The number of families who need homes continue to grow at an alarming rate as public housing figures soar from 5844 in 2017 to 17982 as at May this year, National’s Housing spokesperson Nicola Willis says.

“The waiting-list for a state house has tripled since Labour took office. This is an indictment on the Government and proves its complete failure to deliver on housing.

“More people are on state-housing waiting lists because Labour has failed to ensure New Zealand has the supply of new houses needed to keep up with growing demand.

“With 200,000 people unemployed and no plan for the economy, this waiting list just continues to grow.

“Labour’s failure has left more and more Kiwis and their families waiting for a home, with people in some regions waiting more than 500 days for a state home.

“Labour’s policy for increasing housing supply was KiwiBuild. It has utterly failed. 10,000 KiwiBuild houses were promised this term, only 395 have been built.

“Labour has missed opportunities to partner with community housing providers to accelerate the development of new houses.

“Fundamentally, Labour has prioritised Government-led house building instead of resolving the underlying constraints. The Resource Management Act (RMA) remains a major handbrake on new housing development, increasing cost and delay.

“National will keep building state houses while also increasing housing supply by repealing and replacing the RMA, making it easier for developers to bring new housing to market and working with community housing providers to increase the number of new houses.”

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