Money talks, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop, and he's banking on that incentive encouraging councils that consent more homes.
Appearing before the social service select committee this week, Bishop laid out the thinking between a raft of changes to housing, including housing growth and social housing rent.
“The broad government view is that rewarding growth is important, because money talks, and councils have argued for this for years and years and years," Bishop said.
Councils will receive a payment for infrastructure as an incentive based on a proportion of the national average new dwelling consent value. As part of Budget 2026, the Government allocated $400 million over four years for the Incentives for Growth Fund.
National MP Maureen Pugh asked how the scheme would work if it was oversubscribed.
Bishop said there was the funding cap, but it could be adjusted depending on how the scheme went.
“So payments are based on the national average residential building consent value, as well as the number of consents granted, and the number of existing dwellings in each council's territory, funding per consent is awarded with rates increasing with proportion of new dwellings to existing dwellings."
“The point is we're trying to design a system where it's relative to the existing houses that are already there, and if you get the rate of growth going… at a high rate, you get quite a lot more, so it's a progressive [system]," Bishop said.
The policy was designed to change the political economy of housing "so that councils see housing growth not just as a burden… but they actually gain a financial benefit out of that".
"It’s essentially a form of progressive incentives, so the harder you go and the more houses you get through, the better you do as a council. The more you do the more money there is."
Bishop said there was a range of work underway on national direction in the new planning system, with measures such as setting housing growth targets which they were "working out exactly what that looks like in practice, more mixed use up-zoning around transit corridors…"
Bishop was also questioned by MPs about the changes to social housing, which will increase the rent contribution - currently 25% of a social housing tenant’s income - to 30% in phases from April next year. That will see 84,000 households’ rent increase by an average of $31 a week.
Asked by Greens housing spokesperson Tamatha Paul why 30% of a person’s income was chosen, Bishop, referring to the previous proportion, said: “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why 25%?”
Paul responded saying it was due to “international measures that say 25% is affordable.”
“I'm not sure that's the rationale as to why government income related rent subsidy support is 25%, I suspect it's just a finger in the air, and that seemed like the right amount of money,” Bishop said.
“There's no particular science to it, we thought it was an appropriate amount to lift to create a more equitable system… And we felt that was appropriate.”
He said it was part of a suite of measures being worked on.
“It's not just about that, but it's about the social assessment system criteria, it's about looking at duration limits, it's looking at the criteria for support… so that people have the ability to leave social housing and be more independent. These things work together as a package to create a more sustainable social housing system.”
Later, Paul said they were trying to understand “who doesn't need to be in public housing.”
“Because I think we've got a good idea of who needs public housing, those for whom private housing isn't an option…”
Bishop said the work was underway.
“This reform journey around social housing is the next two to three years, and probably longer."
Bishop said he was upfront with people about not having all the answers straight away.
“We will be engaging with the community housing sector, social sector more broadly, we're doing some active work at the moment around exactly what that looks like,” said Bishop.
10 Comments
I think more explanation from National about what they are trying to do at the big scale is needed, but they are at least trying to do something about growing our housing stock and promoting change to local government attitudes to development.
It remains to be seen if the incentives given will be enough to push progress through the labyrinth-cum-fortress that is local politics, planning and doctrine, in any kind of reasonable time.
Except there already too many people in NZ, in terms of long-term maintainability.
So ADDING sprawl - adding maintenance demand meaning adding to entropy - is going in the wrong direction.
'The broad government view is that rewarding growth is important' is the nitty-gritty false belief. Shared by most, but false.
Ironically, physical curtailments mean the next 'doubling-time' is impossible, so don't blame human activity from here on - increasingly forward bets will not be underwritten by the planet/topography/distance/energy supply/demand.
The yeasts are in charge. Yeasty behavior is the only expected outcome. It's bad news for the rest of the biosphere sure and quality of life for yeasts ultimately. We need to stay focused through the drumbeat of growth, growth, growth......
Humans are such simple little creatures, in spite of our mythology.
My good friend used to post here as Scarfie.
Natural carrying capacity of New Zealand probably about 2 million without imported fuel. So traditional Maori style living off wood pigeons and Kumara was about what we can expect. We could breed horses and do limited agriculture. What is sustainable for fisheries?. So way less population is long term sustainable. Although we've still got the interior of the South Island, that was largely deserted.
I am slightly less pessimistic, I can easily run a small beef herd here without a tractor. Fencing would be an issue long term.
A Capitalistic NAct will never be able to "sell" a sustainable, limited growth future to people who have been lied to their whole lives. Rather the left and the right will promise growth to an increasingly disillusioned middle class, while the economy fails to provide any growth, and society suffers from rising crime and youth disillusionment. Existing debt levels may not be repaid, that's a problem...
And if existing debt cannot be repaid, additional credit will not be offered. Throw in AI for shits and giggles, if AI causes 10% job loss our consumption based society is over as we know it, I feel somewhat hopeful that somewhere, way in the future we will eventually be grateful for not having to work.
I remember scarfie.
"We've got the interior of the South Island"? What are the plans for that? Expeditions for rabbit meat?
Have to remember much food (and soil fertility) we produce is exported, so there's slack in the system there. What would production look like without FFs and imported fertiliser? Around two million might be pretty close. Farming would look more like the late 1800s than traditional Maori. Regular climate events would damage large parts of food production, Grain growing in Canterbury might cease owing to increasingly wet summers and without agchem and fert inputs. Can't really justify those scarce inputs when there's a 50% chance of failure.
We're not going to have 2 million though. More like a starving lifeboat of 50 million, with more arrivals every day and the food system in a state of collapse.
Will these ridiculously gloomy comments ever end?
Chris Luxon "New Zealanders who do the right thing by working hard, saving up and investing deserve a Government that backs them - not to be punished with more taxes that hit their investments and make them worse off."
Um Chris. Kiwi saver is kind of a tax. Sure, you may get something back if you live that long and the bubble hasn't burst over the next 50 years (resource limits, collapsing biosphere, oligarchy stealing everything they can pilfer?), but until then it's the state with it's hand in your pocket handing your cash to the corporatocracy.
Spot on palm tree…
after reading your post I’ve spent twenty minutes reading the government superfund website trying to find out what actual return of cash dividends are received….nada
Does anyone know? Or are we just feeding the worlds largest ever ponzi?
Can you imagine the state of the nation if everyone’s KiwiSaver balances halved…or worse.
Kiwisaver is increasingly a bet on Ponzis (AI for instance) coupled with reducing resource supplies.
If currency survives - which I suspect it won't - then exponentially-increasing inflation (it's the only fit).
Bottom line: increasingly more forward bets won't be underwritten.
Until they can stabilise the Auckland property market, National's chances of winning a seat in Auckland is zilch and Chloe's disgruntled disciples will rule the day. Bishop should join the Labour party as his antics are undermining the already fragile property market. Small businesses that rely on mortgaging their house to grow their companies (and their employee payrolls) are snookered in a declining property market.
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