“Christopher Bishop has slashed public housing so badly that Kāinga Ora will end this year with 177 fewer state houses than when he took office,” Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said.
“Today, Associate Minister Tama Potaka falsely claimed they had built 7,000 homes. The truth is they have only funded 2,050 – and Chris Bishop himself has admitted only 45 have been built with funding from National.
“National claims to be good with numbers but they cannot even count houses properly. Imagine being such a terrible Minister for Housing that you end up down 177 Kāinga Ora owned homes, and mistake 45 for 7,000.
“This is classic National. While people are in desperate need of housing, they have cut $1.5 billion from the housing budget instead of investing in building homes. It shows just how out of touch they are.
“After a period of Labour adding thousands of new homes to the state housing stock, providing safe places for people to live and steady work for the construction industry, National seems more concerned with filling the holes in Nicola Willis’ budget than housing the many people in need,” Kieran McAnulty said.