Rightly or wrongly, Britain and its former Antipodean colonies are obsessed with property – it’s imperative that you get that critical first step on the housing ladder.

Given this level of obsession, it’s easy to see why housing has become a political football in all three countries, with politicians regularly trotting out new policies to help people buy a first home.

In Britain, for example, the Cameron government recently announced an equity loan scheme and mortgage guarantee programme. Both are meant to help people catch up with the rampant UK housing market, which has been characterised by skyrocketing prices for nigh on two decades.

The problem with the plan is that it panders to voters but does nothing to address the underlying problem that’s locked ordinary people out of the housing market – a lack of supply that is also evident in New Zealand and Australia.

In fact, economists have argued the scheme will make the situation in the UK worse by increasing the number of buyers chasing after a fixed number of houses, pushing prices even higher.

The Daily Telegraph’s Kamal Ahmed dubbed this plan ‘home ownership Viagra’, and New Zealand isn’t immune to this sort of policy bribery either.

Earlier this month the National Party promised to lift house price caps and income limits on KiwiSaver, as well as increasing the government subsidy to help would-be homeowners to get a start on the property ladder.

The timing was interesting, particularly as the Reserve Bank (RBNZ) spent much of the past year warning lenders it was going to be use macro-prudential controls to take some of the heat out of the housing market. The RBNZ recently made good on this warning with the introduction of tighter equity requirements on home loans.

But both policies have ignored the fundamental cause of the problem: a lack of new home construction.

Admittedly, the government is taking strides to free up land for development, but the odds are still woefully stacked against building. For example, our first housing report  shows the average developer in Auckland is staring at $85,000 in infrastructure costs before they’ve even begun to build.

What New Zealand needs, and indeed what we’ll be recommending in the next few months, is a comprehensive package of reforms aimed at freeing up land and removing the development bias for a start, not a band aid that does nothing to treat the festering wound it covers.