It’s time for him to step down, says National
National’s Housing spokesperson Judith Collins is calling for the Minister of Housing and Urban Development to resign, saying that it is time for him to step down over his inability to deliver on the government’s flagship housing policy.
“Phil Twyford’s statement that he would ‘neither confirm nor deny’ whether the government is still committed to building 100,000 KiwiBuild homes in 10 years confirms that it is not,” Collins noted. “If it was, the Minister would say so rather than telling New Zealanders to wait for the results of KiwiBuild’s ‘reset.’
“The Prime Minister also failed to show leadership and commit to the target when questioned by National, which shows her government has broken yet another election pledge just 18 months into its term,” she stated.
Read more: Government admits KiwiBuild will not hit its target
In January, the government admitted its flagship KiwiBuild programme had fallen well short of its goal of 1,000 houses by July 2019. To date, Collins said only 80 homes have been completed and only a third of them have been sold.
“Phil Twyford has publicly staked his job on delivering 100,000 houses in a decade,” Collins added. “Now that KiwiBuild is heading the way of Labour’s capital gains tax it’s time for him to honour that commitment and offer his resignation, for the sake of his and the Prime Minister’s credibility.”
As previously reported, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) had also called for new KiwiBuild targets to be established after the initial target was scrapped in January. REINZ chief executive Bindi Norwell said the government needs to come up with new, more realistic targets to aim for.
