Time to pull the plug on state house sell-off

new-zealand-labour-party

Tue Nov 22 2016 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

Time to pull the plug on state house sell-off

Tuesday, 22 November 2016, 5:07 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party

Phil Twyford
MP for Te Atatū
Housing Spokesperson
MEDIA STATEMENT

22 November 2016

Time to pull the plug on state house sell-off

The collapse of the planned sell-off of state houses in Horowhenua is an opportunity for the Government to call time on its troubled state house sell off policy, says Labour’s housing spokesperson Phil Twyford.

The Government announced today it would cancel its plan to package for sale 249 Housing NZ properties with 115 Council pensioner units in Foxton, Levin and Shannon.

This is the second sale of state houses to fall through, after the Government withdrew 348 Invercargill state houses from sale because it couldn’t find a buyer.

“It is untenable for National to be flogging off hundreds of state houses when the country is in the grip of a housing crisis and communities are struggling to cope with rising homelessness.

“The Government should run up the white flag. It is time to admit the state house sell off has been a costly and bureaucratic failure. It should move on, and focus on building more state houses to ease the acute shortage of affordable rentals.

“Instead of selling off state houses, Labour will run Housing NZ as a public service with one job: to house Kiwi families in need. We won’t milk Housing NZ for profits, as National has done; we will build thousands of new state and community houses,” says Phil Twyford.

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