our Māori Reality

Since 1986, the number of Māori forced to rent has increased by 88.3%. Seventy percent of Māori cannot afford homes and are living in rentals. One third of Māori live in a house considered damp and or overcrowded.

Māori make up 50% of the waiting list for Social Housing. Thirty three percent of all Māori will shift residence every three years.

There were 191,646 unoccupied dwellings on census night, 2018. Thirty-eight thousands of those ghost dwellings were in Auckland.

At the rate of Kiwi Build delivery, we will turn out the 100,000 promised new houses in 436 years. That will make Prime Minister Jacinda Arden 476 years old when she opens the 100,000th Kiwi Build House.

Solution

The Maori Party will;

1. Build 2000 houses on our ancestral lands, we will do this in the next two years. Reconnection to our whenua

We will build 2000 houses on our ancestral lands, we will do this in the next two years.

Cost: $600 million

These houses will be funded by the state as a long-overdue investment that others have taken for granted. It will help in resetting and reorganising Māori whānau and Māori whenua by making available land for Papakaīnga and ensuring that our land is used in the best possible way. It will contribute in large part to the re-establishment of our marae-based communities that were ripped apart by urbanisation of the 1950s and 1960s.

Māori construction workers and trade trainees will spearhead these projects.

2. Ensure fifty percent of all new social housing must be allocated to Māori to give our Whānau and tamariki a fair go in education, health and welfare.

Social Housing for Whānau

Fifty percent of all new social housing must be allocated to Māori so to give our Whānau and tamariki a fair go in education, health and welfare. By having certainty with long-term housing, then we can look to enduring outcomes for stronger, healthier whānau.

3. Ensure immigration to New Zealand is curbed until the supply side of housing meets the demand side.

Indigenous First

Māori must now come first, not last. Māori must be a forethought, not an afterthought. Too many vacant houses are owned by foreign interests and too many social houses are given to non-Māori who have been in the country less than five years.

It is important to still manaaki our refugee and displaced whanaunga and bring in skills where required.  But for us to exercise manaaki we have to commit to indigenous first so that we can then support others later.

4. Stop all sales of freehold land to offshore foreign interests

Not One More Acre!

Stop all sales of freehold land to offshore foreign interests. Freehold sales will be replaced by leasehold sales opportunities only.

5. A 2% tax on the capital value of a ghost house will apply to vacant residential houses if they remain unoccupied for 3 months or longer in any one year.

Vacant Housing Tax

A 2% tax on the capital value of a ghost house will apply to vacant residential houses if they remain unoccupied for 3 months or longer in any one year.

This policy is expected to free up over 50,000 houses and ensure that an asset class that people invest in but can never lose has some consequences for the greater common good of our country.

6. Capital Gains Tax

A Capital Gains Tax on all property set at 2% of the appreciation per annum – other than on the whānau home.

7. Kāinga Ora

Ensures the Government re-enters the housing market to develop and build state housing stock.