I’ve been a pretty vocal critic of aspects of the National government’s home insulation programme, but I’m willing to give credit where it is due. The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) have announced a new scheme that lets people spread their share of home insulation costs over 9 years as part of their rates. If the home owner sells up, the next owner picks up the extra rates bill. This is a good idea.
Under the government’s current deal, someone can get up to a third of the cost of home insulation paid for through a subsidy but they have to stump up the other two thirds (those on lower incomes can get up to 60% subsidy). If the GWRC scheme helps people to cover their part of the cost then that’s good.
I think there are huge benefits in having kiwi homes properly insulated. My critiscism of the Nats scheme isn’t because I think the goal is a bad one. I’m concerned they’ve cut too many corners and are jeopardising quality and fairness. There is more capacity in the market to insulate more homes, but because of the way the government have set up the existing scheme people are missing out unnecessarily, are getting a sub-standard job, or they’re missing out on the full value of the subsidy. If they fix those problems up, then the scheme would be well worth backing.
