Bishop leaves public housing homeless
Opposition criticises Kāinga Ora ‘turnaround’ plan
Labour and the Greens have rubbished the government’s turnaround plan for Kāinga Ora, saying it will only make more people homeless.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop revealed Kāinga Ora’s turnaround plan on Tuesday, saying the total number of social houses would not reduce – but the number of homes held by the government’s housing agency would remain stable from 2026 at about 78,000.
Sales and demolitions would be offset by new builds and retrofits, Kāinga Ora’s scope would be reduced, and construction costs would be brought down to equal or less than market rates.
Labour’s housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said the government’s shake-up of the agency would only leave more people living on the street.
“I think Chris Bishop’s full of it … it’s all PR and it’s all about saving money, rather than housing people,” he said.
“We’ve seen a record number of houses built under the previous government, and the best that this lot can come up with is to keeping numbers the same … all the while the need continues to grow, all while the population continues to grow, and at the same point consents across the country for new builds has dropped yet again. It doesn’t add up.”
He said the government was only focused on cutting costs, but Labour had been increasingly hearing from people in need unable to access emergency housing.
“Every day we’re getting examples of people living in tents and living in their cars or living on the street because this government is stopping people coming into emergency housing. Then they’re using those figures to say that the need has reduced … it’s absolute bull, and it doesn’t add up, and it’s going to result in more people living on the street just because they don’t want to spend money.
“That is on the minister, he’s made a choice here.”
He argued Kāinga Ora’s construction costs – which the government had said was 12 percent above market rate – was because of accessibility requirements.
“Seventy percent of the people in Kāinga Ora homes have a disability, so building these homes for these people is not the average residential dwelling that the private sector would build … they have wider doorways, they have special aspects to them that cost money.
“It’s interesting, isn’t it, that when they talk about things like emergency housing … when they talk about building social housing, they talk about the cost – not once did they talk about the people that need these homes.”
This nonsense that Bishop is suggesting as a ‘turnaround’ is based on the report he got Bill English to do over a text message using $500 000 set aside for emergency housing…
Selling off public housing in nice suburbs to pay for shitty housing in poor suburbs isn’t a public housing solution, it’s a joke.
He’s making Public Housing homeless!
Bernard Hickey is scathing…
Govt to sell billions of dollars worth of state housing land
Bishop stripping Kāinga Ora back to being landlord of stagnant stock of 78,000 state homes; Govt to sell around 900 homes per year in leafier areas to fund renewals & eyes sale of bare land blocks
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- Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announced Kāinga Ora would be stripped of its ‘non-core’ activities of developing new land, managing First Home loans and KiwiSaver withdrawals and consenting its own projects;
- Bishop detailed plans to add a net 145 new homes this year before capping the state housing stock at 78,000 for the next 30 years, with renewal and renovations of an already-tired housing stock paid for by land and home sales in leafier suburbs;
- He said around 800 state homes on land in suburbs such as Remuera would be sold to deveopers in the current year, with ongoing sales in the years to come of around 900, with the potential to also sell bare land bought previously for redevelopment;
- The combined proceeds from land sales would amount to billions per year and would allow Kāinga Ora to generate ‘sustained cash surpluses’ from the 2027/28 fiscal year, which would allow borrowing to stop and dividend payments to resume;
- Cabinet decided to cut around 1,000 jobs from Kāinga Ora to save $1.4 billion over four years, including by demolishing surplus homes rather than transporting them to iwi, cutting maintenance spending by $50 million a year and reducing the size and quality of new homes away from the Homestar Six rating; and,
- Stats NZ reported yesterday building consents fell 9.8% to 33,600 in calendar 2024 after the Government suspended Kāinga Ora’s new building work and high interest rates quashed private sector demand, leading to collapses of building firms and the loss of 13,000 jobs in construction last year.
We are witnessing a class war but don’t have the political vocabulary to describe it in a country blinded by its egalitarian pretensions.
Bishop has a track record of saying one thing and then being unable to back it up.
He claimed a renters rights group loved his plan to allow Landlords to throw you out onto the street but then refused to give anyone the name of that organisation.
He claimed he understood the pain of renters because he was a renter, when asked if he was renting from family, he said no, only for it to turn out he was renting it from his in-laws and he didn’t consider them technically ‘family’.
He has this habit of lying to deflect criticism even when the lies can be easily discovered.
