National backtracks on state houses

National’s new housing spokesperson has admitted the party was wrong to sell and convert more state houses than it built when it was last in office.

Nicola Willis, who took the housing portfolio in a recent reshuffle, told RNZ the net reduction in state houses under the previous National Government showed that Governments needed to continue increasing the number of state houses.

Willis said National sold or converted ‘‘a couple of thousand’’ state homes.

‘‘I think what we can see from that is yes, the Government needs to build state houses,’’ she said.

Willis accepted there was a net loss of state houses under National.

She said about a thousand of the houses that were sold were moved out of government hands and into community ownership, which she believed was the right thing to do.

The current Government had continued to use community housing providers.

Willis was speaking on the news that the number of households waiting for state housing had hit a new high.

Of the 17,982 households waiting, more than 16,000 were ‘‘Priority A’’.

The wait list has ballooned in recent years, trebling from 5844 households when the current Government was elected in September 2017.

The current Government had boosted the construction of state houses. The latest housing dashboard showed that 2813 state homes had been built since June 2018 and a further 2596 were under construction.

Willis said National acknowledged government building was part of the solution to the housing crisis, but it had to be supplemented further by reform of the Resource Management Act and rental regulations, which were discouraging investment.

She said that National’s record on housing would have been better if it had been allowed to stay in power for longer.

‘‘There were houses that we took down, and we took down one and replaced it with three that were insulated.

‘‘We would have continued to increase the number of state houses, that was all under development.

‘‘We were on a pathway to increase New Zealand’s state housing stock, and we can debate whether we were too late coming to that; I’m here for the future,’’ Willis said.