The Government’s state house developer Kāinga Ora has removed more homes from its stock in the past six months than it built, National’s Housing spokesperson Nicola Willis says.

According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development’s Government Housing Dashboard, between July and December last year, Kāinga Ora built 406 new public homes, but removed 411 through things like demolitions and sales, having a net effect of removing five homes from the public housing stock.

“These numbers are shameful and yet another example of the Government’s failure to deliver on its housing promises,” Ms Willis says.

“This failure couldn’t come at a worse time. The state house waiting list has more than quadrupled since Labour came to office, and taxpayers are now forking out $1.2 million a day for emergency housing for families with nowhere to live.

“It’s one thing to call in the bulldozers, but if you don’t have a builder ready to go, what’s the point?

“Kāinga Ora has enormous resources, with thousands of staff and permission to borrow more than $8 billion. Yet private developers tell me that Kāinga Ora is slow and inefficient, and spends more time shuffling paper and ticking boxes than it does putting hammer to nail.

“The Housing Minister needs to shift resources out of the bureaucracy and into the community by backing community housing providers who are rearing to build more homes but are starved of the resources they need.

“This Government’s one-size-fits-all, state-led approach to social housing is failing and fresh thinking is required.

“National would get more social housing built faster by providing direct funding to proven community housing providers. Our focus would be on delivery, not government bureaucracy.”

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