Jacinda Ardern ‘would be surprised’ if National seeks to change housing deal given new deputy Nicola Willis ‘was a part of discussions’ – Newshub

Ardern said it would surprise her if National wants to make changes.

"That would be interesting to me because of course at the core of the development of those discussions was their new deputy leader Nicola Willis, so I would be surprised if there were significant changes to those plans. But look, we'll be talking about it again this week," she told The AM Show on Monday.

"I note though that from the National Party, basically the only thing I've heard that they've suggested around addressing the housing crisis has been RMA [Resource Management Act] reform. We've been working on that for some time and I would've expected that if that continues to be the thing that they think is the most significant around the housing crisis, I would expect that they would continue to support it.

"I'm saying I would be surprised by that given their new deputy leader was a part of the discussions when we were putting those proposals together in the first place."

It comes as new poll results from data insights firm Kantar show two out of five Kiwis want the Government to forcibly bring down house prices. It reflects the latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor findings which show housing is the top issue for Kiwis despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

It's not hard to see why. The national average asking price rose 3.4 percent to a record $969,604 in November, from the previous month. Recent figures from Quotable Value showed a jump of 60.4 percent in average residential house values across Wellington since 2018. Every suburb in the capital is now worth more than $1 million.

The Government announced a suite of policies in March to try and help first-home buyers into the market. It included the controversial move to end tax deductions on interest costs for rental properties, after it was revealed investors made up the biggest share of buyers in the housing market.

Since becoming leader, Luxon's property portfolio - including three investment properties and a Remuera home worth more than $7 million - has come under the spotlight.

"You can attack me for being successful. I can't defend that," he told Newshub.

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Jacinda Ardern 'would be surprised' if National seeks to change housing deal given new deputy Nicola Willis 'was a part of discussions' - Newshub