Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Kieran McAnulty: Labour's housing spokesperson on the Government's new Kainga Ora plan

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Kieran McAnulty: Labour's housing spokesperson on the Government's new Kainga Ora plan · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Kayger Order has come up with a new plan to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: help save the agency. The turnaround plan will refocus on
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: getting back to basics. They will still build and manage
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: social housing by selling nine hundred homes a year that
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: are no longer fit for purpose and renewing older homes
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that needs And they say the number of state homes
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: will not change, but then again, nor will they increase.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And under the plan, debt is forecast to be one
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: point eight billion dollars lower in twenty seven to twenty
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: eight compared to the twenty twenty three forecasts of a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. So Labor Housing spokesperson Kieren mcinnaughty
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: is with it now? Hallikieren? Oh, sorry I double clicked Hallakieren.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: So the government and the chairman and the CEO says
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: that the refocus is necessary because the agency is in
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: financial strife. Do you agree and do you agree that
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: something had to change?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: No? I don't agree, And I'm quite perplexed that the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Minister will stand up and celebrate this as when the
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: need for social houses continue to grow, the housing crisis
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: committees to get worse, and his solution seems to be
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: not building houses but yes.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The chairman and the CEO also said there was financial
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: strife and you can't build houses if you don't have money.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Well, actually the same bloke said in front of the
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Select Committee of Parliament that any organization with their level
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: of assets would be quite comfortable with the ratio of
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: debt that they hold. The chairmen and the CEO are
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: doing what the government ask that's what they do. The
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Minister has made it quite clear heading into government that
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: they believe that there is no role for the government
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: to build state houses. The problem with that position, of course,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: is that if the government is it involved in building
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: state houses, they don't get built and people don't get homes.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: True, but the chairman also said the king Aura had
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: significant growth over the past five years. That's under your watch.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: You delivered thirteen thousand homes. You refurbished three four hundred
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of them. But that growth was unsustainable. So it's time
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: for a cup of tea.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: There was always changes under way at cling Oral. Let's
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: not forget it was a brand new organization when the
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Labor government came in in twenty seventeen. The New Zealand
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Housing Corporation existed solely to sell state houses. Previous government
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: ended up with fifteen hundred fewer than what they started with.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And then you're right, we built pretty much fourteen thousand homes.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: That is a massive amount of growth, and there was
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: always efficiencies happening along the way. But because that was
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: happening at such a fast pace, there's no excuse to
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: turn around and make a case that is unsustainable. If
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: you remember when the Prime Minister and the Minister stood
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: up and made this case at the podium in Parliament,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: they talked about the death. They didn't once talk about
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the value of the assets in the way that that
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: has grown, which has actually grown at a faster rate
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: than the debt. There's forty seven billion dollars worth of
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: assets under kying Aura's books. They don't talk about that
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: because we knew. Compare the assets to the debt, it's
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: a completely different story.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: So if you were still in charge, you would be
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: facing the same books. You've already said that the pace
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of building that happened under your charge previously was extraordinarily fast.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Would you have continued that fast pace and continued to
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: throw the agency into even more debt crisis.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Well, we've got to be careful with their wording here,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I've just explained to you that there was no debt crisis.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: There is a large amount of debt, but there's also
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: considerable amount of assets. This is a jack up in
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: my view. The report that established this case was flawed,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: that contained factual errors, and it just coincidentally landed with
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the same recommendations. Then was exactly where the previous National
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: government were. This was always going to happen. What I'm
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: concerned about is that they have walked away from building
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: houses to those people that need them. So let's compere
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: what was happening when there was up to five thousand
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: homes being built a year and now there's going to
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: be no growth. So you extrapolate this over the years,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: how many people are going to miss out on a home.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: We've already seen homelessness grow. We've seen stories of people
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: living in cars and garages and tents and on the street.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: It's only going to get worse. It's the exact same
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: situation that this country was left in the last time
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the National Party were in government.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Kieren Mechanltie, thank you for your time. For more fam
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Earlily edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Listen live to News Talks.
• 4:42
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• 4:45
  Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.