HOUSING SHORAGE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 2, 22 July 1946, Page 5

HOUSING SHORAGE

INDUSTRY IN CHAOTIC STATE MR W. SULLIVAN’S CRITICISM Housing problems were dealt with by Mr W. Sullivan (National, Bay of Plenty) speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives. “First,” he said, “what we want in New Zealand is a reduc-ed-cost drive and a drive for 1 production. It is useless for the Government or the Ministers responsible to try to dodge the issue. We are short of commodities on every hand, and no special call has been made by those responsible to get supplies built up so that the number of homes required may be provided.”

Loss of Initiative

During the war most people worked for the Government and they were not greatly concerned about costs. The result was that to- - day, no matter what the industry, there was a certain lack of efficiency. That existed because managers, foremen, and everyone else asociated with those industries had lost their initiative or the desire to produce the goods needed. Consumers therefore, were paying much greater prices for many commodities than they should be paying. That aspect of the matter should be examined and there must be a drive to reduce costs. “Labour members will at once accuse' me of desiring to reduce wages,” he said, “but nothing is further from my mind. The first thing I want to see done is a • reduction in taxation by the Government. That reduction could have been brought about in the Budget last year, but the Government did^-

not care to do it then. If the Government will reduce some of the taxation now applied to the industries of the Dominion consumers generally will get goods at much reduced cost. We have got to realise that taxation is the greatest item of cost in our industries, and, moreover, that the heavy taxation now imposed is acting like a brake on a vehicle going uphill.” Burden of Increased Costs In the building industry there, were increased costs in every, direction, said Mr Sullivan, and all those costs were passed on to the consumer. “The whole building industry is in an almost chaotic state, and the average worker today is further away, under this Labour Government, from owning his own home than ever before in the history of New Zealand,” he remarked. “The whole bottleneck tqday is the shortage of materials, largely brought about by the Government’s own actions. We are short of cement because the cement companies cannot’ get to keep their kilns working; we are short of bricks and timber largely due to Government policy; we are short of fibrous plaster because we cannot get gypsum from Australia. We are short of other * commodities associated with the building industry. It is futile for Labour member to say that their obective is 12,000 or 20,000 houses a year. We have only to look around the country and we shall see houses built to a certain stage and lying idle for want of roofs. ' There are many houses built by the State not many miles from here which are completed’but which are lying idle. because there are no baths to put in them.

Sales Tax Should Be Lifted “The first thing the Government should do is to remove all obstacles to production. They should remove the sales tax on all building materials. They should also cease issuing currency through the Reserve Bank which continues to aggravate an already bad situation so far as inflation is concerned and continues to build up costs higher. The Government should remove the excessive taxation that is now imposed on industry and they should open the gates for the import of commodities from overseas that we can acquire without injuring manufacturing industries in* this country.”