It's no surprise that housing and infrastructure feature prominently
Ahead of the election on October 14, when Kiwi voters will decide whether to grant the Labour Party its third term or switch direction to the centre-right National Party, Reuters has picked out the main issues likely to dominate the debate over the next month – and one of them, unsurprisingly, is housing and infrastructure.
The critical shortage of affordable housing has long caused a headache for the Labour government, with rents at record high and NZ-owned Kiwibank estimating a shortfall of 23,000 homes in the year to June.
The government said it has delivered more than 12,000 public housing units since coming into power in October 2017, and has vowed to add more than 3,000 publicly owned housing units by 2025.
Supply has continued to fall short of demand, however, given the nation’s ever-increasing building costs, poor housing stock, and overcrowding. To address the housing dilemma, the National Party has proposed to unlock more land for housing, provide councils incentives to build more houses, and create new infrastructure financing tools.
Other hotly debated issues, Reuters said, include how to fix ageing water infrastructure, whether the government should build more roads and bridges, and how to improve public transport.
Cost of living is another key issue for the two political parties.
With inflation remaining elevated at 6% and the OCR at a 15-year record high of 5.5%, many Kiwi households were tightening their purse strings to cope with increased living costs.
Chris Hipkins, who became prime minister in January, succeeding Jacinda Ardern, has nudged his Labour Party into the limelight when he put the focus of the government on what he termed as “bread and butter issues.”
The government increased childcare subsidies, reduced public transport costs, and started providing more free school lunches, in a bid to support people on middle incomes.
The opposition said Labour was to blame for surging costs and has vowed to cut taxes and curb inflation, if elected.
Other issues expected to take centre stage in the next few weeks are foreign policy, climate change, economy and business confidence, and social justice, according to a Reuters report.
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