When Labour were in opposition they made a huge fuss over housing. We saw endless stories in the media about homeless people, people waiting years on state housing waitlists and apparently an appalling shortage of state houses. They also shamelessly used the phrase “nine long years of neglect” to describe National’s approach to housing.
But what is Labour’s record after just three years in power?
The waitlist for a state or social home grew by more than a thousand in September, to 21,415 households.
This new record high for the end of September continues years of surging growth on the waitlist – the figure is up about 7000 households on a year ago, and is about four times higher than it was when the Labour-led Government was elected in 2017.
Stuff
That’s right, a 266% increase in the size of the waitlist.
The rot started right from the get go: in Labour’s first year it grew by 63%. In their second year by 47% and last year by 53%. In raw terms it increased by 15,571.
In National’s last term the waiting list grew by 1,655 (around 10% of the growth under Labour) or in percentage terms by 39% compared to 266% under Labour.
It stands to reason that if this were appalling under National, then they must be absolutely dreadful now. If people were living in cars under National then surely they are now also living in cars or building shanty towns.
Yet strangely, the media are largely silent on this appalling failure of the Government. They certainly aren’t out there looking for homeless people to pimp to get the ever-diminishing eyes on their lying sites. If they aren’t directly lying to cover for the Government then they are definitely lying by omission to cover for the abject failure of the Government in housing.
Labour made a huge song and dance over housing. They should be having their feet held to the fire over their lack of performance.
Clearly the vast swathes of people in need voted for more of the same, so expect Labour’s record on housing to get even worse.
At some point, voters are going to start looking for some policy delivery but in the meantime, they will be like the little girl in the aid adverts from the 90s, still waiting.
Labour promised us 100,000 Kiwibuild houses…a little girl waits.
Labour promised reduced state housing waiting lists…a little girl waits.
Labour promised affordable homes…a little girl waits.