By attacking Kianga Ora, he is manufacturing a housing crisis for the benefit of landlords!
National don’t have money for new Public Housing but they do have $3b for landlords!
This is what we are now, this is who we is.
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It is ridiculous that there are state houses worth millions showing a poor return on investment when money is needed to upgrade other homes owned by the state .State houses should be the standard to hold all rentals against .
Yes heaven forbid that poor people get to live anywhere with access to good schools, quiet neighborhoods etc? The way Chris and Nicola are crashing the economy they won’t be worth millions soon so that will solve the problem.
How can it be a poor return on investment when the state would have paid very little for the property many years ago and they are worth millions now? If it was a private investor doing it you would say that they were an excellent investment and borrow against them to get more property. This is just another way for private capital to get prime property on the cheap and reduce the value of public assets.
They expect the poor to live in the ghettos and there are less ghetto areas now because the national party knocked many down and they also sold land a lot of the state housing land and built apartments worth 800k. This is a party bereft of ideas, so they resort to the same old.
It is also ridiculous to subsidise landlords and to have given tax cuts when that money could have been wisely spent elsewhere. Now this CoC is cutting costs to services most in need. That is idiocy.
What do you mean poor return on investment? If you have a family living in a state house that is exact return on investment you are expecting – the goal is acheived – a family housed. Many of these houses, over 90 years old and have housed generations of families an excellent return on the original investment.
And back in the day before so called market rents the state houses were leverage for the government to stop landlords ramping rents, dragging private rents lower, fighting inflation.
And if the land is in Remuera then it’s simply a valueable asset on the govt balance sheet for the government to loan or print against.
And why would the govt ever consider selling. Remember the first rule of Property Investors Federation club “Never Sell Land”.
When English was finance minister he demanded that K O pay the government 100 million a year dividend so he could balance his budget .What the fuck ?why would a government housing provider pay a dividend when they are a social provider not a commercial land lord .Clearly this is what Bishop and Moutter are trying to return to .That 100 million per year for the 8 years English was in charge would have built a shit load of new houses .K O has billions of dollars in assets and I can see no reason why they can not borrow against those assets to ramp up the number of new houses needed .If it was a private company that is exactly what they would be doing .They should be able to borrow at least 40 billion and build a lot of new homes .
While out walking last week in Hamilton I came across a family living in their car in someones front yard .They did not even have a single chair to sit on under the makeshift sun shade they had erected .They had been kicked out of the motel they were living in because the social housing contract had not been renewed .
This is in the electorate of the minister of social housing Potaka another great Christian .
‘It is ridiculous that there are state houses worth millions showing a poor return on investment ‘.
How well you capture the spirit of the times Trevor!
Should you ever go to the New Zealand history website you can read( or perhaps someone could read aloud to you) that the whole idea of state housing was to provide decent housing to people who would not be able to afford houses for themselves and their families.
Returns on investment did not come into it. It was designed to cover costs, not make large profits.
This was, or course, in the days when Aotearoa aspired to be a country where poverty, hunger and deprivation would not exist. Generations of people fought for that ideal.
Of course, once that decent society was established it was flooded by whinging, selfish bastards from overseas who took the advantages offered to them but later denied anything for future generations.
One house in an upmarket suburb or 3 warm dry homes in a different area which would be better for those that need help from the state. In an upmarket area the shps would not stock cheap goods there would be less public transport .In a truly egalitarian society this would not be the case but that is not reality.
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Bishop hasn’t come under enough scrutiny. Being a tobacco lobbyist, he knows his ‘product’ is dangerous but still keep pushing it for the right amount of money. That attitude carries over to everything else he touches.
this is a neo-feudalist agenda to dis-possess society of it’s assets. Inequality and bidding up prices is their grift to hoard wealth. Your wealth. The middle class are the next to fall in this race to a libertarian pay-to-play society.
Stay in your homes.
Do not attempt to contact loved ones, insurance agents or attorneys.
Shut up!
Do not attempt to think or depression may occur.
One house in an upmarket suburb or 3 warm dry homes in a different area which would be better for those that need help from the state. In an upmarket area the shps would not stock cheap goods there would be less public transport .In a truly egalitarian society this would not be the case but that is not reality.
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Yes Trevor, but why not go to a more market driven solution, just feed the homeless to the hungry? Two problems solved.