Houses on cemeteries 'nonsense', says Nick Smith

Housing Minister Nick Smith has defended his plans to free up crown land in Auckland to build new homes despite claims people could end up living on top of cemeteries, school playing fields and on pylons.

The minister told Radio New Zealand this morning he believed the Labour party was actually in support of the Government's decision to free up land.

"This is pretty desperate from Labour. I think in their heart of hearts they support the governments decision to free up surplus crown land in Auckland," he said.

"I made plain last week there was a large amount of work to be done on checking that the land could economically be viably converted into housing. I have committed to a programme on Friday of announcing the first blocks of land and I intend to keep to that."

Mr Smith said the Labour's claim people would essentially be living on top of cemeteries were "nonsense".

"The truth is that the Government owns about 150,000 hectares of land in Auckland, we are talking about identifying 500 hectares which is less than half of 1 per cent," he said.

"It is true that Government officials have been sifting through large areas of land. The areas that Mr Twyford has identified are not on any of the lists that have been provided to me by officials but we are systematically working through those different parcels of land and will be announcing the first batch of those on Friday to developers."

Mr Smith said announcing the list now would only create uncertainly.