Can anyone tell me

[Magoo]

how our Labour government was going to build 10,000 houses without Gib Board?
I would have thought the requisite materials be available so that at least someone, anyone, could build a house, as it seems the government wasnt genuinely going to do this but only paying lip service to an election promise 5 years later?

not an effing righty, shoot the protesters, not a lefty, knitting yoghurt. 
just a citizen with a passing interest in other peoples welfare. i have a house so unaffected, but it would seem others are being ignored in the name of political expedience.

just sayin'

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3005347...n-trade-me

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Be nice if we made enough of this stuff here. Mind you, be nice if we made a lot of the stuff we need here, like timber... instead of relying on cheap imports, and dodgy supply chains.

We used to... But I guess we forgot how.

[Magoo]

its not for want of trees.

[ObeWan]

A little confusing was this caption under one of the pictures?

“Fletcher Building said it was producing enough plasterboard each week for 1000 new homes.”

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Having worked in several roles within the Fletchers Group, there was often a gap between PR and reality.

I do wonder though, OP, whether it is ever feasible to provide all the necessary physical components for any government policy before it is released as part of campaign publicity...

And, after a quick check of their annual reports it would appear the group actually constructs around 1000 new builds annually so might well be using most of its own board production in its own builds.

[Magoo]

ive little doubt Fletchers own subsidiaries will be serviced first.

to me it belies the promises that were made as intentionally hollow, there was never any intention to build a lot of houses. (!0,000 laughable then as now.)
there was never going to be enough materials.

it also explains why Mr Twyford was given the task. his ineptitude almost guaranteeing the failure as failure rather than not really wanting to do it, scapegoat.

it worked. no houses, Twyfords an idiot promises forgotten. (not by me).
we were lied to pure and simple.

[Lilith7]

Be nice if we made enough of this stuff here. Mind you, be nice if we made a lot of the stuff we need here, like timber...  instead of relying on cheap imports, and dodgy supply chains.

We used to... But I guess we forgot how.

I'm so old that I can remember that. Factories & businesses everywhere, employing people & producing things we needed.
Thanks politicians...

[Magoo]

i keep hearing about a shortage of wood. but weve got huge forests
i live in tauranga, i see where it all goes. onto ships.
we seem to be occluded from our own market.

[girlgeorgina]

the timber goes the same way as meat and dairy... overseas for huge money. we are left with the off-cuts and rubbish in comparison.

[Magoo]

Hunni wrote
I do wonder though, OP, whether it is ever feasible to provide all the necessary physical components for any government policy before it is released as part of campaign publicity...

I'll buy that.

for about two seconds.
they were quite succinct, explicit even in their promise.
We'll be nice and take the whole five years shall we? five years to build 10,000 houses., i think im being generous as we were told one year..
knowing that construction already used a huge amount of product, this social housing was to go on top of, not instead of the private sector construction. then we would need to at least double our requirements for much of the materials needed.
we should have a glut of building product, sitting around waiting for Trevor and Jacinda to get off their asses and build houses with. what were they planning on getting?
none. didnt bother, didnt have to. didnt order anything, never intended to. 
no way we're building houses. just to make sure they left it to Phil.

so it wont be conspiracy theories or Covid or mandates that will see the denouement of the labour government, but telling malicious lies.  i say malicious because i propose it was done with intent. planned failure, of a promise that took them to power.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

They are building homes. We have seen 12 units go up next door - social housing, and just up Lake Road there is a village of multiple high rise clones of the ones next to us.

Which is good, so long as people like apartments. Mind you, the views will be stunning from the top floors. For a while.

[Lilith7]

There are some going up near here; several (hard to see as yet but perhaps 4-6) on what was two sections prior to the quakes. They look to be free standing units but hard to tell at this stage.

[Magoo]

They are building homes. We have seen 12 units go up next door - social housing, and just up Lake Road there is a village of multiple high rise clones of the ones next to us.

Which is good, so long as people like apartments. Mind you, the views will be stunning from the top floors. For a while.

righty oh then
lets generously say they had built 5000 homes, which they didnt, and five years later still havent.
where are the materials for the other 5000? did they cancel it? just in the first year, pre orders for the following year?
or was it never ordered? never ordered id say, at all.
why not? we needed it for 10,000 houses, short term, long term. 100,000 houses.
we budgeted for it. was mr twyford going to pop down to bunnings for it?

no, they were never going to build those houses.
it was a callous lie to win an election.
which doesnt really bother or impact me, i expect them to lie. but at least own it.

dont treat us like fools with double accounting and dodgy, manipulated numbers as an explanation.

and before we hear 'theyve built more than national', national did not use it as a platform to win an election.
anything they did was a matter of course, not results of flaccid promises.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/...mbers.html

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Expecting politicians not to exaggerate in their campaign promises is like expecting Santa to come down the chimney. Go ahead if it suits you, but don't complain when that happy event fails to eventuate.

You simply cannot expect creatures to go against their nature.

And if you vote based on campaign promises you are guaranteeing yourself a term of disappointments.

As for expecting governments to buy in the fixings for all their future policies, well, good luck with that...

[Magoo]

i just dont like being lied to so blatantly after the fact...
i expect incompetence, and when its achieved im not surprised.
incompetence is what we got, closer to no houses built than the 10,000 promised.
but now they are trying to dress it up as something else.
they had no intention, none, of providing social housing, one of the very few goals they have met with stunning success since being elected.

---

they are making it very very difficult to have any confidence or trust in anything they do.
this is how conspiracy theories take over real life, lack of trust in your government.
does everything they say and do have to be filtered and fact checked? like the trump administration?
not really what we want for government.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

I find it quite easy to trust our governments. For two reasons, one - I have no choice, and two - they are a hell of a lot better than some out there...

[harm_less]

And a comment on electioneering promises, they are cheap when you're not in power and have limited chance of gaining it. Luxon, and particularly Seymour, are very keen on stating "what National/ACT will do/repeal/enact" but there's more chance of Labour being in charge again next time around again. Where things really come unstuck is when the electorate is completely fooled by such promises enough to put one of these wombles in a position of real power. Witness the Trump presidency!

[Oh_hunnihunni]

True... but 'there is a tide in the affairs of men...'

I cannot help feeling we are inclined to repeat ourselves, and for every two steps forward to species maturity we seem to take at least one backwards.

I am glad that as a boomer, I lived through a period of enlightenment.