Labour has beaten its own record with 27,234 people now on the state housing waitlist according to the latest monthly data release, National’s Housing spokesperson Chris Bishop says.

“Over 20,000 more Kiwis are on the state house waiting list compared with October 2017 when National left office.

“Labour said they would fix this problem, but the waitlist numbers have quintupled since they came to office and continue to climb. Vulnerable New Zealanders are now bearing the brunt of Labour's misguided housing policies, which they are utterly incapable of delivering.

“Labour claimed KiwiBuild was the answer to New Zealand’s housing problems, but just 1365 KiwiBuild homes have been delivered in nearly four years. It is hard to think of a more significant public policy failure in recent New Zealand history.

“Rents are up $150-per-week under Labour, yet they are slugging landlords with even more costs by removing the ability to deduct interest as an expense. Officials warned them this would push up rental prices and add to the number of Kiwis in need of state and emergency housing, but they went ahead regardless. Now we are seeing the disastrous results.

“Labour has utterly failed to deliver on housing, with every metric being worse since they took office: house prices, rents, the state housing waitlist, and the number of people and children in emergency housing.”

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