The ACT Party calls the Greens' pledge to improve renters' rights if elected to Government "as damaging as it is predictable".
In a press release on Sunday, ACT's housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden warned it would make rental issues worse, and shows how a Labour-Greens-Te Paati Māori Government would leave New Zealand "poorer and more divided".
On Sunday the Green Party released its Pledge to Renters policy, promising that in the first 100 days of a new Government it would introduce a Renters' Rights Bill to ensure rent is affordable and homes are warm, dry and healthy.
Rent controls would put a limit on how much landlords can increase rent each year, homes would need to have a Rental Warrant of Fitness and there will be a national register of landlords and property managers to show who owns rental properties and how much rent is charged.
The Greens would also provide a Government-backed underwrite to help community providers build new rental homes, and accelerate the public building programme.
But van Velden said this will take rentals off the market without boosting supply.
"It also continues the Greens' damaging approach of singling out and othering groups of people for political gain," she said in a release.
"The Greens' ideas amount to increasing the cost of renting out a house with more bureaucracy and then reducing the benefits with rent control.
"If your costs go up and the benefits are capped, the net result will be fewer homes for rent, less competition for tenants, and lower quality rental housing. In other words, the opposite of their intention - but economics was never the Greens' strong suit."
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said her party's policies are necessary due to successive Governments' decisions, which are "disproportionately hurting the 1.4 million New Zealanders who rent".
"For far too long, inaction by successive Governments has forced thousands of people to pay through the roof to live in cold, damp, and unhealthy homes that are making them sick," she said in a statement accompanying the policy release.
"Over the course of the next few months, other political parties will likely make promises to improve housing in Aotearoa. But the reality is, they will do little more than tinker around the edges of the problem. Only the Green Party will take the bold action necessary to fix the problem."
Labour has countered the Greens' announcement, with Housing Minister Megan Wood declaring many of their proposals are already underway.
"Labour has already begun making substantial improvements for renters, with rental standards and limits on rent rises, as well as a massive public house building programme that would continue under Labour," Wood told Newshub.
"Labour will release its housing policy before the election."
Van Velden meanwhile said Labour has failed to make it easier to build or rent a house.
"If more obligations for landlords was the answer, then the last five years of Healthy Homes, making evictions harder, a 10-year bright line test, and removing mortgage interest deductibility would made New Zealand a renters' paradise," she said.
"Instead, things have got worse, and the Greens' policy effectively tells landlords that the beatings will continue until morale improves."
Instead, ACT policies include:
- Reforming the RMA on a property rights basis, with the presumption that you can develop your land so long as your immediate neighbours' property is not unreasonably affected
- Sharing half the GST collected on new residential builds so that councils have the means and incentive to let building carry on
- Allowing builders to opt out of council inspections if they have private insurance on new builds, so that new and innovative materials and techniques can be used
- Reversing anti-landlord policies around evictions, the brightline test, and mortgage interest deductibility so that it's more attractive to rent out a house and tenants have more choice
