Clayton Mitchell New Zealand First MP

The UK is having to get practical about the challenges to housing caused by unsustainable immigration. This blue government still refuses to admit both that we have a housing crisis, and that one of its major causes - like in Britain - is record net immigration.

Currently, the UK is suffering from its own housing crisis. Politicians including former Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith warn that immigration is "pricing young people out of the housing market". Lord Green of Deddington has said the crisis and its costs will continue to grow unless a 'sustainable' level of migration is achieved.

Does this sound familiar to anyone here in New Zealand?

The UK has at least started doing something towards their crisis, by looking at constructing upwards of 100,000 pre-packed "modular" homes towards its target of providing one million new homes by 2020.

It seems that New Zealand's blue government is still unwilling to face up to the fact that our level of net migration is unsustainable - or they're only willing to tinker with the "backlog" of parent visa migration at most. And if there is no problem, in their minds they don't need to look at solutions.

We still have working families sleeping in their cars, because we have more people who need somewhere to live, than we have places for them. It's basic maths: if we have 97,000 (total population increase) extra people needing houses each year, and we're only adding 10,000 to the housing stock, we're going to have to cram 9.7 people into each new house, or figure out how to up the housing stock figure, or cut the 'extra people' figure.

We, at New Zealand First believe that 10 to 14,000 net immigration is sustainable and practical for meeting any skills shortages we might have - not the current 70,000. If this blue government won't learn from their mistakes here, we should at least expect them to learn from the challenges Britain and other countries are facing.