Comment on reshuffle from Phil Twyford
7 June 2019
Efforts to tackle the national housing
crisis are bigger than one person. I’m pleased to be part
of a team working to ensure all New Zealanders have a warm,
dry and safe home, whether it is one they rent or own.
I serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister and it’s an honour to be in her Cabinet. Our Government remains committed to addressing the national housing crisis and I will still have a part to play in that in my role as Urban Development Minister.
I’m proud of what we have achieved in housing to date. It’s been a huge job to turn around years of neglect but we are starting to see positive results. We have:
Stopped the sell-off of state
houses
Ended flawed meth evictions
Banned letting
fees
Introduced Health Homes standards
Begun to
modernise outdated rental laws
Changed tax settings to
discourage speculators
Banned offshore speculators from
buying existing houses
Built 1400 new state houses and
ramped up Housing NZ’s build programme nine fold
Put
more than 2300 families into public housing
Built more
than 202 KiwiBuild homes with around a further 430 under
construction and more than 10,000 contracted and
committed
Restored Housing NZ as a compassionate,
world-class public housing landlord focused on the wellbeing
of its tenants
Established a $1.5 billion investment in
rejuvenating Porirua East, one of New Zealand’s most
deprived areas
Negotiated the purchase of the Mt Albert
Unitec campus for housing
Secured ongoing substantial
investment in tackling homelessness through the
internationally-acclaimed Housing First programme
I’m as frustrated as anyone else that we have not been able to deliver as many KiwiBuild houses as we had hoped. I’ve put my all into it. But I look forward to continuing to help Megan Woods and the other housing Ministers, by focusing on the legislative and regulatory tools we need to facilitate affordable house building.
I’m also excited about cracking on with modernising our transport sector and getting my teeth into the Economic Development portfolio.
ends