Judith Collins - Housing and Urban Development

23 January 2019

Housing Minister Phil Twyford’s outstanding admission today his policy of building 1000 KiwiBuild houses by July this is year is just ‘a target’, and further he can’t guarantee he will hit that target shows just how muddled this Government is, National’s Housing spokesperson Judith Collins says.

“This morning Mr Twyford finally admitted what New Zealanders can already see, he will be unable to reach his target of building 1000 KiwiBuild homes by July this year. The Minister is abandoning a target he has widely publicised and campaigned on at the election, letting down thousands of Kiwis.

“Late last year Mr Twyford confirmed he only had 278 houses contracted and scheduled for completion by July 2019, a figure that falls vastly short of his now arbitrary target.

“If he can’t organise the delivery of 1000 houses a year, why on earth would we believe the Minister when he says he’s planning on building 10,000 houses a year.

“The Minister went even further to admit that should KiwiBuild deliver more houses, not all of them will sell. If not all of his houses are going to sell, wouldn’t the Minister reassess why this is the case and make changes?

“What is the point in delivering houses for first home buyers, if first home buyers don’t want them? The Minister has claimed the market isn’t delivering for first home buyers, but neither is he.

“The failure of one of the Government’s key election policies is unsurprising given the Minister has consistently shown he isn’t detail oriented. Mr Twyford has changed almost every aspect of KiwiBuild since his election promise, and it hasn’t turned around this shambolic scheme.

“The Minister should instead be looking at reforming the Resource Management Act. Planning and consenting for land use is key to delivering affordable housing and at the moment it takes too long to free up land. New Zealand needs a bold solution to a law that’s proven to be a planning nightmare, not the half-baked policy that KiwiBuild is.

“Mr Tywford is in denial. KiwiBuild isn’t experiencing teething issues, it’s experiencing systemic issues because it has a Minister that is blinded by a target, who isn’t looking seriously at his policy and the wider issues surrounding New Zealand’s housing woes.”

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