Andrew Little is proposing the party drop its capital gains tax policy. He said it had cost the party votes at the recent election.

“We have put a capital gains tax out two elections in a row and people don’t see it as us fixing a problem,” he told TV3’s The Nation.

He said fixing housing affordability came down to two parts – the supply side, which Labour would tackle with its Kiwibuild policy, and the demand side.

He said the Reserve Bank’s loan-to-value restrictions were failing first-home buyers.

“There is the issue of how to deal with property speculators, people who are in and out of houses and clearly doing it as a business, clearly doing it to raise income but are inflating house prices. There’s talk of do you have special conditions, special interest rates for after you’ve bought your first house. There’s a range of things we can look at.”

He said if housing was to become more affordable the Government would have to improve supply and take measures to dampen house prices.

“Far too many people can’t get into their own homes.”

A tax on wealth was another option, he said. “Let’s look at property speculators. Not the mums and dads who do all the extra overtime, get a bit of money aside and buy themselves an investment property that they use for their retirement. Let’s look at the people who are buying 8. 109 ,12 houses. Let’s look at the people who are buying houses one day, 18 months later selling them again.”