“I hope that everyone is surviving winter OK. We recently passed the shortest day of the year, in late June, and, just to freak everyone out, we are now closer to the upcoming Christmas than we are from the last one. I’m not ready for any bells to starting jingling, personally!
In the meantime, the prevailing sentiment locally seems to be that everyone is looking to “survive til ‘25”, as the business gurus on LinkedIn would put it. Or, in normal person language, clearly there are still some tough times out there but the occasional ray of sunshine as well.
For my part, I am interested to know how we can make life easier for people in northwest Auckland and beyond. I am rapidly learning that a very small proportion of government is about finding the right way to spend other people’s money. While government should allow people to retain as much as possible – hence a platform of lower taxes, even if relatively modest relief – there are other steps that ministers can take to maximise value.
Among the most powerful of these is the removal of unnecessary regulation, aka cutting red tape. I recently announced that we will be enabling smaller structures to be built on land without the need for resource consent or building consent. This was a policy promoted by coalition partner NZ First that the government as a whole has adopted.
This “granny flat” policy will be important to a number of people in northwest Auckland: rural properties that can more easily have a worker cottage, elderly folk or younger people can enjoy independent living without a whole new section needed etc.
It also provides a small window (if you will excuse the pun) into some other possibilities that could make it easier to use land out here.
There are a number of tiny home builders, for example, who are currently needing to be quite creative about getting around existing red tape.
Of course the usual disclaimer applies regarding housing, which is that we need more of it but also more of the infrastructure needed to support it. This is the story of Kumeu and surrounding areas and I have not forgotten that.
I hopefully will be able to let you know more soon about plans for a high school (and for now I would simply say that the Ministry of Education has been painfully slow for years now) as well as various road and other transport initiatives that we need.
It has been good to connect with many of you in the last couple of weeks, with Parliament having a “recess” period to coincide with the school holidays. However you are spending this time, take care and stay safe in the cold.”
