New Housing Ministry on the cheap

At mediation, the two settled the sexual harassment claim and a financial dispute, and signed a confidentiality agreement.

MacGregor subsequently complained to the Human Rights Review Tribunal that Craig had breached the confidentiality agreement by doing media interviews and holding two press conferences.

The tribunal found in her favour and ordered Craig to pay MacGregor $128,000.

Craig denies he sexually harassed MacGregor.

In 2016, Craig went to court defending himself after it was alleged he had defamed Jordan Williams.

The court ruled in Williams’ favour, with the jury deciding he should pay $1.3 million in damages.

That amount was later appealed and is currently before the Supreme Court. The all-new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development has opened – with no fixed address, no permanent boss, and a bill much smaller than what Treasury advised was reasonable.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford announced the new ministry, known as MHUD or HUD, in June and it launched yesterday.

MHUD is intended to take in most of the housing functions performed by teams within Treasury, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment – with its funding coming from those ministries.

Twyford said in June the ministry would cost about $8m in its first year, with all of that cash coming from the other ministries. Yesterday, he said that initial $8m amount had stayed the same, along with $6m of infrastructure costs – but this funding too would come from other ministries’ existing funding. But Treasury advice to Twyford in July warned much more money would likely be needed – another $30m of operating expenditure over the first four years of its operation, and a one-off boost of $6m from next year’s Budget.

In the paper released to Stuff under the Official Information Act, Treasury officials advised that costs could not be simply transferred between agencies. ‘‘The corporate costs of the pre-existing agency will not reduce proportionately to the reduction in their staff numbers.’’

Land Information chief executive Andrew Crisp is the acting chief executive of MHUD but a permanent appointment process has begun.

MHUD will take in the KiwiBuild unit, responsibility for purchasing public housing, homelessness response, and most other housing policy-making.