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Labor has been caught quietly selling up to 105 state houses to tenants despite spending time during the election campaign defeating a national policy to do the same.
On October 5, National Leader Judith Collins unveiled a plan to allow state housing tenants to buy their own properties.
Moments after the policy was released, Labor leader Jacinda Ardern chimed in, saying that “to suggest in response to New Zealand’s housing problems that we should sell the state houses, I think is absolutely wrong.”
Housing spokeswoman Megan Woods was also staunchly critical.
“The commitments to sell state houses, remove restrictions on real estate speculation and reverse protections for tenants show what is at stake in this election,” Woods said.
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But despite criticism, the Labor Party has quietly sold up to 105 state houses to tenants since taking office.
The liquidations were made under a little-known policy launched by the John Key government in 2009.
Then-Housing Minister Phil Heatley said it would allow tenants of state housing to climb the property ladder.
“Many families in state houses aspire to homeownership. This policy provides a path from state housing to home ownership, as tenant circumstances improve, ”said Heatley.
The number of state-owned homes sold has declined under Labor, but the annual number of homes sold to renters is just slightly below what National used to sell, between 49-20 a year. For the current year (2020-21) 8 have been sold.
The issue is politically evocative for the left. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave public housing tenants the right to buy their houses. Tenants were grateful, but the sale left the state without much-needed public housing.
It’s no secret that the current Labor government has sold some state-owned homes since taking office, with $ 30 million worth of shares sold. These houses were sold because they were no longer fit for purpose and the money raised was spent on more homes.
And the party has an impressive record when it comes to state housing construction. The latest statistics show it has built 3,558 state-owned homes and another 603 homes through community housing providers since June 2018.
But until now, Labor had not talked about continuing a policy to allow the House of Representatives to buy its own houses, the policy that National proposed in the election.
Housing Minister Megan Woods said Things that tenant acquisitions were rare.
“The renter’s homeownership option is infrequently used and has had a much lower trend under the Labor-led government.
Tom Kitchin / RNZ
Jacinda Ardern criticized a national plan to sell state houses to tenants even though Labor did the same.
“It has not come to a complete stop, as there are circumstances where selling a house to an existing and established tenant makes sense for the tenant and for Kāinga Ora,” Woods said.
She said this was different than what National had done previously.
“This is completely different from National’s public housing wholesale policy that resulted in the sale of thousands of homes.
“Labor remains committed to building the public housing stock, not demolishing it. One of the first things we did in government was to stop the wholesaling of public housing, and we have already built and acquired more than 4,000 more housing places, and we are on track to deliver 18,350 public housing places by 2024 ”, Woods said.
“We also don’t see the sale of state homes as a way to increase the supply of affordable housing, like National does,” he said.
This is true for the previous National Government, although the policy of National 2020 was to continue building state housing.
Woods said that the Kāinga Ora houses would not be sold to tenants if, for example, the houses were rented, strategically useful in the future, or if they were subject to the right of first refusal under the Iwi liquidation deed.
Kāinga Ora could also refuse to sell a house if it were part of a multi-unit development.
