“Credit is not the problem, and I doubt that Labour is framing it in
those terms. 5-10 years ago credit was flowing like water and there was
still no interest in channelling it towards affordable houses.”

Very true.

“I would imagine Labour is taking one of the angles of the Productivity
Commission, i.e. that land is so expensive that people are obliged to
build large, expensive houses to get their money’s worth.”

Yar, the argument seems a bit weird to me as well – didn’t realise that the capital component of housing was a giffen good 😉

I suspect that people aren’t sure why such large houses are being built, but still want to do something. But without deaingl with the cost of subdivision 😛

All very true. Especially the last sentence.

Start with sound science. Then think about the rhetorical packaging. Never fudge the science for better rhetoric. But never give the science without thinking about the rhetoric.

And read McClosky.

Dirty old politicians.

So if policy is like marketing, do economists need better narrative tools to help inform policy, or are our tools sufficient as narrative devices and the issue is about how we utilise them.

I’m not saying there’s a good reason. I’m saying Labour could say “for good reason”, nodding and stroking chin as though the reasons were obvious, then going on. When I say “could have spun a better story”, I meant a political argument, not a truth argument.

What’s the good reason? And if regulations prevent the properties from going up in certain areas for a good reason, and then the government builds them there, how is that an allocative improvement 😛

Sure, but Labour could have spun a better story around a second-best constraint – regs there for good reason, blah blah, unfortunate consequence is lack of low-income housing, so address that directly.

The second best argument occurred to me – but then I thought it was strange to not deal with policy failure directly.

My post wasn’t intended to say it was a binding constraint per se, but to ask if this was the justification and if there was evidence for it. If I am going to judge the policy, I’d just like to see the evidence for those three points first.