Phil Twyford MP for Te
Atatū Housing Spokesperson MEDIA STATEMENT
22 November 2016
Time
to pull the plug on state house sell-off
The
collapse of the planned sell-off of state houses in
Horowhenua is an opportunity for the Government to call time
on its troubled state house sell off policy, says Labour’s
housing spokesperson Phil Twyford.
The Government
announced today it would cancel its plan to package for sale
249 Housing NZ properties with 115 Council pensioner units
in Foxton, Levin and Shannon.
This is the second sale of
state houses to fall through, after the Government withdrew
348 Invercargill state houses from sale because it
couldn’t find a buyer.
“It is untenable for National
to be flogging off hundreds of state houses when the country
is in the grip of a housing crisis and communities are
struggling to cope with rising homelessness.
“The
Government should run up the white flag. It is time to admit
the state house sell off has been a costly and bureaucratic
failure. It should move on, and focus on building more state
houses to ease the acute shortage of affordable
rentals.
“Instead of selling off state houses, Labour
will run Housing NZ as a public service with one job: to
house Kiwi families in need. We won’t milk Housing NZ for
profits, as National has done; we will build thousands of
new state and community houses,” says Phil
Twyford.
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