Govt breaks Auckland housing promise – Labour

Nicola Willis promised during the election campaign National would build 1000 additional public homes in Auckland each year.

Chris Bishop has now admitted this isn’t going to happen and instead Auckland will go backwards with a net loss of 285 Kāinga Ora homes in 2026.

“The Government has broken a long list of promises it made to kiwis on housing and proved it was all talk from the get-go,” Labour’s housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said.

“This is the first time in over seven years that the number of Kāinga Ora public houses in Auckland will reduce.

“On top of this, Associate Housing Minister, Tama Potaka promised to build more social houses than the previous Government.

“What have we actually seen? Hundreds of cancelled projects, more than four thousand planned homes at risk of not being built and zero funding for Kāinga Ora to build any more.

“While these broken promises are alarming, they’re not surprising given the last National Government ended up with 1500 fewer public homes than it started with and sucked $576 million out in dividends from Housing New Zealand.

“The one promise National’s been able to keep is reducing numbers in emergency housing, but that’s only because they’re letting fewer people in – so again it’s all talk.

“We need a government focused on housing people. Not recklessly cutting costs and leaving people sleeping in cars and on the street,” Kieran McAnulty said.