12. Question No. 12—HousingCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Minister of HousingQuestion No. 12—Housing12. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Housing: Does she agree that rent prices are contributing to hardship; if so what steps if any will she take to lower them?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): In answer to the first part like all fixed household expenses rent can be a cause of material hardship for some people. This is why our Government has been working hard to improve household incomes including increasing Working for Families tax credits the minimum wage benefits and superannuation; indexing benefits annually to the increases in wages; and increasing the accommodation supplement from 1 April 2018. In response to the second part of the question the Government has taken steps to specifically improve affordability for renters including limiting rent increases to once per year prohibiting landlords from seeking rental bids and banning letting fees but ultimately the best way to lower rents is to increase the supply of affordable housing. It is important to recognise that rent increases are driven by long-run supply shortages in the housing market. This is the housing crisis that has been decades in the making and it's why this Government is so focused on delivering new supply. For example the national increase for the Statistics New Zealand rents price increase for the year to February 2022 was 4.6 percent. In regions like Auckland and Canterbury which have had a lot of residential building activity and therefore increased supply rents increased by 2.7 percent in Auckland and 3 percent in Canterbury for the same period.Chlöe Swarbrick: How long specifically will it take for rents in Aotearoa to become affordable with the Minister's aforementioned supply-side interventions alone noting that one quarter of renters currently spend more than 40 percent of their income on housing?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think we find consensus through just about every economist in the country that will point to our current rental and housing crisis being a supply-side problem amongst other things but I think if you have a look at for example the Green Party's aspiration to limit rent increases to 2.8 percent as put out in their policy today I think we can see that we've actually seen Auckland through a supply-side intervention already performing better than that with rental price index increases limited to 2.7 percent.Chlöe Swarbrick: Will the Minister seriously consider rent controls or would she prefer to rely on the discretion of landlords to lower rents to affordable levels out of the goodness of their hearts?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think we can point to a suite of policies that our Government has already put in place like limiting to once a year stopping bidding and letting fees but I also point the member to Shamubeel Eaqub's comment who said that rent controls can have an unintended effect of slowing down the supply of housing in the rental market. He said It seems like a deceptively simple thing to do: just stop rents rising and everything will be fine … But it isn't that simple there are known consequences. It means that we are likely to have fewer rentals." We have a housing crisis in New Zealand because we do not have enough houses and our Government is absolutely committed to supply-side solutions.Ricardo Menéndez March: How long does she expect it will take for all the people on the public housing waiting list to have a suitable secure and affordable home to live in?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: We have a public housing build programme that is the largest of any Government since the 1970s. One of the points of both sadness and frustration for us as a Government however is that we are making up for the squandered opportunities of the previous Government. Not only did they end up with 1500 fewer houses than they started with but if they had built at the same rate as we did there would be over 22000 more public houses in New Zealand today accounting for 85 percent of the current waiting list. So while we are pulling every lever unfortunately we are playing catch-up for the gutting of public housing by the previous National Government.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry before the member asks a question can I ask the Hon Kris Faafoi to stop shouting behind the Minister answering the question.Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she believe she is pulling all the levers to fix the housing crisis and if so will she consider an in-house construction entity to increase the supply of public housing as proposed by FIRST Union in its A Ministry of Green Works for Aotearoa New Zealand report?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Our Government is under no illusions about the size and the complexity of the housing crisis. It is decades in the making and there is no one single simple fix to the housing crisis. We have to be combining both supply and demand levers and we have to make sure that we're exploring every opportunity. I think that we can see that we are already starting to see the green shoots of some of that activity. If we look to Auckland and we look to Canterbury we can see that we have had significantly lower rental price index increases in those centres because they are also the centres that have had increased supply of housing."