Today at a campaign event in Wellington, Labour housing spokeswoman Megan Woods promised 6000 additional public and transitional housing sites if Labour is elected.
Labour housing spokeswoman Megan Woods has promised 6000 additional public and transitional housing places if Labour is elected.
The promise was made at a campaign event in Wellington where Labour Leader Chris Hipkins warned National would wind back progress on state house construction.
The policy was costed at $6.2 billion in new capital spending and $765 million in new operating spending (over the next four years). The new money begins in the 2025/26 year and stretches out to 2027/28. It would bring the total additional public and transitional places delivered under Labour to 27,000. The places will be a mixture of newly-built homes and homes purchased from the existing stock of houses and turned into public housing.
“Labour is the only major party with a deliverable plan that will help ensure every New Zealander has access to a warm, dry, and affordable home,” Woods said.
“In just six years we’ve delivered over 13,000 public homes, the most of any Government since the 1950s. We’ve also added over 4000 transitional homes. We are on track to deliver 21,000 public and transitional homes by 2025 and there is more to come. If re-elected, we’ll deliver another 6000 public homes by 2027,” Woods said.
At the beginning of this year there had been 14,050 homes funded to June 2024. Labour topped this up by funding an additional 3000 to June 2025 in the most recent budget.
The 6000 announced today were on top of that. Woods said the promise would boost the number of homes in the regions. The party said it would “direct officials to deepen our partnership” with Community Housing Providers to help deliver more homes.
A fact sheet, released with the announcement reminded voters that during the financial crisis “National wound down the state house construction pipeline, knee-capping construction activity during a crucial time in the boom-and-bust cycle.
“This state house sell-off meant that they left office with 1500 fewer state houses than they began with,” the sheet said.
The party blamed National for the public housing waitlist which has ballooned under Labour, saying that if National had built rather than sold homes the waitlist would be much smaller.
“If National had built public housing at the same rate we are, there would be over 21,000 new public homes, accounting for over 85 percent of those on the current waitlist. They depleted our housing stock while sucking $576 million in dividends from Housing New Zealand. This election, National has not committed to any more funded public housing places beyond June 2025,” the sheet said.
Woods said National wanted to “turn off the public housing tap yet again, with no further commitment for public housing beyond 2025. It’s yet another example of how National cuts investment in public assets like housing, hospitals and schools”.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins at an earlier housing announcement. Photo / Alex Cairns
“And worse, National will wind New Zealand backwards with their tried and failed housing settings which only made the housing crisis worse.
“After rebuilding a decimated public housing sector, and working closely with Community Housing Providers, Labour is delivering more public homes per year since the Nash Government of the 1950s,” she said.
Labour promised to make 25% of all new public homes accessible with “universal design”, upping its existing promise to make 15 per cent of new homes accessible.
Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
