New Zealand’s housing crisis has reached catastrophic levels, with 2023 Census data exposing a grim reality: 112,496 Kiwis are severely housing deprived, couch-surfing, or sleeping rough. This isn’t just a statistic...it’s a national disgrace, rooted in decades of neoliberal policies championed by the National Party. Their market-driven dogma has gutted affordable housing, widened inequality, and left vulnerable communities to fend for themselves. Progressives must demand radical, transformative solutions to dismantle this legacy and reclaim housing as a human right.
The National Party’s fingerprints are all over this crisis. Since the 1990s, their neoliberal reforms...privatising state housing, slashing subsidies for first-home buyers, and deregulating the property market...have turned homes into speculative assets. The 2018 Census already showed 1% of the population in severe housing deprivation, but the 2023 data confirms the crisis has exploded. Auckland alone saw rough sleepers surge from 6 in 2013 to 120 in 2023, with boarding house residents nearly doubling to 2,190. National’s obsession with “market solutions” ignored the simple truth: unchecked capitalism doesn’t build homes for the poor. It builds mansions for the rich.
Under National’s watch, housing supply lagged behind population growth, with a 3.82% gap between dwelling and population increases from 2013 to 2023. Their 2013 Housing Accord, promising “affordable” homes, was a sham...defining affordability at 75% of median house prices, still unattainable for low-income families. Meanwhile, 33,360 Auckland homes sat empty in 2018, hoarded by speculators reaping tax-free capital gains. National’s refusal to tax empty homes or implement a comprehensive capital gains tax let landlords and investors run riot, pricing out first-time buyers and driving rents through the roof.
This isn’t just policy failure...it’s a betrayal of New Zealand’s egalitarian roots. Neoliberalism, as Jacobin noted in 2017, has “widened inequality and undermined the country’s self-image as an egalitarian paradise.” National’s cuts to social housing funding and reliance on motels for emergency accommodation (costing $1.3 billion since 2017) reveal a callous disregard for the vulnerable. Māori, disproportionately affected, face overcrowded, unhealthy homes, a direct legacy of colonisation and market-driven neglect.
Progressives must reject tinkering and demand bold action. First, a massive state-led housing program to build 50,000 affordable homes, prioritising Māori and low-income families. Second, a punitive empty homes tax (3-5% of land value, as in Vancouver) to force vacant properties onto the market. Third, a capital gains tax to curb speculation and fund social housing. Finally, rent controls and stronger tenant protections to shield renters from predatory landlords. These aren’t pipe dreams...they’re proven policies from nations that treat housing as a right, not a commodity.
The housing crisis is a human rights disaster, and National’s neoliberal legacy is its architect. Progressives must channel the radical spirit of our forebears, reject half-measures, and fight for a New Zealand where every Kiwi has a home. The time for excuses is over.
