The great KiwiBuild re…

So far we have heard that there will be a:

• KiwiBuild re set – Phil Twyford (Hansard)
• KiwiBuild re calibration – Phil Twyford (Interest.co.nz)
• KiwiBuild re consideration – Winston Peters (Hansard)
• KiwiBuild re construction – Winston Peters (Hansard)
• KiwiBuild re luctance to verify numbers – Jacinda Ardern (Hansard)
• KiwiBuild re view – Phil Twyford (TVNZ)
• KiwiBuild re signation – Phil Twyford (requested by J Collins) Quote.

[…] Ever since this Government started the year with the cold, hard truth that the promise of 1000 houses in year one was a fantasy, and they’d be lucky to crack 100, that was the moment this house of cards collapsed. That was the moment that Phil Twyford, the minister in charge, should have handed in his resignation based on incompetency alone.

Further, Twyford had known about it since December last year but wanted the summer to ponder. Pondering doesn’t build houses anymore than hot air does, he’s clearly good at both.

They talked of a re-calibration. The Prime Minister, in yet another one of her outstanding displays of naivety, post the capitulation, chose to continue to insist they were going to build 100,000 houses in 10 years.

She must now regret that, given it wasn’t true then, and isn’t true now. […]

How they extract themselves from this, when they finally get around to doing it officially, will be a show worth watching. Do they even have the gonads to attempt a new number?

I said earlier this year you will never see another figure associated with KiwiBuild, targets will be gone, and they wouldn’t dare ever put numbers next to promises around housing ever again.

I still hold that view. How could you not? This was the Government’s biggest of big ticket items. This was the solution to the so-called “housing crisis”. This was getting those “locked out of the market” into ‘affordable’ homes.

None of it was ever real, or realistic. None of it was based on sound economics, or any understanding of the housing market. This was “group thinking” from a bunch of university based wonks, hand wringers and idealists of the highest order who by happenstance ended up in government. […]

Mike Hosking – A Newspaper