Brian Fallow has a piece in the Herald today, prompted by the Productivity Commission report, that champions more active government involvement in the housing market, with barely a hint that anything governments do ever goes wrong. The words “masterplanned”, when uttered of the activities of government entities, other than tongue in cheek, should send something of a shiver of alarm through the citizenry, rather than a frisson of excitement. The track record isn’t good.
But what struck me was the claim that the Productivity Commission’s report “is unequivocal about the fact that we are dealing with market failure here”. Where, I wondered, was the evidence of the market being allowed to work? One might more accurately sum up the Auckland property market as the most probable outcome of two sets of government policies. Restrict the supply of land, and at the same time actively take steps to maintain rapid population growth, and…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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