Issue #918

by Paul Taylor

New Zealand will go to the polls to elect the next Government on Saturday, 14 October, just over a month away. Unfortunately, for Queenstown Lakes it appears neither of the major political parties have decided to be its white knight, riding to the rescue with concrete solutions to its infrastructure funding and housing issues.

Queenstown’s long been a National town and whatever happens next month it’s odds-on Joseph Mooney will remain as MP, perhaps also becoming New Zealand tourism minister, which could help.

But when National Party leader Christopher Luxon launched his tourism election pledges up at Skyline last week, it all seemed tone deaf to our needs. More-bums-on-seats tourism backed by turbo-charged immigration. It’s very ten years ago. National will remove rules which make businesses pay migrants 95% of the median wage, around $30. This will encourage potentially “tens of thousands” of people to leave their home countries to work in NZ. Cheap labour, headed for Queenstown Lakes.

Good news for business owners, but surely the answer to Queenstown’s growth pressures is not encouraging much more growth. It also leaves everyone asking the obvious question: where will they all live? After all, this comes a week after National announced it will once again allow overseas buyers to purchase NZ property worth more than $2 million, and attempt to tax them for the privilege. What’s that going to do to the housing market?

Luxon also ruled out a bed tax, or visitor levy, for Queenstown Lakes, at least in the short term - something the district council was banking on to ease the burden on ratepayers, who’ve just swallowed a 14.5% annual hike. Instead, National will establish a National Infrastructure Agency to help places with high visitor numbers but low ratepayer bases, such as Queenstown Lakes. That all seems a bit ‘please sir, can I have some more’ territory, going cap in hand to central government, just as we have to under Labour.

Don’t get me wrong, Labour are no better. Local median house prices remain at an all time high, around $1.7m, so do rents, if you can find one. Inflation is high, wages are high, and infrastructure funding is scarce, and most of what we do get we have to match-fund, through rates, with council picking up budget blowouts. Hardly a vote-for-me track record, even taking Covid into account. At least the destination management plans Labour ordered Destination Queenstown and the likes to draw up have a more holistic approach to the benefits of tourism, but then, Labour is now not providing funding for them to be actioned.

Perhaps we’re not making enough noise about our problems and the funding blackhole the council faces, because whoever is in power after next month’s election, Queenstown looks a bit buggered, relatively speaking of course. Still, if I don’t like it, at least I can flick my home an overseas buyer for $2m, more than double what it’s worth, and move.